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About the Mindfulness Meditation Podcast

Meditation session led by Tracy Cochran.

The guided meditation begins at 16:38.

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 meditation session, and a closing discussion.

This program is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation with thanks to our presenting partners Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project and Parabola Magazine.

Related Artwork

White Tara; Eastern Tibet; 19th century; Ground mineral pigment on cotton; Rubin Museum of Art, C2006.66.524
White Tara; Eastern Tibet; 19th century; Ground mineral pigment on cotton; Rubin Museum of Art, C2006.66.524

Theme:Resilience

The vajra and bell””the two most common ritual implements used in Tibetan Buddhism””have particular significance in empowerment ceremonies. The vajra, a type of scepter, represents compassion, firmness, the uprooting of suffering, and that which is immovable, indestructible, and imperturbable. The bell represents wisdom (about the true, empty nature of reality) and the propagation of the truth. When the vajra and bell are used in an empowerment ritual, their combined compassion and wisdom are a means to liberate sentient beings from suffering.

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.

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