Mindfulness Meditation · Impermanence
This week’s meditation session is led by Tracy Cochran and the theme is Impermanence. The guided meditation begins at 17:48.
Wheel of Life; Tibet; 18th century; Pigments on cloth; 25 × 17 5/8 in. (estimated); Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, gift of the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation; F1997.40.10
In Tibet, the Wheel of Existence is the most ubiquitous visual teaching tool that explains the cyclical process of life, death, and rebirth. The scenes within are pictorial expressions of the impersonal laws of karmic cause and effect, that ones’ own actions, both virtuous and wicked, bring about reward and retribution and will determine our fate in the next life.
While the ultimate goal in Buddhism is to escape this cycle of rebirth by attaining enlightenment, Tibetans recognize this as almost impossible for ordinary people to achieve, and so their first priority is to try to avoid a negative rebirth. The Wheel of Existence diagram is labeled below to help identify the six possible realms of rebirth and the affliction associated with each realm. At the center are the three root causes of this cycle of birth, death, and rebirth depicted as animals.
Tracy Cochran has been a student and teacher of meditation and spiritual practice for decades. She is the founder of the Hudson River Sangha. In addition to offering meditation online, Tracy has taught mindfulness meditation and mindful writing at the Rubin Museum and the New York Insight Meditation Center, as well as in schools, corporations, and other venues worldwide. She is also a writer and the editorial director of Parabola, an acclaimed quarterly magazine that seeks to bring timeless spiritual wisdom to the burning questions of the day.
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