Mindfulness Meditation · Care
This week’s meditation session is led by Kaira Jewel Lingo and the theme is Care. The guided meditation begins at 15:41.
White Tara with Long Life Deities; Tibet; 19th century; Pigments on cloth; 27 3/8 × 18 1/4 × 2 1/4 in. (estimated); Rubin Museum of Art; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, gift of the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation; F1996.32.5
According to Buddhist belief, at the moment of death we have an opportunity to attain an enlightened state of mind. But our own karma brings up various visions, including terrifying ones. If we do not recognize them as projections of our own mind, we cannot reach the enlightened state or a good rebirth. This painting depicts the deities described in a 14th-century text The Peaceful and Wrathful Deities: The Profound Teachings of Self-Liberated Wisdom Mind, as well as the famous Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State. The teachings of this text allow practitioners to prepare and train their minds for this future eventuality. Often ritual specialists read these instructions to the deceased as the means of guiding them through the difficult process of transitioning to a future existence.
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in blending spirituality with social justice. Her work continues the Engaged Buddhist movement developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, and she draws inspiration from her parents’ stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. After living as an ordained nun for 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastic community, Kaira Jewel now teaches internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate, and social justice with a focus on activists, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth. Based in New York, she offers spiritual mentoring to groups and is the author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption from Parallax Press.
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