Tracy Cochran

A meditation session led by Tracy Cochran. If you missed this program, check out thepodcast, now live in theRubin Media Center.

For centuries Himalayan practitioners have used meditation to quiet the mind, open the heart, calm the nervous system, and increase focus. Mindfulness meditation offers both a refuge from the world around us, and an opportunity to engage with it more consciously.

Whether you’re a beginner, a dabbler, or a skilled meditator seeking the company of others, join expert teachers in a forty-five-minute weekly program. Each session is inspired by a different work of art from the Rubin Museum’s collection. Designed to fit into your lunch break, the program includes an opening talk, a twenty-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. Chairs will be provided.

Presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg and the New York Insight Meditation Center. This program is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation.

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Theme: Seeking Refuge

The tantric deity Hevajra stands in the middle of his mandala, a graphic representation of his palace, in union with his consort Nairatmya. In order to use mandala visualization for meditation, a practitioner must be ritually initiated into the mandala, in effect taking refuge in the celestial abode of the deity. Once a part of the mandala, the practitioner can use it to transform himself or herself into an enlightened being, like Hevajra in the center. By becoming a buddha, the practitioner can then provide a refuge for other beings.

About the Speaker

Tracy Cochran is editorial director of Parabola, a quarterly magazine that for forty years has drawn on the world’s cultural and wisdom traditions to explore the questions that all humans share. She has been a student of meditation and spiritual practices for decades and teaches mindfulness meditation and mindful writing at New York Insight Meditation Center and throughout the greater New York area. In addition to Parabola, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Psychology Today, O Magazine, New York Magazine, the Boston Review, and many other publications and anthologies. For more information please visit tracycochran.org.