Tracy Cochran

A meditation session led by Tracy Cochran. If you missed this program, check out the podcast, now live in the Rubin Media Center.

For centuries Himalayan practitioners have used meditation to quiet the mind, open the heart, calm the nervous system, and increase focus. Mindfulness meditation offers both a refuge from the world around us, and an opportunity to engage with it more consciously.

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. Each session is inspired by a different work of art from the Rubin Museum’s collection. Designed to fit into your lunch break, the program includes an opening talk, a twenty-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. Chairs will be provided.

Presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg and the New York Insight Meditation Center. This program is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation.

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Theme: Community

Above is an eighteenth-century thankga painting of the Buddha giving a teaching at Vulture’s Peak. Located in North Eastern India, Vulture’s Peak is an important site for many of the Buddha’s teachings. His public teachings formed the basis of his community as he travelled throughout the region. In this particular painting, the Buddha sits holding a single flower in his right hand. Most of his followers appear to be confused, but the monk Mahakashyapa smiles in response, showing his understanding of the true ineffable meaning of the Buddha’s teachings. Mahakashyapa would eventually found the lineage that would become zen tradition, which continues to focus on meditation rather than the study of Buddhist scripture.

About the Speaker

Tracy Cochran is editorial director of Parabola, a quarterly magazine that for forty years has drawn on the world’s cultural and wisdom traditions to explore the questions that all humans share. She has been a student of meditation and spiritual practices for decades and teaches mindfulness meditation and mindful writing at New York Insight Meditation Center and throughout the greater New York area. In addition to Parabola, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Psychology Today, O Magazine, New York Magazine, the Boston Review, and many other publications and anthologies. For more information please visit tracycochran.org.