Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran at the Rubin Museum of Art

The theme for this meditation is Being Whole. 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 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 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.

Hello.

We're talking today and this whole month,

In fact,

About being whole.

And this idea of that we're exploring visually with that is that we're using fractals as a metaphor for this.

So a fractal is a pattern found in nature.

You might see it in a snowflake or a fern.

And it's this idea that the smallest unit is the same kind of shape and form as the largest expression of that.

So the tiniest little piece of a fern frond is actually reflects the shape of the fern itself.

And the idea with this is that,

You know,

There's a relationship between the part and the whole and that,

In fact,

They're intertwined and interconnected.

We've been so lucky to have Tracy Cochran back with us after a little while here.

And she's going to talk with us about this idea of being whole and what that means for our meditation practice.

And today we are looking at the Buddha of immeasurable life,

Amitayas.

So this is in a way a kind of visual representation.

You can think of this as also a metaphor for the Buddha's teachings.

There are so many teachings and it might feel overwhelming to think about what we have the potential to learn and grow from.

But getting to know one teaching deeply and well is kind of an experience of what you might get out of all of the teachings.

So there's a lot of potency in just a deep investigation here.

So we're looking here at the Buddha Amitayas.

And Amitayas means boundless life.

And he's holding in his hand a vase.

And that vase represents emptiness.

And the vase contains empty space within it,

But also Amrita,

Which is the nectar of immortality.

So as I mentioned,

Tracy Cochran is back with us and she is the editorial director of Parabola,

Which for 40 years has drawn upon the world's wisdom traditions to bring us stories and memoirs and poems and other beautiful expressions.

And actually you can find it for sale up in the shop if you're interested in taking a closer look at Parabola.

Please welcome Tracy Cochran.

Hi,

I'm very happy to be back.

And I feel like I'm back among friends.

And Don and I were talking before you came in that this really has become a sangha,

A community.

And you don't come here for a lecture from me,

You come here for an experience.

And I'm aware of that.

And I do too.

So I was delighted when they gave me this Buddha because the description said it's a Buddha with three bodies.

And I think it's wonderful.

If something goes wrong with this one that we have,

We have an extra two,

At least.

And we really do.

And so I looked up the word healing and discovered that it doesn't mean unbroken or un-scarred.

It means to become whole.

Isn't that interesting?

To join a greater wholeness or to become whole again.

And when we come into a room like this,

In a way there's something in us that always hungers for this.

It can be like a phantom limb sometime.

We don't know what we want so we try shopping,

Chocolate.

And we come into this room and we remember.

So I wanted to share a little story that we included in an issue of parabola called Ways of Healing that made an indelible impression on me because it's true.

And that's one of the bodies of this body,

The Buddha,

The truth body.

So in recent years at Sandy Hook Elementary School something terrible happened.

And I don't even need to tell you what it was.

Instantly you know.

So it was decided by the people of the town and the community that they would level that school and they would build a new school.

And the architect chosen to build this new place is a friend of mine,

A spiritual friend with a deep practice.

So he met with us and shared how they went about this.

First of all they invited the community and the children and the parents,

All the parents to take part and they listened closely.

Among their earliest meetings they walked around the grounds with someone who was a world expert in security and he said the very first thing you should keep in mind to make this safe is that this should be a beautiful place.

Isn't that interesting?

A beautiful,

Beautiful place open to nature where you want to sit down.

And they brought in experts on nature and you'll be interested to know that the impact of nature isn't just in trees but in great artworks like this.

Things that represent greater forces.

You feel them,

Don't you?

I was thinking when something shocking or upsetting happens a lot of time I'll say I want to be alone but I don't really mean that.

I mean I want to take a walk in nature.

Do you know what I mean?

I want to be with life.

So anyway they proceeded to build this beautiful school that had 360 degree views.

It was completely open.

And Barry,

My friend,

Said it's not safe to build a little fortress the way schools used to be.

Isn't that interesting?

You're impulse to be a fortress.

What's safe is to see.

We know that.

Like when we meditate we open.

We open our gaze to everything without judgment.

So they created this place where they could see for miles and miles and they also made it open to nature.

Barry said he knew he succeeded when a duck family walked straight into the school.

Right?

They didn't.

The ducks couldn't distinguish between inside and outside.

But he said remember when they were building and they were having people from the community come,

They had the people come and share their memories and impressions of Newtown and Sandy Hook,

Happy times of the land,

Of the nature,

Not just big deal happy times.

And he said remember Tracy,

There's a kind of remembering that's the past but there's also a kind of remembering that's the present.

And that was extraordinary to me because sati,

The word for mindfulness,

Means to remember.

And you come in this room and even if you're harried and you can't quite fit it in or you don't quite feel good,

At some point when we sit together we remember why we came.

We remember that we're bigger than we think.

We remember that we're not really isolated,

That we can open to each other and to life.

And they learned at Sandy Hook he was saying it was a trauma and we've all suffered traumas.

I'm not comparing it to that.

But life is traumatic.

And he said the way we heal,

The way we come to wholeness is collective,

Together,

Opening to life.

I feel this is true.

So back to this Buddha has three bodies and you can learn much more about it in the deep scholarly sense from the curator.

But I was relating to it in my own life and its first body is just its form,

Our form.

My form becomes increasingly disappointing with the years.

Things start to malfunction here and there.

The battery loses power a little bit.

And the second body is more subtle.

It's that body that we open to when we're with each other.

And we remember that we can be something to another person.

It can be a smile,

A warm presence.

You bring something just by sitting here.

And the third body is the truth,

Which is that we're part of something greater,

A greater wholeness.

And this is something we can know right now,

Very directly,

By sitting.

So we can take a comfortable seat with our feet planted firmly on the floor,

On the earth.

And our backs straight.

Eyes closed if we feel comfortable with closed eyes.

And notice how it feels to be safe here.

Even before we really begin.

I exist as I am,

Said Walt Whitman.

That is enough.

Notice how it feels to be enough.

Just as you are,

And to be completely welcome here.

Just as you are.

Realizing that when we bring our attention to the body,

Our seeing,

Without judgment,

We begin to relax and soften naturally.

We begin to remember the life in the body.

The breathing,

The vibrancy of the sensations in the body.

Breathing with the outside,

Without words.

And as the body begins to soften and relax,

We bring the attention to the breathing,

Without changing it in any way.

We simply notice the in-breath and the out-breath.

And at the same time,

All kinds of things will be going on.

Sensations of air,

Sensations inside the body.

Thoughts will bubble up.

Realizing that all of this is natural and welcome.

We gently notice when we're taken away and bring the attention home again to the breathing and to the experience of being here right now.

All right?

There you go.

Noticing that stillness doesn't need to be perfect silence inside,

Just softness,

Non-resistance to what's happening.

A willingness to notice when we're taken and gently come home to the breathing and the experience of being here now.

This room'syou are in.

Go to Beadaholique.

Com for all of your beading supplies needs!

Noticing as we grow more quiet,

More concentrated,

We also feel with life.

Open to it.

When you find yourself sleeping,

Dreaming,

Thinking,

Gently notice this with no judgment and welcome yourself home to the present,

To the breath and the body and life.

Is this a six?

Noticing how meditation is a movement of return,

A moment of noticing and welcoming ourselves home,

Just that.

Noticing how it feels to come home and bask in the light of awareness without judgment.

Noticing how it feels to come home and bask in the light of awareness without judgment.

Noticing how it feels to come home and bask in the light of awareness without judgment.

Noticing how it feels to come home and bask in the light of awareness without judgment.

We begin to remember we belong here.

We begin to remember we belong here.

Thank you very much.

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 Rubin Museum members,

Just one of the many benefits of membership.

Thank you for listening.

Have a mindful day.

Reviews

Love 💕 these🙏🏻😊

The beautiful space makes us safer. Made me realize this is true in life🧚🏻‍♂️

Mindfulness is about being open to all experiences ... True words 😄

I always enjoy the Rubin series. A little theory and a little practice. 😀

Wonderful! I love the concept of doing this at a museum. Thank you for offering this 💖🙏

Beautiful, just beautiful, thank you Tracy. 😘

Tracy Cochran is a wonderful teacher. Her brief talk sets the grounding framework as she guides us through the meditation. This is now my "go to" when I need a guided meditation.

Thank you very good

This is my favorite so far of this wonderful series at the Rubin Museum. The introductory talk was great, as were Tracy's helpful instructions. I love the way I felt as if I was sitting with the group at the museum.

Wow. Just wow! The concept of tying meditation to art is fantastic. This practice was well rooted in it's overall story with plenty of space for silence and being present.