Mindfulness Meditation · Liberation Through Listening
This week’s meditation session is led by Tracy Cochran and the theme is Liberation through Listening.
Text and Illuminations of the Hundred Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the Intermediate State (Bardo); Tibet; ca. 15th century; Pigments on cloth; 2 5/8 × 12 1/8 in. (individual page dimensions); Rubin Museum of Art; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, gift of the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation; F1998.16.5
The deities shown here are associated with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Tibetans believed that hearing is the last sense to leave the body, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead was often read to people who were recently deceased in hopes they would hear it and gain liberation through listening. These texts might also be used by a guru to empower a student so that they can perform meditations to prepare for their encounters in the bardo, the state between death and rebirth. By practicing meditations prior to death, it is believed that the student can take advantage of the bardo state in order to become enlightened.
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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