Sharon Salzberg

A meditation session led by Sharon Salzberg. If you missed this program, check out the podcast, now live in the Rubin Media Center.

For centuries Himalayan practitioners have used meditation to quiet the mind, open the heart, calm the nervous system, and increase focus. Now Western scientists, business leaders, and the secular world have embraced meditation as a vital tool for brain health.

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 designed to fit into your lunch break. Each session will be inspired by a different work of art from the Rubin Museum’s collection and will include an opening talk, a twenty-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. Chairs will be provided.

Presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, the New York Insight Meditation Center, and the Interdependence Project.

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Theme: Community

Above is a fourteenth-century copper stupa made in Tibet. While this one is only a few feet tall, stupas can range in size from a few inches to several stories. They have been used as burial mounds for important religious teachers since before the Buddha’s lifetime. According to legend, when the Buddha passed away eight princes divided his ashes, with each creating a stupa in his own kingdom. During the third century BCE, the great Indian king Ashoka took the contents of those eight stupas and spread them across 80,000 stupas, symbolizing the dissemination of the Buddhist religion throughout his empire. Today, large stupas still serve as the centers of communities. The practice of circumambulation, known as “kora” in Tibetan, is a common social activity in which people meet and discuss local events.

About the Speaker

Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, has guided meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Sharon’s latest books are Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connections and Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace. She is a weekly columnist for On Being, a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, and the author of several other books including the New York Times best-seller Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation, Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, and Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Sharon has been a regular participant in the Rubin’s many on-stage conversations.