Mindfulness Meditation at the Rubin Museum with Tracy Cochran

The theme for this meditation is Fluidity. 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 New York Insight Meditation Center.

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.

Hello everybody.

Happy Wednesday.

Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Art and to our Mindfulness Meditation practice.

Great to see you be with you here today.

My name is Dawn Eshelman.

So we have here Dordje Drölow with fangs.

I don't know if you were able to see the detail a little bit earlier.

He's got a beautiful necklace of heads around his neck.

He is definitely standing in that kind of warrior pose,

Ready to be a warrior right there with a bent knee and the legs stretched out behind him,

Even while he's riding a flying tigress.

And he has this third eye.

This shows us his unique ability to see.

And he's fierce.

He is what is called a wrathful protector.

And even his tigress,

Who he is standing on,

Symbolizes this kind of protective power as well.

She is known as a protective mother tiger who symbolizes compassion.

So again,

Maybe not necessarily what we might automatically think of,

Especially Westerners with preconceived notions about Buddhism,

Perhaps,

Associating peace and tranquility along with other things as well.

But here we've got this very fierce figure.

And of course,

If you have been with us before,

You know that this fierceness is really valued as a symbol of energy that is focused,

That's direct in this tradition.

And once again,

I'll just share this anecdote of a curator that we work with describing the purpose of this energy as being sort of like the energy of a parent who sees their kid run into the middle of the street.

They're not going to say,

Excuse me,

Johnny,

Could you please,

You know.

They're going to say,

Stop right now.

And that is what this wrathful protector energy is all about.

So this is,

Again,

Going back to this idea,

This illustration of fluidity.

Padmasambhava,

Known as the second Buddha who brought Buddhism to Tibet,

Revered for his many emanations and this one strikes this pose and presents this way and is valued for this particular type of wrathful protective energy.

Padmasambhava also was known for planting teachings into the future that would be discovered at a later time.

He was a magician.

He was,

You know,

Pretty amazing sorcerer kind of figure.

And these are called termas.

They're actual,

Sometimes physical objects that are discovered hundreds of years later or teachings,

Actual teachings that are discovered right at the moment by the person who really needs to discover them.

And that's another sort of amazing element to who this figure is and his story,

But also,

Again,

Think of this idea of fluidity and being fluid,

Being able,

This figure being able to affect the past,

The present,

And the future and understanding that there's a relationship between all of them,

That they're not all separate.

Okay.

We're going to talk about fluidity and meditate a little bit more here with our wonderful teacher,

Tracy Cochran.

She's a writer and the editorial director of the quarterly magazine Parabola,

Which can be found online at parabola.

Org and of course,

Upstairs in our shop.

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

And in addition to the Rubens,

She currently teaches at New York Insight and every Sunday at Terrytown.

Her writings and teaching schedule can be found online via Parabola on Facebook,

Twitter,

And TracyCochran.

Org.

And I know she is teaching a workshop through New York Insight here in Manhattan.

When is that Tracy?

Starts on Monday.

Lucky you.

Right around the corner.

And that's Mondays.

How many Mondays in a row?

Six and what time?

515.

Six Mondays.

Please give her a warm welcome back,

Tracy Cochran.

Hi.

I'd like to say a special hello and thank you to the high school students in the back row.

And I think,

Yeah,

I think many of us are inspired by high school students across the country today.

Yes,

Yes.

So thank you.

And it's not unrelated to what we do here.

We come in this room,

We inspire each other.

We bring each other to life.

So it's been a long,

Cold winter.

I'm telling you.

I keep announcing the end of the winter.

And the next week there's another blizzard and another blackout.

And when you wake up on any given morning,

Even if you're in high school,

Your life can feel so not magical.

Is that right?

So no tigers,

No magic.

And how can we relate to this magical realm?

One way that we can experience it is to know that there are things that happen to us that can be so frightening and so awful at the time that turn out to have compassion in them.

And rather than give you a lecture,

I'm going to dare to tell you a story from my own misspent youth in New York City.

And I'm not asking you to believe it,

But it truly happened.

And it happened when I was in my 20s.

And I just moved to New York City.

And nothing was working out the way I dreamed and hoped it would.

Have you ever had that feeling?

Nothing,

Nothing.

Not the job,

Not the relationship.

And it was a bitter,

Cold night,

Just like all these nights we're having.

And I was coaxed out of my cozy apartment on the Upper West Side to go have dinner with an ex-boyfriend to prove that we could be friends.

Has anybody ever tried to do that?

It's got a certain sorrow to it,

A certain poignancy.

So this was in New York City in the 80s.

And it had a grittiness to it.

And I went down to his loft in Hell's Kitchen.

And it was bleak down there.

And we were starting to cook dinner at,

Say,

Like 10.

This was normal.

And he discovered that he didn't have any spaghetti,

Even though we were having spaghetti.

This is true.

So I volunteered to go out to a bodega,

A grocery store,

To get spaghetti,

Cigarettes,

And beer,

Which I considered the three basic food groups at this point in my not so well organized life.

And I went out thinking that nothing could ever happen to me.

So I got my spaghetti,

Beer,

Marlboro cigarettes.

And on the way back,

In front of an abandoned parking lot,

I was jumped by three men,

Three,

And put in a stranglehold.

And I know it sounds very frightening.

It's going to turn out OK.

But I had a moment of thinking,

Seeing that there are moments when there is nothing we can do,

Nothing.

I was thinking,

Thinking,

Thinking,

Thinking,

Thinking.

What am I going to do?

How can I escape?

And I couldn't speak.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't,

You know,

It was saying,

Give me your money.

Give me your money.

I couldn't get my hand in my front pocket to get that $5 bill from my Levi's.

And in the midst of this,

In that moment of knowing that thinking would not help me,

That ordinary efforts were not going to help me,

I became aware of a light inside,

Welling up inside.

And it got brighter and brighter until it shot out of the top of my head.

I know it sounds crazy.

And years later,

I learned this is a Tibetan Buddhist practice that lamas do for death.

There are stories of lamas escaping Chinese prison camps by shooting out of the top of their head.

The point is,

I looked up and there was a great light behind all the buildings,

Inside me,

Outside me,

Behind the people that were putting me in a strangle hole,

Inside them.

And it wasn't just a light the way in this tradition you read about a light or a white light,

But it was completely full of compassion.

It was like a sea of compassion behind everything that I could see and inside me.

So that I even had a moment of looking up at my attacker and feeling this compassion.

It was as though I came from another place.

It was as though for a moment I was glimpsing the way things really are.

Underneath this personality,

That personality,

Underneath all our pain and fear and uncertainty and thinking,

There's compassion.

There's a light of awareness.

So just for a moment,

The reason I'm daring to tell this story is because this magical figure also had the quality of seeing past,

Present and future.

And just for a moment,

In the midst of that experience,

I felt seen.

As though I was being held in the palm of a giant hand and seen past,

Present and future.

So that might sound wacky to you or unusual to say the least.

But in the midst of that,

I was given this assurance,

Okay,

Relax,

This moment's going to pass.

You're going to be okay.

You're going to be okay.

And so I relaxed,

Which apparently is what you're supposed to do when you're in a grip like that.

And I managed to get my hand in my pocket and throw this money on the street.

And these three men picked up the money and ran away.

And I was completely untouched.

I was crying when I got back to my boyfriends.

I was crying.

But inside,

I had this impression of that light.

I had this impression that behind the appearances of this world,

No matter how separate we feel,

No matter how alone we feel,

How bleak life looks,

All of us are held and suffused by this light of compassion and love.

It was just indescribable.

And people have asked me,

Like,

Well,

That's a very unusual experience.

That's like a near-death experience.

And with a Tibetan Buddhist twist,

Even.

But what about the rest of us?

What about that?

What about the day when the subway doesn't work?

What about the day when you wake up in a bad mood and you have to come and meditate,

You know,

Because you promised to?

What about every day of your life?

And I've discovered that in the small moments when we just soften,

We soften up,

And we unplug a little bit from the story of what we think our life is and what it's going to be,

Which is usually something negative.

It's like it's all downhill from here,

You know,

Or I'll never get into the school I want or get the job I want.

Just for a moment when we unplug from that,

There's another kind of attention that becomes available.

Another kind of awareness that has a light to it,

A warmth.

And just for a moment,

And even sometimes half a moment,

We relax enough to know that we're part of something bigger than we think.

So I want to lead us in meditation so you can see for yourself.

And so we put our feet firmly on the floor,

And we sit with our backs straight,

As straight as you comfortably can,

And let your eyes close.

Some people can't have closed eyes for different reasons.

So if you can't,

Look at the floor.

But if you can close your eyes,

Let them close.

And just take in an impression of the body without thinking about it or making yourself have an experience.

Just notice how it feels to sit here.

And instantly you notice that you're thinking,

That there are tensions in the body,

You hear sounds,

You feel sensations on your skin.

All kinds of things are happening.

And you let everything be exactly the way it is.

Just totally accept it without changing anything.

And notice that you can bring your attention to the body,

To the sensation of sitting here,

Feet on the floor.

And notice that you can bring your attention to the breathing without trying to change it.

You're not trying to make it longer or shorter.

Just notice the rhythm of the breathing where you feel it,

Either in the chest or as a sensation of air leaving the nose.

So notice that you go back to thinking,

Which is perfectly natural,

Back to having pictures in your head,

Sensations.

And when you notice this is happening,

Gently bring the attention home again to the sensation of breathing and being in a body in this moment with no self-judgment.

Understanding that when we come back,

Sati,

The word for mindfulness,

Means to remember,

To come back to the present.

When we do this,

We glimpse a light of awareness inside that is not thinking.

It's just seeing,

Just receiving.

Sh pearls.

When we get lost in thought,

We gently come back with no self judgment.

Allowing everything to be exactly the way it is.

Notice that when you bring the attention back to the body,

You begin to soften up and open up.

You begin to remember that you're more than your thought.

You begin to remember that you're more than your thought.

It doesn't matter how many times you go away.

You just come back,

No judgment.

You begin to remember that you're more than your thought.

The movement of meditation is a movement of coming home,

Coming back to the moment,

The body.

Relaxing into life.

Relaxing into life.

Relaxing into life.

Relaxing into life.

We begin to notice that coming back to the body is a way to open,

A way to soften up and receive.

Relaxing into life.

Relaxing into life.

We begin to discover that stillness doesn't mean silence inside your head,

But not resisting.

Relaxing.

Ex superfluing harm.

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If we're dreaming we just notice this and begin again.

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Thank you.

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Reviews

🙏❤️

Awesome! As usual 😊

A lot of quiet time in this one but very peaceful and balanced. Interesting story and outlook.

This was a very special one!

Wonderful Tracy, just wonderful, thank you. 😘

Always wonderful. Made me come and visit the Rubin each time I travel to NYC 🙏🏻

Thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻