Mindfulness Meditation At The Rubin Museum With Sharon Salzberg

The Rubin Museum of Art presents a weekly meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area, with each session focusing on a specific work of art. This podcast is recorded in front of a live audience, and includes an opening talk, a 20-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. The guided practice begins at 15:06. This episode was recorded on Wednesday, October 9, 2019.

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 New York Insight Meditation Center. 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 meditation collection. And now, Please enjoy your practice. Good afternoon, Everybody. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Art and to our weekly mindfulness meditation practice. We are talking about ritual this month. Ritual as a means to personal power, Spiritual power, A deep understanding of what power can be in our lives. And I know for many of you, This program has become a bit of a ritual. And I just want to take a moment to express my appreciation for that and just gratitude to be doing that with you. Thank you. And many of you know that there will be a slight change in our ritual, Which is that starting in January, The museum will be closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And we will be moving this program to Mondays. So we will maintain our weekly ritual. And I'm interested to see what Mondays will bring on this journey with you all. So happy to discuss that further. And I do want to mention that Tim McHenry, Our director of programs, And me will be outside in the Art Lounge after the program today in lieu of a tour, Will be there to just chat with you about this change if you have any questions. I do want to mention one other change that is coming up or a slight, A temporary change, I should say, Which is that there will be a pause in all of our programming for a couple of weeks in October. This is due to this very boring reason that has something to do with our HVAC system. But it is necessary. And so we will be pausing our programming here in the theater for a couple of weeks, And we will resume in November. Okay, So if you have questions about any of this, We have a couple helpful handouts. Okay, So this one right here just gives the schedule coming up. So please, Especially if you tend to come every week out of habit, Just make sure you're really checking in with the schedule. If you do come and there is no formal program here, Of course you are very welcome in our galleries. And I know people like to sometimes take a moment in the Shrine Room. Well, The good news is that's opening up again this Friday. And also there is the opportunity to practice meditation with my colleague, Tashi Chojan, On Saturdays as part of her program called Awakening Practice, Saturday mornings at 1130. And if you want more information about just the changes in general, There is a letter that was sent out to our members, And we have copies of that. If you need more detail, We will hand those out to you as you exit. You just need to ask for this, Okay? So we are now going to turn our attention to really focus, As we always do, On our practice. Okay, So if you do have questions or thoughts about any of these changes that are coming up, We are here to talk with you after the program. But right now we're just going to do what we all came here to do, And that's meditate. So ritual. We are in the midst of some wonderful holy days. Navaratri just occurred, And that is the Hindu celebration of Durga. And we are looking ahead to Diwali, Which is the celebration of light and honors Lakshmi. So in the midst of many beautiful holy days, Many of which have beautiful rituals to them. And of course, Whether they are formal or casual, Ritual can engage us in a bond to others and really grounds us in a present moment, While also connecting us to the past, To our ancestors. We talked about ritual last time as something that you don't just think about, But it involves some kind of doing, Some kind of physical or collective action. And for some, Meditation can be a ritual, Right, And can be ritualized. And certainly in religious practice and Buddhism, Hinduism, Rituals are known to have a very transformative power to them. So we're looking at an object today that is a tool in ritual. This is a Tibetan prayer wheel. And the one that we're looking at here is actually quite large. It's almost as tall as a person. But prayer wheels can come in a variety of sizes, And often you'll see them as handheld objects. What they all share in common is that they contain a mantra that has been written out and rolled up and placed inside. And the practitioner will spin the wheel associated with this prayer wheel to accumulate wisdom and merit and to purify themselves of any negative aspects. So Sharon Salzberg is here today to talk with us a little bit more about ritual and our practice, Our meditation practice. She is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, And is the author of fabulous books like Real Love, The Art of Mindful Connection, And Real Happiness, The Power of Meditation. And she's a regular contributor to On Being and The Huffington Post. Please welcome her back, Sharon Salzberg. Hello. You're all braving the rain. Look at that. Hello. Thank you all so much for coming. It's a very interesting topic, Actually. I don't know if you know that, But the museum thinks of these topics and then lets the teachers know what the topic is for the month. And then they send a selection of art and you get to choose which piece of art you would like the session to be opened with. But I found ritual very intriguing and for a number of reasons, Because I see it as a container, A repository vehicle for connection. And it can cut both ways. I chose the prayer wheel because I love prayer wheels. I teach in a variety of settings where there are prayer wheels as you enter and exit. And it's very common practice to spin the prayer wheel, Especially as you leave, Because the spinning of the prayer wheel symbolizes the carrying of your prayers to the world. It's like if they're outside the wind, Is carrying your loving kindness, Your compassion, Your concern to the world, The boundlessness of life. And if you've just meditated or you've taught or you've studied, You've done something of merit, As they say, Something virtuous or something positive, Which could be generosity, It could be kindness, It could be restraint. Like it's awfully easy to tell a lie but you don't, Or you meditate even though it feels totally crummy. That's considered to have a very, Very powerful positive force. That's what they call merit. And so commonly at the end of a session, Say it's meditation that you've done, You offer that merit to the well-being of others. Sometimes a specific person or being you know who's in trouble or you're just grateful to, But often to just the world at large. And so if I've taught a session, Which is a very meritorious activity, And I'm leaving the place and there's the prayer wheel, So I just spin the prayer wheel in order to make that offering to all beings. And so I see that moment, You know, Maybe I would have forgotten, I'm in a hurry. I've got to meet these friends, I've got to go someplace else. It's easy to just like leave the room and go on to the next thing. But there's the prayer wheel. And that's the moment. It's a ritual where, Oh, You don't leave without actually making that offering. And so it's a reminder of what we truly want to connect to, What we care about more than anything. The irony for me is that in the Buddhist tradition, The Buddha seemed to have a fair amount of discourse about the problem with mindless rituals, That we can certainly do whatever activity is embodied in that ritual just by rote, Without really being present, Without deeply remembering what it's said to be connecting us to. And so there's a kind of satisfaction, Like we fulfill that duty, Or we've appeased the gods or whatever, You know, By doing the thing, Or our family, Whatever it might be. But it's not actually connecting us to something more profound. And so when I first got the topic, I thought, Oh, That's funny, You know, Because really it can cut both ways. We have rituals that are part of traditions that perhaps have the potential to connect us to something very meaningful. But we don't do them that way anymore. You know, We just do them. And we get them done, Or we do them publicly in a way that we say, OK, I've done it, You know, So I can check that off for, Oh, I can't do this other thing I really want to do because I've got to get through this, So I better, Whatever. And so, And especially in the time of the Buddha, As is written, You know, In the text, The rituals could be very elaborate and held by certain castes of people, Certain genders of people. And there would be a way in which the fulfillment, At least it seems from what he was saying, The fulfillment of the ritual was increasingly disconnected from the meaning, The place that was said to bring us. And so it's a tremendous opportunity to pay attention. It's an opportunity to stop. Like when I'm charging out of the room where I've just taught, You know, And I see that prayer wheel, I stop. And I go, Oh, Right, You know, Let's make that offering and let's be there fully and completely for that moment and making that offering. And then that is the beauty of the ritual. And I think it's interesting, Too, Because we're heading into such an intense holiday season where, You know, Families have rituals and patterns and some of which we find very egregious and some of which, You know, Probably are egregious and some of which we might stop and really think, Okay, What's the tradition here? You know, Where did this evolve, This lineage? You know, Like where did this particular way of doing things come about? So I think that's part of what we all confront in this particular season. And then I often use the word ritual as a suggestion when people say, How do I practice mindfulness during the day, As an example. And I say ritualize something. That means use a reminder. Establish something that is your reminder. One most common example probably these days being from Chignat Han where he says don't pick up your phone on the first ring, Let it ring three times and breathe. Then you pick it up. That's a ritual that we need time and, You know, Repetition in order to establish. And then it's something we embody. Or don't press send immediately once you've written the email. Breathe, You know. We read it again. And then you can decide if you want to send it or not. So we're also, Rituals are not just legacies from the past. They're things that we are creating and recreating based on our needs and our convictions and our understandings that this is like a collective or an individual activity, As Don said, That is meant to thread us back to something we value. The question of forgiveness like this day, You know, Or letting go like this day. Questions of connection or reconnection and so on. So I think that's also a very interesting thing to look at. Like what are the rituals we are involved in creating right now? And can we, If they're positive, You know, How can we carry them forward? So let's sit together. And it's just something that you tend to do to help establish this space, This inner space. Sometimes people say to themselves, Whatever may arise is okay. Or for this period of time, I am dedicated to cultivation of awareness and compassion. Or classically, One would take refuge in the possibility of freedom in the Buddha and the Dharma and the teachings and the community. That seems meaningful to you as that demarcation point. And when you feel ready, You can let your attention settle on the feeling of the breath, Just the normal, Natural movement of the breath, However it's appearing. And even though you might hear the breath or get an image of the breath, We're really aiming toward feeling the breath wherever it's strongest, At the nostrils, At the chest, Or at the abdomen. You can find that place, Bring your attention there and just rest. See if you can feel one breath. Alright feeling good. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Reviews

Great session. Maybe consider editing out some of the announcements in the beginning, since they pertain to museum visits and not to the audio recording. Blessings.

Enjoyable as always and lovely to hear Sharon. I like the idea of the prayer wheel. Going to check them out. 🙏🏼

Thank you! So happy you are back!!!