Rubin Museum Hosts Mindfulness Meditation on Impermanence Led by Lama Aria Drolma

Key facts

• The meditation session is led by Lama Aria Drolma and focuses on the theme of impermanence.
• The guided meditation begins at 13:16 in the video.
• The featured artwork is a 19th-century painting of Machik Labdron (1055–1153) from the Kham region, eastern Tibet, in pigments on cloth, held by the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art (C2010.3).
• Machik Labdron was a prominent female master and lineage holder in Tibetan Buddhism, trained in Chod by the Indian master Phadampa Sanggye.
• In the painting, Machik Labdron is depicted as a dakini and is identified with the goddess Vajrayogini due to her transmission of that practice.
• The painting exemplifies the later Encampment style of southeastern Tibet, characterized by an open landscape, spare pigment, and stylized clouds.
• Lama Aria Drolma is an ordained Buddhist teacher in the Karma Kagyu tradition and a graduate of the three-year-and-three-month retreat at Palpung Thubten Choling Monastery, New York.
• The Rubin Museum's collection contains nearly 4,000 objects spanning more than 1,500 years.