About the Meditation
Meditation session led by Sharon Salzberg
The guided meditation begins at 14:58.
For centuries Himalayan practitioners have used meditation to quiet the mind, open the heart, calm the nervous system, and increase focus. Now Western scientists, business leaders, and the secular world have embraced meditation as a vital tool for brain health.
Whether you’re a beginner, a dabbler, or a skilled meditator seeking the company of others, join expert teachers in a forty-five-minute weekly program designed to fit into your lunch break. Each session will be inspired by a different work of art from the Rubin Museum’s collection and will include an opening talk, and a twenty-minute sitting session.
This program is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project and Parabola Magazine.
Related Artwork
Theme:Interdependence
Machik Labdron
Machik Labdron (1055–1153), one of the most prominent female masters and lineage holders in Tibetan Buddhism, appears deified in this painting as a dakini, a female spirit who assists in a Tantric practitioner’s spiritual development through teaching and other forms of inspiration. Machik Labdron transmitted the practice of the female meditation deity Vajrayogini so widely that she came to be identified with the goddess. Here she is surrounded by deities and lineage masters, including Vajradhara at top center and the feminine personification of wisdom, Prajnaparamita, orange with four hands in the clouds. To the upper left is her main instructor, the Indian master Phadampa Sanggye, who initiated her into a practice known as Chod, or severance practice, which involves the visualization of cutting away the human body, and ultimately the ego, as a means of reaching enlightenment. Machik Labdron is famous for helping establish Chod practice in Tibet.
About the Speaker
Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, has guided meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Sharon’s latest book is Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection. 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. Sharon has been a regular participant in many onstage conversations at the Rubin.
