Mindfulness Meditation · Intentionality
This week’s meditation session is led by Sharon Salzberg and the theme is Intentionality. The guided meditation begins at 15:05.
Prayer Wheel; Tibet; 19th - 20th century; Wood, metal, and pigments; 94 × 33 1/4 × 32 in. (estimate); Rubin Museum of Art; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, Gift of Thomas Isenberg; SC2010.32a-h
In Tibetan Buddhist culture, followers are instructed to spin a prayer wheel filled with thousands of inscribed mantras, or mani, written on paper tightly wrapped around a central pole inside a cylinder that encases them. It is believed that turning the wheel has the same effect as reciting the prayers and mantras, leading to the accumulation of merit and wisdom while purifying negative karma for a practitioner; it also releases these mantras into the world, benefitting countless beings.
This stationery prayer wheel would have been placed outside of a temple or shrine so visitors could turn the wheel while circumambulating it or while walking into or out of the temple. This circumambulation, repetition of mantra, and wheel spinning are highly ritualized.
Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, has guided meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Her latest book is Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World. 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 bestseller Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation, Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, and Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Ms. Salzberg has been a regular participant in the Rubin’s many on-stage conversations and regards the Rubin as a supplemental office.
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