Mindfulness Meditation at the Rubin Museum with Kate Johnson

The theme for this meditation is Love. It is inspired by an artwork from the Rubin’s collection and it will include an opening talk and a 20-min session.

Transcript

Welcome to the mindfulness meditation podcast. I'm your host, Dawn Eshelman. Every Wednesday at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea, We present a meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area. This podcast is a recording of our weekly practice. If you would like to join us in person, Please visit our website at rubinmuseum. Org slash meditation. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and teachers from the Interdependence Project. The series is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation. In the description for each episode, You will find information about the theme for that week's session, Including an image of a related artwork chosen from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection. And now, Please enjoy your practice. Good afternoon, Everyone. Hi. I hope you all survived that little heat wave we had. Some very hot weather there and some sweet relief, The rain this morning. But speaking of hot, Have you seen this artwork we're looking at today? It's a pretty incredible expression of passion. We are looking at a male and female deity in an embrace. And this particular deity, The male, Is named Guhyasamaja Akshobha Vajra. Try saying that three times fast. And the female may or may not be Vajra Yogini. This is from Tibet, 15th century metalwork. And of course, You know, It's quite, Quite on the surface, Quite powerful and striking image to come across in a gallery. And really incredible when you dive a little bit deeper into the symbolism of what this represents through a Buddhist lens. So this is really a depiction of compassion and wisdom in union. And it is those two elements, Compassion, Which is represented typically by the male in the figure and wisdom typically represented by the female coming together that represents what circumstances, What qualities support enlightenment. And so we're seeing an expression not only of love, Of passion, But of this spark and kind of passion that really is all about enlightenment. This greater love, This love of all beings. And we're talking about love this month. Lucky us. So shout out to Gay Pride out there and really excited to think about love in through lots of different lenses through the artwork here. We talked last week about love of the self, Another and of the whole world. And we'll probably continue to do that throughout the month. I just want to thank our partners as always Sharon Salzberg, The Interdependence Project and the Hemera Foundation. And so pleased that Kate Johnson is back with us from the Interdependence Project. She's teaching our session today. She teaches mindful yoga in New York City public schools and Buddhist meditation at the Interdependence Project. She holds a BFA in dance from the Alvin Ailey School at Fordham University and an MA in performance studies from NYU. She has trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, The Interdependence Project, Laughing Lotus Yoga and the Presencing Institute. And she's working on a book about waking up to power and oppression as a spiritual practice. And that's coming out this fall, Parallax Press. Please welcome her back, Kate Johnson. Thank you. Hi, Everyone. Yeah, It's good to be here. I'm really excited to be able to work with this theme of love this month. When I got the email, I was like, Yes, Finally. And as Dawn mentioned, Certainly it's a blessing to be able to talk about love during pride month. And maybe even more of a reason to point out that for this particular image, We're not talking about necessarily the sexual union of a male and female person, But the integration of masculine and feminine energies, Which as we know can be present in any gender manifestation. And I also wanted to talk a little bit more about this integration of wisdom and compassion and really ground it in the root meaning of the word that we usually translate as mindfulness, Which is sati. So many of you might have heard this word before, Sati, S-A-T-I. I've been translated as mindfulness. And from what I understand from scholars has this etymological meaning that is similar to our phrase to remember, What it means to remember. And so we can think about this as in our mindfulness practice when we discover that we are lost in thought and we remember that we're meditating and we come back. This is one aspect of the remembering, Right? Remembering where we are, Who we're with, Remembering our true nature. And these are all elements of a mindfulness practice. And it has another sense too of remembering, Like literally taking the distinct parts of ourselves that have somehow become split or fragmented in some way, Just happens just to kind of get through the day and remembering them, Like putting them back together. And so this quality of integration is something that, And wholeness really is something that I find expressed in this beautiful piece of art that I'd love for us to explore more today. So all this to say that love has many different kind of flavors and qualities. I always feel a little, I don't know if you guys remember that ridiculous show Flavor of Love on MTV. It was bad. It was like a dating show with Flavor Flav. No one wanted to see it, But the phrase is really great, Right? Those flavors of love that there are different qualities. And the last time I was here, It was during the month where we discussed focus and talked about the kind of fierce love that allows us to say to ourselves when we find ourselves moving towards a habitual obsessive thought to say, No, Enough, That this can be an expression of love. And today I'd love for us to explore another flavor, Which is that one of kind of this flavor of love, The kind of wholeness, Integration, The taking of the many arms and wrapping around all of our experience so that there's nothing that needs to be kind of kept outside of our practice. And these can seem contradictory, But they're really both skillful means for working with this, You know, Multifaceted, Multidimensional experience. So just to say I recognize that one or the other might be more appropriate for you today and feel free to work with your practice in the way that your own wisdom allows for. But if you'd like to try this on, This is the kind of practice that I'll guide. So we'll basically work with a simple mindfulness of breath and body sensation practice. So you may choose a spot to focus on your breath that is, That feels available to you, Whether it's a nose or the chest or the belly. If the focus on the breath feels agitated, You could also try another body sensation, Like the feeling of the hands resting, Or the feeling of the, You know, Tush on the cush, As my friend said, Or the feet on the floor, You know, Something where we can feel contact and have a sense that, Oh, This is a body that I'm aware of right now. And then, You know, What tends to happen is we'll stay with that sensation for a while. And then the mind, Because it has this kind of tendency to scan, Will notice something else. And in that moment, See if it's possible, Like rather than, You know, Sometimes I don't know about you, But sometimes when I'm practicing mindfulness meditation, I almost have the sense that I'm like shooing flies off of a pie or something, You know, It's like, You know, Like, Get back, You know. So to see if it's possible, You know, With this particular flavor of love to invite whatever, You know, Thought stream or whatever sensation, Whatever mood that is arising that has drawn your attention away, And actually include it in the practice of being with the breath or the body sensation. So it's almost like co-parenting an eight-year-old. And you know, When she wants my attention, Often she wants to like go, Me to go do something with her somewhere else. And so my job is to kind of like actually include her in what I'm doing so that we still get to spend time together and also, And lately that's actually happening in meditation too, Which is exciting. So this is an opportunity for us when we find that there's another thought or another body sensation to say, Okay, Aching shoulder, You can be here too, And we're just going to be with the breath. Or okay, Worry, Okay, Heartbreak, I see you, You're welcome here, And is this a breath in or a breath out? So it's a more kind of gentle holding awareness. And I'll guide us through it, But does that sound okay as kind of a lay of the land overview? So yeah, Please find your comfortable meditation seat. We can let your feet touch the floor if that is available to you. Yeah, Like if you'd like to shrug your shoulders up and roll them back or roll the neck a bit, You know, So there's sense of having enough space. And then the hands can be in any configuration, They can be resting on the knees or the thighs or they can be clasped in the lap, Just a place for the hands to feel like they can rest. And also resting the eyes, Closing them or letting them soften so that it might be just a teeny bit open, But they're not searching outside. They're resting so that we can turn the attention inside. Just taking a moment to sit without doing much so that our kind of hearts and minds can catch up with our bodies. Inviting your whole heart, Whole mind to arrive. Letting in. A mentor of mine talks about love as letting ourselves be who we are. And whatever that means for you in this moment, Whether who you are at this moment is a tired person or an agitated person or. . . And within this loving awareness, Just choosing a spot to rest your attention so that we start to cultivate a greater stability by finding a physical sensation that feels soothing and studying. A sensation we can want to come back to, A sensation perhaps we can even fall a little bit in love with. Whether it's breath, Hands, Feet. And inviting the full heart and mind to be present in your own way. And noticing this sensation. And it'd be temperature or pressure, Vibration. And allowing your awareness to be magnetized by that sensation, Just like it is when we're falling in love. It's all we see. Yeah. And noticing if there are any visitors that have arrived in your awareness, A thought about the future or past, Another bodily sensation that's pulling your attention, Or a mood in the mind. If you can kind of inwardly welcome this, Whatever it is, And yes, This can be included too, And let's watch with the breath. Let's be with the hands. Let's feel the feet together. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Again, Noticing if anything is pulling the attention, And rather than pushing back against it, See if it's possible to reach out and include. And then as we return to our objective focus, The breath or the body sensation, Noticing if there's a sense of wholeness, Integration, Mind, Body, Heart together, Remembering. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Remembering. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Remembering. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Let's feel the feet. Sensing our presence on the planet this moment. And including the whole entire package for a moment in our loving awareness. And what if everything could be included in our practice? Whenever you're ready, You can feel free to slowly raise your gaze, Start to move the fingers, Stretching out if you'd like. The room was so still. Thank you for your practice. That concludes this week's practice. If you'd like to attend in person, Please check out our website, Rubinmuseum. Org slash meditation to learn more. Sessions are free to Rubin Museum members, Just one of the many benefits of membership. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.

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