Welcome to the Mindfulness Meditation Podcast presented by the Rubin Museum of Art.
We are a museum in Chelsea,
New York City that connects visitors to the art and ideas of the Himalayas and serves as a space for reflection and personal transformation.
I'm your host,
Tashi Chodron.
Every Thursday,
We present a meditation session inspired by a different artwork from the Rubin Museum's collection and led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area.
This podcast is a recording of our weekly in-person practice.
In the description for each episode,
You will find information about the theme for that week's session,
Including an image of the related artwork.
Our Mindfulness Meditation Podcast is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg and teachers from the New York Insight Meditation Center,
The Interdependence Project and Parabola magazine and supported by the Frederick P.
Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism.
And now,
Please enjoy your practice.
Good afternoon,
Everyone,
And welcome to Mindfulness Meditation here at the Rubin Museum of Art.
I'm Tim McHenry.
I'm Deputy Executive Director at the museum and have had the good grace of being here for pretty much 20 years and delighted to see this series continuing with such strength and investment of interest.
Thank you for being here.
So at Mindfulness Meditation,
We think up a theme that is relevant for today.
Today's theme is acceptance this whole month,
And we explore a work of art to see how this art form from the Himalayas is actually constantly relevant and gives us insights on how we can conduct ourselves in today's New York.
So we will be looking at that,
And then we will invite our teacher,
Tracy Cochran,
Back on stage very happily to guide us in a little teaching and then have a sit for about 15 minutes.
So let's go straight to our work of art.
And that work of art is an object,
And it's called a prayer wheel,
Or mani-korlo.
And mani means mantra,
And korlo means spinning or turning.
And this might not look as if it's spinning or turning.
It looks pretty stationary with its four solid legs.
But if you look a little more closely,
There is a wheel inside this housing.
And there are paddles or were paddles at the base,
And this sat over a water duct.
And the passing water would spin the paddles and therefore the wheel.
Why?
Well,
Bound up in the core of that cylinder is a parchment that's tightly wound around the spindle that has these mani,
These mantras,
Maybe even 500 or 1,
000 tightly bound around them so that when the natural forces of the water spins the wheel,
The turning of the mantras sends them out into the world.
And that's an acceptance in the form of a trust that this intention can have impact.
And that intention setting is actually a really,
Really vital part of this tradition,
But also how you perceive the world.
Because if you take a particular attitude,
You know you can see things that happen to you differently from a different attitude.
And Tracy will be guiding us into how that works a little more.
But there's the finial in detail.
And very often there is the mantra Om Mani Padme Om,
Of course,
Is the most universally used one.
And of course,
This is something that continues to happen in situ in the Himalayas on a daily basis.
So prayer wheels can also come in this form,
A hand wheel,
And you spin it round clockwise like this again to perpetuate the mantras into the ether like that.
And this particular one came to us from the daughter of a film director,
Andrew Marton,
Who was the first director to shoot a film at over 15,
000 feet in the Karakoram range,
A German-Swiss co-production called De Demondis Himalaya,
The Demon of the Himalayas from 1935.
And that we were able to premiere here at the Rubin about 15 years ago.
And she bequested a number of objects from that particular shoot to the Rubin.
So I just wanted to share that with you.
But more importantly,
Let's share the teachings of our teacher,
Tracy Cochran.
So delighted to have you back,
Tracy.
Thank you so much.
Tracy,
Of course,
Is happily a regular teacher here at the Rubin.
She's been with us ever since Mindfulness Meditation started.
She has taught at Insight Meditation Center,
Of course,
And really importantly is a contributor and editorial director of Parabola,
The magazine,
The quarterly magazine that allows us to delve into things that truly,
Truly matter in our lives.
And Tracy,
We thank you for that continued work.
Tracy Cochran,
Everybody.
I am always happy to be here.
And I took from this beautiful object the notion of letting prayers go,
Letting them go as opposed to clinging tightly.
And when I began to reflect on it,
I remembered that years ago I was invited to a gathering of great Zen masters,
Great rotis from Japan,
From across the United States and Europe.
And in the midst of this gathering,
I was taken by a tall,
Kindly Catholic priest.
What was he doing there,
I wondered.
So I pursued his work and went to visit him.
I remember it vividly because it was a snowstorm in Jersey City,
And mastering getting to Jersey City in the blizzard heightened the experience.
He was in Japan during Vatican II.
I'm not a Catholic,
But what it meant to him as an Irish Catholic was the collapse of all the prayers and forms he loved as a boy.
He loved these forms from the time he was first taken to church.
So he was there as a missionary,
But when he came home and experienced this loss of these beautiful forms,
Prayers,
Liturgies,
He returned to Japan as a student.
He met some remarkable rotis,
And one of them said,
I'm not intending to make you a Buddhist,
Father.
I wish to show you emptiness,
The emptiness of the Lord you love,
Jesus,
Who gives poured out love,
Who let go of expectations of a particular fate.
So Robert Kennedy SJ,
Which means Jesuit Roshi,
Became a teacher to me,
And now to you.
This is a theme of acceptance this month,
And my particular inspiration is letting go of prayers.
And this remarkable,
Warm man helped me understand that praying isn't about having a wonderful story or a wonderful prediction about what will come.
Although this is very natural,
It's very organic,
Help me,
Help me,
Please.
There's another way for us to open,
And that's what this practice is about,
Opening the heart in the face of change,
In the face of loss,
In the face of the unknown,
With a little bit of trust that compassion and wisdom can still be with us.
And one of the people in my digital sangha lives in Maui,
And I've just been sending her loving prayers.
And we now,
We now in our own lives,
Houses can disappear in a moment,
Relationships,
My own mother lost her house in a hurricane,
Boom,
It was gone.
And it was towards the end of her life,
And I remember her wishing,
Willing,
Praying for her to be happy and healthy,
And to see that it was just a house.
Houses can be fixed,
Replaced.
Yeah,
She agreed,
She said,
I'm too old to cry over things.
But I could tell she was shaken,
And it made me so sad,
I was clinging,
I was clinging until one morning after she died,
I woke up early in the morning,
You know,
Sometimes you just feel grief.
And in the midst of it,
I realized there is love,
There is a force of love in me that will always connect me to her,
Can't be otherwise.
So in the midst of these changes,
Whether it's Vatican II,
And the end of the Latin Mass,
Or the loss of a beloved person,
Or house,
Or a relationship,
Or job,
The turning of the prayer wheel can also be understood as an opening of the heart.
Can I be with this,
With compassion,
With wisdom?
Can I be present with a little bit of trust?
It doesn't have to be blind faith,
A little bit of faith that I will be supported,
That I can stay connected.
But let's sit together and see for ourselves.
Take a comfortable seat,
And let your back be straight,
Your feet on the floor,
And notice that this supports us,
This helps us feel more present.
And notice how it feels to let everything be exactly as it is,
Inside and outside.
Notice that as we typically are,
We yearn,
We strain,
We strive to change things.
Notice how it feels to be with that too,
And see that there is an awareness here already.
You don't have to strive for it.
There is an attention inside that can be with everything that's here,
With gentleness,
With acceptance.
Notice how it feels to be still,
Not silent,
But soft,
Not resisting.
Notice that this presence that's here,
This stillness,
Is not absence,
But fullness.
It's a light that sees with acceptance,
With compassion.
Notice the vibrancy inside you,
Not from the thinking alone,
In the body,
In the heart.
Just rest in stillness,
Noticing how it feels to be completely acceptable,
Just like this.
See that you can begin again at any moment.
Come back to the body,
To sensation,
And notice that there is an attention that touches sensation,
That's inside and also outside you,
That's inherently kind,
Accepting.
Notice how it feels to let going away and coming back be equally acceptable,
Just human,
Letting go of all striving,
Trying,
Fixing,
Rejecting,
Just being here.
Noticing that there's an attention here that sees with acceptance.
Notice when you come back to the body,
To the present moment,
You're welcomed every time,
Just like this,
Noticing how it feels to let go of striving and just be held in awareness.
Notice that there's a presence here,
Inside you and around you,
That's more real,
More alive than any story,
Just be soft,
Let yourself be accepted,
That's how it feels to open to life as it flows.
Tracy,
You've made it very hard for us to accept to come back into the world of light.
That concludes this week's practice.
To support the Rubin and this meditation series,
We invite you to become a member at rubinmuseum.
Org slash membership.
If you are looking for more inspiring content,
Please check out our other podcast,
Which uses art to explore the dynamic paths to enlightenment and what it means to wake up.
Season two,
Hosted by Raveena Arora,
Is out now and explores the transformative power of emotions using a mandala as a guide,
Available wherever you listen to podcasts.
And to stay up to date with the Rubin Museum's virtual and in-person offerings,
Sign up for a monthly newsletter at rubinmuseum.
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I am Tashi Chodron.
Thank you so much for listening.
Have a mindful day.
