Mindfulness Meditation · Change
This week’s meditation session is led by Lavina Shamdasani and the theme is Change. The guided meditation begins at 12:38.
Leg Bone Trumpet (Kang Ling); Tibet; 18th-19th century; Human bone, copper, coral, leather; 14 1/4 × 3 × 3 1/2 in.; Rubin Museum of Art; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, Gift of Robert and Lois Bayils; SC2019.3.2
The process of dismantling the ego is a type of change. Change could also be found when Buddhists “rhythmically rotate the drum to beat it at appropriate moments of their ritual,” trying to transform their perceptions.
Buddhist practitioners who engage in the practice of “cutting the ego” (chod) use implements such as this during their meditation and rituals. Traditionally, they would engage in this practice at charnel grounds, places where dead bodies decompose or are eaten by vultures, to facilitate their experiences. These yogis visualize, while reciting verses and mantras of the tantric ritual, that they dismantle their ego. They blow the trumpet to summon spirits and other beings inhabiting the charnel ground and offer them their visualized cut-up body as an offering. They also rhythmically rotate the drum to beat it at appropriate moments of their ritual, which aids in transforming their perceptions.
Dr. Rebecca Li, a dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen, is the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community. She teaches meditation and dharma classes, gives public lectures, and leads retreats in North America and Europe. Li is the author of Allow Joy into Our Hearts: Chan Practice in Uncertain Times, and her book Illumination: A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method was published by Shambhala Publications in 2023. She is a sociology professor and lives with her husband in New Jersey.
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