Mindfulness Meditation With Tracy Cochran 12/05/2022

The Rubin Museum of Art presents a weekly meditation session led by a meditation teacher from the area, with each session focusing on a specific work of art. This podcast is a recording of a Mindfulness Meditation online session and a 20-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. The guided practice begins at 16:43.

Transcript

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 Monday 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 practice currently held virtually.

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 Lance Foundation for American Buddhism.

And now,

Please enjoy your practice.

Hello everybody,

Tashi Delek,

And welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Online with Rubin Museum of Art.

I am Tashi Chodron and I'm happy to be your host today.

It's so great to see so many of you on the chat joining from all over Manhattan,

Brooklyn,

San Miguel,

Wow,

Seattle,

Silver Springs.

I see Lancaster and San Francisco,

Wisconsin,

Jackson Heights,

And as far as Scotland,

Thank you so much.

The Rubin is Museum of Himalayan Art and Ideas in New York City,

And we are so glad to have all of you join us for our weekly program where we combine art and meditation online.

Inspired from our collection,

We will take a look at work of art from our collection.

We will hear a brief talk from our teacher,

And then we will have a short set,

About 15 to 20 minutes for the meditation guided by our teacher.

Now let's take a look at today's theme and artwork.

This month's theme is gratitude,

And the art connection for today is this beautiful illustrated manuscript depicting the story of water,

Origin from Nepal,

From the period of 1800 to 1899 manuscript,

Gift of Shelly and Donald Rubin Foundation.

The connection to the theme is the depiction of gratitude toward gods.

So Nepal is known as the land of majestic Himalayas and natural beauty,

But it is equally a land of diversity and colorful festivals.

In fact,

This art directly connects to monsoon season,

And I believe there are five main monsoon seasons festival,

Which is celebrated on the basis of lunar calendar.

And Nepal's main source of income is agricultural,

So the rain is one of the main important for a good crop.

So this illustrated manuscript containing five folios was created by Nepalese artisans during that period of 1800 to 1899,

And this folds like a map.

It depicts a drought,

As you see here,

Its subsequent and mirroring the weather patterns of the monsoons.

The top folio depicts two brothers kind of fighting,

As you see here,

There's a community of people lined up and in the middle,

You see these two figures sort of wrestling.

And so I believe that is two brothers fighting an unnatural and inauspicious event that upsets the local gods and the spirits,

Which then causes drought to occur.

And the drought was resolved finally,

When a yogi practiced austerities and gained the power to make rain.

So the other folios,

As you see here,

You can see a lot of offerings are offered to the local gods,

You know,

To make peace with the spirits.

And therefore,

Then there is rain.

As the rains returns,

It restored the natural order of things and left those suffering full of gratitude for the returning water.

So on the bottom folio,

As you can see here,

A lot of people carrying heavy baskets with the stick on the shoulder,

So kind of like abundance.

So that's what the scene is depicting,

Gratitude for the returning of the water and gratitude for the blessing.

Okay,

Now let's bring on a teacher for today.

And our teacher is Tracy Cochran.

Tracy has been a student and teacher of meditation and spiritual practice for decades.

She's the founder of the Hudson River Sangha,

Which is now virtual and is open to all.

The link for her weekly meditations can be found on her website,

TracyCochran.

Org.

In addition,

Tracy has taught mindfulness meditation and mindful writing at the Rubin Museum of Art and the New York Insight Meditation Center,

As well as in schools,

Corporations and other venues worldwide.

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

An acclaimed quarterly magazine that seeks to bring timeless spiritual wisdom to the burning questions of the day.

Her writings,

Podcasts and other details can be found on her website and on parabola.

Org.

Tracy,

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you,

Tashi.

I'm always glad to be here with you,

To be here with all of you.

And as Tashi showed us and we'll unpack further,

There's this fascinating manuscript page.

We have a few moments before we meditate to consider what drought,

What disharmony or fighting or unease and then drought can mean to us.

And it means something very specific,

Of course,

To people around the world,

Especially now,

People who depend on agriculture,

People facing the brunt of climate change.

But it also has an internal resonance,

Like all great art.

And one thing that I found so alluring and attractive about this image is that we all know how it feels to go through times of disharmony with other people or in our lives,

With our jobs,

With our own sense of our place in the world.

Things seem off.

Something might have hurt us badly.

We might have lost a job.

We might be scared about the future.

Or we can just suddenly go through a dry patch in our spiritual practice.

And the sense of what we've attained,

Some sense of connection with ourselves,

Of life opening up can just be gone.

And there we are again in the desert,

Bewildered.

I loved discovering that the word bewilderment means to be in the wilderness,

To be in the desert.

So one thing I wanted to share is that these dry times,

Times of bewilderment are built in to all great spiritual traditions,

Including Buddhism,

Where the Buddha sat in the darkness of the forest.

And this happens in the Christian calendar to be the time of Advent,

Adventus.

The word,

The Latin root,

Means something is coming.

We don't know what it is.

We're waiting in the dark,

Waiting in the wilderness.

So we hit a point in our practice where we're not feeling expansion or peace or connection.

What do we do?

How do we make it rain?

In the illustration,

There's a yogi who is described in the description as performing certain austerities.

Yogis were renunciants.

They practiced renunciation.

And of course,

There are different kinds of renunciation of food,

Of shelter,

Of your name.

You can change your name and take a spiritual name of your home.

And I want to propose to those of us who are practicing today that the innermost form of renunciation is something that's available to us,

To all of us,

Which is to let go of clinging to who we think we are and how we think things will turn out,

Especially in times when you might feel lonely or in conflict or outside of where you would like to be,

In exile in some sense.

And notice at those times,

Maybe it's due to a breakup or a job change or some change in fortunes.

Notice that in those times,

It's almost inevitable and automatic for us to begin to think this is the end or it's all downhill from here.

Things are going to dry up for me now.

Or maybe it's just looking at your face on a wintry morning like I did this morning and thinking,

Oh,

Aging,

Aging is gone.

It's all downhill from here.

And not to do anything about that,

Not to reach in the toolbox of your spiritual practice for some remedy,

But notice that we can see this with gentleness,

With love,

Even with a touch of love.

If it's a bathroom mirror in the morning,

You can say,

I love you to this face that has got such alarm the moment before.

Or in the midst of a story,

Oh,

Life is getting very dark,

Civilization is collapsing,

There is nothing to hope for.

To say,

Not even in words,

That's okay.

This is a story.

It's a story.

To invite ourselves to see that this thinking,

These attitudes that we assume,

These feelings that arise inside are not all that we are.

And that when things befall us,

Even very difficult things,

Breakups,

Robberies,

Loss of jobs,

It's not personal.

This isn't an invitation to be a kind of robot and just see everything as mechanical.

It's an invitation to see that things happen due to causes and conditions.

They're not personal to a fixed self.

And that there is within us another awareness,

Something vast.

This is something that has been pointed towards in every great tradition.

That there is a compassionate awareness that sees,

That can hold our experience,

That isn't dependent,

That isn't tightly attached to our stories about what is happening and what that means or what that says about us.

That if someone breaks up with us,

It must mean we're a loser,

To put it harshly.

Or if we lose a job,

It means we're a failure.

Or if our writing is rejected by a publisher,

It means we're no good.

No,

It's happening because of the turning of numerous wheels.

Just like climate change is interfering with the weather.

And that the first thing to do,

Taking inspiration from that yogi in the illustration,

Is to do nothing,

Seemingly.

To not take some aggressive action,

To not join the fight,

But to sit and see.

To relinquish.

There's a beautiful word for renunciation,

To relinquish our attachment to results,

Our rushing to conclusions.

And to notice,

As we'll notice in a few minutes when we sit together,

That sometimes when we just meet our experience with compassionate awareness,

It begins to rain.

Not physically,

Although sometimes that can happen while we're meditating,

It will start raining,

But in the sense that when we think that life is all dried up,

That it's barren of all hope,

Just practicing opening to ourselves with great gentleness,

Opening to a loving awareness that sees with compassion,

Can open the door to life again.

We begin to realize for ourselves again that we're more than our thinking mind,

That we're alive and connected to life,

And that hope and kindness and surprises of all kinds are happening.

Just when you've given up hope,

You walk down the street,

Someone smiles at you.

I'm not suggesting that life is a fairy tale.

I'm suggesting,

As we'll discover right now,

That life is alive,

Flowing,

Opening,

Blooming,

Raining.

So let's sit together and see for ourselves that what we take sometimes in our darkest thoughts to be the end might be a new beginning.

So we take a comfortable seat,

Meaning back upright,

As upright as we comfortably can,

And feet firmly on the floor.

And notice how it feels to let yourself have a soft but complete experience of yourself,

To take in an impression of how it feels to be sitting here in this body,

Breathing.

Notice that there is an awareness here,

A knowing that isn't thinking.

It's not narrating your experience,

Not labeling it,

Simply being with.

And notice how it feels to let that awareness be kind,

Gentle,

Completely accepting.

Notice how it feels to let go of all striving,

To relinquish it.

And just sink into the experience of being here in the present moment.

Soft,

Open.

Not reaching for anything.

Just being.

Just rest in stillness.

Knowing the stillness as inside you.

The stillness of the body and deeper.

It's an awareness that sees,

That embraces,

That opens to what is with compassion.

Notice when you begin thinking,

Planning,

Dreaming,

That you can gently begin again,

Bringing the attention to the body,

To the present moment,

Gently opening to an awareness that's spacious and kind.

Notice how alive the stillness is.

Meeting everything that comes up,

Including pain,

Difficulty.

Notice how it feels to be met by an attention that's curious and caring.

And completely allowing,

Accepting.

Noticing as you make this movement of return to your earth,

Your experience.

Relinquishing an attachment to thinking,

To come back to the experience of the body.

Notice that we begin to remember that we're alive,

Open to life,

To breath,

Sensation,

Impressions of all kinds.

Coming in,

Going out.

We begin to notice an ignition.

Just in presence,

In awareness.

Just come home to the experience of being alive in this moment.

Undeniable.

You and notice how nourishing this awareness is like rain on parched earth allowing ourselves to be soothed and nourished by it you noticing that coming home to the body and to the moment is opening up to life seeks to sustain you,

Support you coming home to who we really are coming home to being,

To presence you you you you you you you you you you thank you thank you so much for that beautiful session Tracy that concludes this week's practice if you would like to support the Ruben and this meditation series we invite you to become a member of the Ruben if you're looking for more inspiring content please check out our other podcast Awaken 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 thank you for listening have a mindful day

Reviews

Always good and full of practical reminders. Thank you 🙏🏼❤️

Wonderful!