Mindfulness Meditation at the Rubin Museum with Tracy Cochran

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

Transcript

Welcome to the mindfulness meditation podcast.

I'm your host Dawn Eshle.

Every Wednesday at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea,

We present a meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher in 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 the 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 collection.

And now,

Please enjoy your practice.

Even though it's quite tiny,

What it represents is the center of the universe,

In fact.

Mount Meru is considered to be the focal point of the universe from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective.

And so therefore,

It is a very significant and powerful symbol.

And it's interesting that a mountain would be chosen to be that kind of grounding force in the universe.

Tracy Cochran is back with us today.

Great to have you back,

Tracy,

As always.

Just wanted to let you know that she,

Really because of requests from you all,

Will be leading a workshop that sounds really quite beautiful and that builds on some of the work that we've been doing in here.

So she's doing that on June 2nd.

It's Friday,

I believe,

And it's in the evening.

And I know many of you have requested more kind of meditation-oriented programming for the evening or the weekend.

So I hope that she will tell us a little bit more about that.

But just excited to be kind of taking this process to the next level with her in that.

Tracy Cochran is a writer and the editorial director of the quarterly magazine Parabola.

And you can find that in our shop or online at parabola.

Org.

She has been a student of meditation and other spiritual practices for decades.

And in addition to teaching here at the Rubin,

She teaches at the New York Insight Meditation Society,

Who partners with us to present this for you.

And every Thursday and Sunday night at Terrytown Insight in Terrytown,

New York.

And her writings and teaching schedule can be found online via Parabola on Facebook and Twitter and on tracycockran.

Org.

So please welcome her back,

Tracy Cochran.

I'm glad to be back.

And I know that some of you sat with a famous scientist last week,

So I'm going to assure you that what I have to say is extremely unscientific.

So I'm delighted to have this mountain behind me because I wanted to tell a little story that I've been thinking about really for much of my life.

And now I'm reflecting about it and writing about it in a new way.

And it begins like this.

And then I'll weave in what has to do with the center of the universe.

There was once a poor miller who was summoned to meet with a king.

Right off the bat,

Can you feel how terrified he must have been?

Evolutionary biology tells us we hate public speaking,

And I'm here to tell you it's true.

After this I'll have to medicate myself with.

.

.

At any rate,

Even before he knew what the meeting was about,

We never are told,

Except that it was probably about how things were going down at the mill.

Because from all accounts,

This king cared about profits more than anything else.

So this poor miller was summoned to his presence.

And I like to imagine this king thinking that he was being incredibly magnanimous and a man of the people.

So he probably asked him some casual question about his family.

And this miller famously,

Notoriously said,

I have a beautiful daughter who can spin straw into gold.

You know.

And I'm wondering,

I'm not asking anybody here to raise their hand,

If anybody has ever at any point in their life had the experience of having their father throw them under the bus,

So to speak.

Brag about something you could do that didn't feel like you.

Or ask you to understand something you didn't quite feel equipped to understand.

It doesn't matter,

It can take many forms.

But this poor daughter was promptly imprisoned in the castle of the king with a room full of straw,

And told to spin it into gold.

Now,

In preparing to come here,

I looked up milling,

And I found out that it is one of the most ancient activities that human beings can do,

Along with plowing.

Even hunter-gatherers had millers.

And once,

About three years ago,

I happened to stay at Gandhi's ashram in the heart of India,

And I got to sit in his room with the head of the Gandhi charity,

And on the front porch outside this little hut in the heart of India,

There was a grinding stone.

And when the ashram was full of his people fighting for independence,

Everybody took a turn,

Every day,

Turning the wheel.

I couldn't budge it,

It was really humbling to see.

But I could see by looking at this ancient stone,

It was like the Buddha's emphasis on Bhavana,

On plowing,

On cultivating.

It was a simple thing that human beings do.

So the miller lost all sight of the nobility of this,

And he had to make himself something fancier,

In a state of panic.

Can anybody relate to this?

Like,

You're panicking,

And you reach for something to make you grander.

The self is selfish.

It's small.

It's afraid.

It loses sight of the mountain in the distance.

So anyway,

There is this poor daughter in a prison cell with a bunch of straw,

And she starts to panic.

Who wouldn't?

As the night wears on.

So,

In the middle of the night,

Twelve,

One,

Two,

You know that time of night,

When there is no hope,

There's nothing but desolation.

Nothing you can do.

In comes a little imp,

And says,

Give me something precious,

And I will weave the straw into gold.

So she has a necklace,

And she gives it to her.

And he spins,

And he spins.

Has anybody here been to college,

Where you had to write a paper the night before it was due?

And you do something,

Or you take some performance-enhancing drug,

Or you have fifteen cups of coffee,

Or whatever it takes.

So the next morning,

There is the gold.

The gold is like those quotes you dig up,

That sound so much better than your humble observations.

And the king is delighted to have all this gold,

So he throws her in prison again.

His greed is boundless,

With a bigger bunch of straw,

And she's in the same pickle.

And she despairs again,

And the imp appears again,

And says,

What will you give me this time?

She has a ring.

He spins,

And he spins,

And he spins.

You know how that feels.

And at dawn,

There's the gold.

And this time,

The king says,

This time,

I'll marry you.

Oh,

She must have been thrilled.

I can't even imagine.

If you spend this last room full of gold,

Even bigger pile,

Bigger room.

This time,

She is really bleak.

She's completely burned out.

She's completely split off from herself.

And the imp appears.

She has nothing left to give.

Nothing.

And he said,

That's okay.

Marry the king,

And I will take your firstborn child.

So in a moment of complete despair,

Thinking,

Who knows if he'll marry me,

Who knows if I'll have a child,

She agrees.

She just,

In the spur of the moment,

She agrees.

Have you ever done anything like that?

Have you ever agreed to something you didn't want to agree to?

Just,

Anyway,

It's done.

And he spins,

And he spins,

And he spins,

And the room is full of gold.

And the king marries her.

He's so excited.

Because even though she's just the daughter of a poor miller,

Who could be richer?

And after a year,

There is a baby.

And she's delighted,

And she's happy,

And she manages to put her poor choices behind her until the imp reappears,

Asking for the child.

And she freaks out,

Confronted.

You can imagine how she feels.

Suddenly confronted with what she has done.

How she has agreed to something that's completely against her nature.

And the imp,

And this always touches me,

Takes compassion on her,

And says,

Okay,

Okay,

I'll give you three days.

If you can guess my true name,

You can keep your child.

So we think we know the story,

Don't we?

We do.

But think about it.

She summons a messenger.

What is this?

Turning to see,

To investigate what is really going on.

And the messenger goes out and scours the kingdom.

It's like what happens when you shut your eyes.

You see what there is to see.

And each day he comes back,

Nothing.

But the third day he comes back,

And he said,

I have seen something.

I saw this weird little man dancing around fire,

Singing about how something alive was more precious than any gold.

Something real.

And that soon it would be his.

And announcing that his name was Rumpelstiltskin.

Very weird name.

And I looked it up,

And the German root of the word means that force that rattles the ridge pole.

Like in Buddhism.

Isn't that interesting?

That rattles a house.

It's like a poltergeist.

It's like that split off energy that comes out of you sometimes.

In the form of rage,

Or some wild longing,

When suddenly your life is just too small to confine you.

But anyway,

Now to get ahead of myself.

The imp appears,

And she says,

And he said,

Alright,

I have come for my living child.

Now give me your best guesses.

And she's like,

Is your name Donald?

Because we know everybody hates to be called Donald.

Everybody hates to be called Donald,

Especially these days.

Is your name James?

No,

No.

Is your name Rumpelstiltskin?

And he is astonished to be called by his true name.

He can't believe it.

And by some accounts he is so upset.

He stamps his foot and he splits in two.

At any rate,

She's liberated.

So Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a famous poem called Call Me by My True Names.

Where he says,

I am the pirate.

I am the 12 year old girl raped by the pirate.

I am life.

I am everything interconnected.

She saw that she wasn't separate.

And she saw more.

This is what it has to do with the mountain.

We spend so much,

We're conditioned,

We can't help it.

This isn't an admonition.

So much of our lives being someone.

We can't help it.

Being a self.

It's our first impulse.

When we start going to school,

When we start having parents.

In all that time,

At the same time,

We're more than that.

We're more.

We're also the mountain in the distance and the ground under our feet.

I just want to invite you to remember as I do,

Do you know what it's like sometimes when you feel completely desolate?

Have you ever felt that way?

Because I have.

Or completely panicky and exhausted and inadequate.

You're just too tired.

You can't come up with a good idea.

You can't pull it off.

So this is what our practice is for.

This gentle turning towards something that doesn't have a name.

And I was reading,

This is the way I have always thought about it personally.

When things have been their most desolate.

When I was in that cellar with a pile full of straw.

Sometimes there's a little light.

It's almost like a refrigerator light or a nightlight.

You can't see it at all in broad daylight when things are going well.

This tiny glow.

You're alive.

And that's enough.

I'm alive,

God damn it.

And that's going to have to do.

That feeling.

And I read that Rumi,

Of course they take everything that Rumi says with a grain of salt these days.

Because he says so much.

Have you noticed?

But this felt authentic.

Picture a field,

A vast field,

And you hear the buzz of a cicada.

You know how that sounds.

That sound is your essence.

That sound is the mountain that's really the center of the universe.

We go around thinking that we,

The self,

The small self,

We're the center of the universe.

And at the same time we think we're absolutely inadequate and lacking.

And that all our panic from today or our desolation from today,

That's all there is and that has to be fixed.

And where is the rumble still to begin when we need it?

And all that while there's that cicada,

That light,

That little glow,

That mountain.

And we find it when we shut our eyes and we turn to the next breath and the next.

And we slowly remember we're alive and that is more precious than any gold.

So my personal theory,

I've not heard this elsewhere but now it will be on the podcast and everywhere,

No matter,

Is that our practice is to reverse engineer the gold back into the straw.

That's what we're here to do.

To go from all that gilded stuff to what's real and alive,

What really nourishes us.

So that's the mountain.

That's the mountain that's the center of the universe.

So we can experience it now instead of listening to me talk about it.

So we take a comfortable seat and this in itself is like mountain posture.

We are taking our place in the center of the world.

We belong here.

We are alive and part of life.

So we let our eyes close and we just notice how it feels to be here in this body.

Welcoming.

Everything we find,

We may find tension,

Chilliness,

Heat,

Fatigue,

Tension,

Whatever it is.

Welcome,

Welcome,

Welcome to be exactly as you are.

And as we notice our bodies beginning to soften under the touch of our own welcoming attention,

We bring the attention to the breathing.

Without seeking to change it in any way,

We let the attention be carried by the in-breath and the out-breath.

And immediately we'll notice how we get pulled into thinking.

We have sensations of all kinds,

Flashes of memory,

And we welcome this as perfectly normal.

And when we notice we're being taken away,

We gently bring the attention home again to the breathing and to the experience of being in this body right now.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Meditation is a movement of remembering,

Sati,

Remembering the present moment.

We get taken and we come home,

Touching the earth of this moment in the body,

This breath.

Thank you.

Noticing as we make this movement of return,

There's a vibrancy in the body,

A light of awareness that we forget,

That sees without judgment,

That wishes to be here without thinking.

It just responds.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Noticing how it feels to be completely acceptable and accepted.

Everything you find,

Everything the mind is doing.

Acceptable,

Accepted.

And you come home to the breathing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

When we get taken by sounds,

By thinking,

We welcome ourselves home again to the body and the moment and the breath.

This is the practice.

Noticing that it can feel like being met by sunlight,

By life.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Noticing as we come home,

And we can be gone this whole time,

Just come back now,

And allow yourself to sense how much bigger the body is than we usually think,

How alive and sensitive it is.

Seeing that its sensations are not separate from this awareness.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Feeling for ourselves that stillness isn't silence,

But openness,

Not resisting.

And feeling how it is to be completely accepted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And one last time,

Coming home to the body and the breath and the light of an awareness that sees without judgment.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we put two hands in front of our heart space like people have done for so long.

And we dedicate our practice,

Our time here,

To the benefit,

The welfare,

And the happiness of all beings everywhere with no exceptions,

Including always ourselves.

May all beings everywhere feel safe from all inner and outer harm and danger.

May all beings everywhere feel completely accepted and acceptable exactly as they are.

May all beings everywhere feel as well as they can be and happy and live with ease and be free.

Thank you.

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 Reuben museum members,

Just one of the many benefits of membership.

Thank you for listening.

Have a mindful day.

Reviews

Thank you ❤️🙏🏼😍

I want to hear more and more from Tracy! She is clever, creative, and inspiring.

Just so beautiful thank you

What a great experience! Thank you Tracy for a truly mindful, spacious journey. Having someone with your insight was very positive for me.

What a wonderful experience with a combination of story telling and guided meditation. I particularly appreciate the quiet moments between each gentle guiding. It was like a time to focus, to be mindful, to put what we just heard into practice. Then, be gently guided to the next moments. Thank you very much. It's one of the best 40 minutes guided meditation I've ever had here. I will remember "call me by my true name".

Simply beautiful and with tears filling my eyes, at times life is very difficult. Thank you

What a joyful time to spend first with story time then in mindful presence together. Sending good wishes with gratitude. Thank you.

Thoroughly enjoyed this.

I have been listening to insight timer meditations everyday for almost two years. This has to be one of the best guided meditations I have heard. Tracy is a blessing.

Beautiful, thank-you. Will continue to practice feeling acceptable & accepted. 🙏

Very nice, I imagined myself there with the group.

A nice talk and calming meditation. The introduction is drowned out by the music a little, but this is resolved within a minute or so and doesn't impact the quality of the talk or meditation.