This week’s meditation session led by Jon Aaron and the theme is New Beginnings. The guided meditation begins at 12:18.
Buzzing with energy, this abstracted fierce figure is a contemporary twist on depictions of Buddhist deities who help practitioners transcend obstacles. The contemporary artist Shezad Dawood blends cultural heritage with references to popular visual culture and materials—like the neon of this sculpture—to reexamine how we tell and perceive history.
Skull crowns often adorn the heads of wrathful deities. There are six small skulls and enveloping flames above the central figure’s elongated face. The glowing neon gives the sculpture a playful quality, and reveals the goodwill beneath the figure’s tough exterior.
Jon Aaron is a Dharma and mindfulness teacher based in New York and Chicago. Since 2006 he has taught at the New York Insight Meditation Center, offering Dharma and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) classes. He regularly leads retreats around the US. He is primarily grounded in the Theravada tradition, alongside non-dual and Mahayana approaches. His teaching emphasizes integrating Dharma and mindfulness into daily life to foster clarity in addressing personal and social challenges. His teachers include Matthew Flickstein and, more recently, Kittisaro and Thanissara through their Dharmapala program. Jon also studied contemplative care at the Zen Center for Contemplative Care and completed the Integrated Study and Practice program at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. He is a certified MBSR teacher and teacher trainer and a Somatic Experience Practitioner® In response to the pandemic, he and his partner, Upayadhi, launched the Space2Meditate community, offering daily meditation since March 2020. Additionally, he co-hosts the podcast Diggin’ the Dharma with scholar Doug Smith.
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