[197] Finding Freedom in Not Knowing Mediation with Mayra Lorenzana – Miles
10:53PM Mar 12, 2025
Speakers:
John Ferrari
Keywords:
Meditation
peacefulness
not knowing
free will
karma
mind fluctuations
noble thoughts
ethical mind
wisdom
open awareness
dream body
relaxation
breath awareness
mindfulness
intuition.
So we have a little bit more of that one article today, which I, of course, I said, oh my goodness, I'm going to be in the front of the group. Let me review it, because I read it two or three weeks ago when I was reviewing to see to talk a little bit more. And I just see that there's so much, there's no way that I can cover just a few comments today too. But welcome. Welcome to another meditation. I think Joe or Jeffrey are with you next, next Monday. It's kind of lovely to have the continuation that we have here with classes one after the other, but it's also I was telling Kate and other people's at the at night conferences. I don't want them to get too tired of me, because it's too many of me. I don't have that much to say, but I find ways to say something, I guess. But in reading that same article, one of the peaceful things that I find at this state and age of my life. I would be 64 this month. I want lots of presents. I will let you know I don't know. Is the fact of the peacefulness that I feel saying I don't know, not knowing, and there is so much freedom into not knowing that doesn't mean that we don't seek, that we don't practice, that we don't learn, but there are some of these mysteries that we want to create concepts to understand. But the reality that is in the process of the thinking, is in the process of just chiseling away that we do with the thinking. And there is certain amount of peacefulness that comes to say, You know what feels right? Doesn't feel right, but I do not know. And karma is one of those subjects we just do not know. But the way that this article presented it to to me, and I try to share with with you, is that sometimes we are looking for more and more information, but do we need the final answer? We probably would not get it, because whatever final answer we have would be a concept that is a distortion and that How were the moments that led to this moment? Because the conditions that we have, we cannot no because things bring things that are alike. But the truth is that was coming next, we don't, but the ability to choose in the moment, I find it to be like the jewel,
the jewel of the of the free will that we have,
and also the freedom to know that if I don't react the right way is not because I'm a bad person, or because I have sin or because I'm don't learn enough, or because I don't have the enough t shirt, or I didn't say enough mantras or whatever prostrations, the reason where we react like that is because we are not in a vacuum. We all lean into each other. We lean into each moment, every moment, every word, every action. It doesn't come
from
nowhere. It is a dance of expression that sometimes in a meditation, we may see those little garments, but that we really do not know, but it forms who we are, and that this is not solid you are. Guys are not solid and we are completely apart, but we are again in the same place, and that dissonance of not knowing in that space is the freedom. One thing that I was going to do for the next one is Barry. Knows this, one of the great aha moments that I had online with Andrew, is that he has this little video of Domino's where he has one domino after the other, and he says, you know, at the beginning, you're really, really close, and then begins, and they takes one dominant sometimes there's more space and more space, and one day, that domino is going to go down, and it's not going to touch the other one, so it doesn't have the reaction that would have the contraction that we have, the reactions that may create something that we don't want. And then one day, I'm looking at him, and I say. Hey, hey, is the space in between. We concentrate in the dominoes and the cause and maybe the effects, but we cannot stay still and find the silence of the space in between and in meditation, we have Windows to them. And in meditation, we get familiar with the movements of the mind, like in yoga, one of the Yoga Sutras is the movements of the mind, the fluctuations of the mind. And the fluctuations of the mind is what may create the next karma, the way that we react to it. But there's one more thing, and is that in meditation, if we stay in the dull moment of just
peacefulness,
we may do so peaceful, but that is a trap.
And when I heard that, it made me really mad,
because it feels good. It feels so good, but that is the trap, because what is reactive for us is to create, is the creation of the new moment with the new action. And that's the karma the new action. And there was a certain amount of activism that is required from us in the forging of the next expression of the next moment. And that is also dissonance, because we react from our gut, many times, with anger, with defense, with principles. And there is some of that that is necessary, but we have to come with the right view. And the right view is the right view of wisdom.
And in wisdom is no wisdom of knowing more, but the wisdom of knowing what
they call shunyata, but the lack of solidity of the reality that we live. So we're going back to what we're going back to Everything changes every no moment is solid interdependence, but it comes from that observation, the observation through ethics, through meditation, through contemplation, and in those contemplations with the conversations that We have with the knowledge therapy of karma, of the four noble truth of the right view, of patience, of equanimity, of generosity, all those in itself, they're concepts, but it helps us in that one process of coming to that space And that space between the Dominus, which is the space in between the thoughts, with which the space between the breath, which is the space when we sneeze, which is the space of ah,
it's all the same.
Anybody would like to say something about what they read in the article that we now could comment, agreement, disagreement. Maybe John, do you have anything
so? Um, thank you. I think you some summed it up as I as I read it, and that's really kind of news to me, although I'd heard the part about, you know, being comfortable in meditation might not be advisable, you know. But yeah, that that's how I read the article, too. And it gives it's, it's a lot to work on, because it's right in the moment. And, you know, it's hard to stay in the moment enough, as it is. And then I gotta read it again.
Me, too. Every time I come here,
I read it again, because and I tie it up,
for example, oh, I'm very excited. You that the contraction, remember, how into talks about the contraction, in the contraction be in the moment where you have, can have, also the contraception, so you don't create the next one. That's the moment of pure will and creation, but sometimes it seems so much more difficult to understand. But in there is such a line between knowing how to relax, because if you don't know how to relax, your body cannot talk to you. If you don't know how to relax. Relax. We were talking. Was talking to Kate, when we have anger, if we don't know how to relax, you did. The body just gets tighter,
tighter. I have to, right?
And if you don't know how to relax, you cannot breathe, and you're and you're gonna so we need to, have to relax. But for what to stay there, then just have a good bottle of wine. It's just to be able to know the mind and the fluctuations of the mind, and then the space in between the nominals gets longer and longer and longer, and we can just rest in that space. Yes, very Yeah.
Yeah, so, being a simpleton, I totally, you know, I understand, you know, the spaces between thoughts, and that's that's always amongst a lot of different parts. So I've been thinking about this a lot. And you know, you mentioned the Four Noble Truths, and what's his name? Robert Fuhrman, I remember once saying that he kind of translated as the true the four thoughts of the nobleman. That's the Bucha, the noble men, the noble person. And I've been thinking about that a lot, so that the idea for me is to think of myself as noble. And that create a mind that has a container for noble thoughts. So that, if I think that way, that means that the thoughts that come in, the thoughts that aren't noble, I can really discard easily, because, well, it's not noble farm, you know, it's coming in, but, but when the noble thoughts come in, you know, I can, I can recognize them as noble thoughts. And that's what I want my mind to be, a noble mind, see. So it's not, not dealing with a little, you know, spaces are there, and they help and stuff. But the whole thing is to develop a mind that is noble, as the Buddha would say. And then, you know, the little things that go wrong, don't, don't get you, or you don't, you don't think about, well, I missed that space. Okay, so you missed the space. But still, my mind is, is like a garden, you know, a noble garden that that basically is, that is something I can concentrate on daily. You know, wake up and not worry about the space between the thoughts, though, I know, I know that, but to say, Okay, today, you know, I'm going to plant, you know, today is my noble garden, and I've got these flowers growing in it, and then the whole day that, that's all I'd be a gardener, see, and, and, and it's noble. I just like the term. I like the idea. I've been meditating on that. So I thought, you know, when we're talking about being in the now, what kind of now do I want to be in? I want to be in a noble Now, if that makes sense, no, it
makes a lot of things. It's beautiful, because in that way, I love this sense of spaciousness. But it's not that it you're doing it just noble mind, and no person noble thoughts is what works for you, and that's beautiful. But when you do that, what you is, you break the pattern, or whatever is not noble, or whatever, it was no serving you, and that by itself, you get there. It's like when your parents says, once you notice that you have drifted away, then you're there already. There is no more to find. There is no more to look so that, for me, that you call Noble is the space, but you bring it from another perspective to you. That's why the many of the traditions we begin with the ethics, and you don't see it. I mean, you don't say ethics, sounds a little stronger. I like it more the way that you say it. But in mind that is an ethical mind or not, in mind that is always looking with intention and aspiration to be a noble thought and a noble person by itself. What is doing? Because that's your creation. So your Creator more of that. So that is an enlightened society, that's an enlightened person. So that is absolutely beautiful. But in many things, we begin what was the ethics, the contemplation, and then the wisdom. And the wisdom comes when you see how things just come together. So wisdom, instead of knowledge, is knowing the lack of solidity and and of the of the reality that we that we see, but I love that any
other comments, love it, love it, love it.
I think that's so from this perspective. I think that is what for me, kind of. Makes sense for me. It's more logical sense. There was a practice when I began to do this, maybe on 2012 or something that they call a book. It's a Tibetan thing where you have a little book and you write six times a day, and you get a principle for the day, and then you write, if it's no harm or something like that, it is. I reacted really bad with my child, or I, I, you know, I listen properly to somebody, and you keep kind of tracks of the good thoughts and the not good thoughts during the day. And wow, when you look back to a few months of keeping that kind of log, it takes a lot, but it just you, you begin to see the patterns, and sometimes self destructed patterns that we have. That's something that we can talk the six time book, which is done in many times in monasteries.
But let's do it.
Just realize, let's do it. Let's just work a little bit here and there to that process where we can come to that kind of
little bit more subtle piece.
They were asking me to write a little bit of what to write to and
for the new website. And I was, I go back to to what I have said to you many times I'm quite
inerted into what I read. And that one very, very tough on me and my practice. But at the end, my favorite, favorite thing to do is just to notice, to notice the magic of the moment, to notice how many tools we have, to see how many times we see things during the day today in Michigan, it was a nice kind of day in the high 50s, so you can almost feel the the branches beginning to bud, and you can feel the earth waking up. And I saw a little girl going with that violin for a music class today with her summer dress, walking by the sidewalk, and I was feeling pretty sorry because I still had a lot of telephone calls to return. And she looks at me, and I said, My God, this is an angel. She's like seven years old, with her summer dress and her instrument her hand. She says to me, I love your earrings. And I look at her and says, I love everything about you. Look at that face. Do you like to play music? And we exchanged maybe 30 seconds of magic,
but I had to stop
and look at her beautiful face in her way to music class with her violin and her summer dress in everything that I was thinking about just went away. It just washed away. It washed away. And I know that we all here had a little bit of a glimpse of a moment like that at some point today. It could have been a flower, it could have been fresh air. It could have been that the coffee tasted better today, but as we begin to close our eyes, I would invite you to feel that kind of if it was not today, maybe last night, maybe this morning, maybe before just check in. But can you close your eyes and find an experience similar to that? And it could be that, when I told the story, you feel the same kind of love.
Just notice where did you feel it I
and invite you before we go through the pose to find an intention and aspiration for this few minutes today, you
you can have a very big aspiration, But just think about you right now.
It's okay. I
maybe a certain knowledge, a solution, a health issue, a family member that is close to us with a health issue and.
And with a little bit of visualization, imagine that you can write in A little piece of paper
that question, that aspiration i
and then you're folding it that with love, and you're going to maybe place it in a little imaginary look like A little jeweled lock, like it for a necklace. And
and that's coming right into your heart,
and just knowing that we use these images, not because by themselves, they had any special power, but just as a way to guide our consciousness, our intention.
And he has as much power as anything that we put our intention and our will into,
and then bringing to mind the day to day.
Now repeat quiet for a minute or so, and just think about your day, and imagine your day being like a point to point, drawing like forming an image from Waking up breakfast to the Next moment until now you
the Things that you read, the people that you've talked to, the things that you listen to,
the things that we ate.
They're all part of this moment, and this is Just a little bit of a window for today you
Why do I like to do this very frequently? Because sometimes we go so fast that we forget. I
so now noticing your body a little bit more and maybe feeling a little bit more weight into your sit bones and.
Noticing your feet,
and imagine that you can trace your feet with your mind. So
feeling the vibrations of your feet, the spaces between your toes.
Sometimes, I'd like to imagine like a little Botox the bottom of our feet, your energy going down and down, grounding us, feeling supported.
And the energy comes up your legs onto your seat. Notice whether you can feel the bottom of your spine and with your eyes closed, just noticing whether you're leaning one way or the other, forward or backwards. Just trying to find a sense of ease to respond.
I only give suggestions you allow the body to begin to talk back to you.
Placing the palms of your hands and your thighs, if that is the way you like,
shoulders more or less over your hips,
strong back foot now stiff and open. Heart like to just allow my collar bones to come to the sides, and the heart area comes out and up a tiny bit.
The crown of the head goes up like it's being pulled by thread, and my chin goes down and back a little bit, opening the back of the head, almost That's the back of the Cobra's neck, just wide and
your eyes may be closed, but not tight.
Let your lips touch very lightly, or have a little opening, as they were being say,
you place your tongue the top palette behind the top teeth, though I like mine to float, especially when there's shorter meditations, like right now,
when I do that, I feel like a little opening in The back of my throat up into my Head and
when we get to the right pose, right pose for us by now, that by itself, may be enough and
Let's just listen to the breath for a little bit. Just choose where you want to place your attention, I like to place my attention in the area between my open lip and the beginning of my nose, nostrils, or it could be your chest or your stomach and
just Knowing that this simple instruction is helping The mind and To stay Still and
so if we notice done this, we also notice movement and
it so you're placing your attention in an area the body, and then you're going to Notice in the background,
other movements of the mind. You
you get too distracted, you lost
The object
you Just are back and
if you feel like you get distracted or You're bored, or your body's achy and you notice back to the breath and.
Now we imagine that you have that magic eraser about that edges, cash and Juicy rays, any images, any intention, juicy, raise, your raise E, raise E, raise take a breath through your nose and let it go through mouth. Two more inhale and let it go and
and take an inhale. This time. Hold 234567,
a exhale through your nose. Slowly. Slowly, even lower. And when you think that you exhale completely, exhale a little bit more, little bit more, a little bit more,
and just let go. And
the body will feel itself again with breath. We don't have to give her any other instruction.
Let's do that two more times. We take an inhale, inhale more, inhale more, and you hold 2345678,
exhale slowly, almost like you're emptying, and your belly button goes to the back, up, exhaling, exhaling, exhaling to you think you have nothing else, Just push a little bit more and just let Go.
One more, inhale, fill in,
hold,
45678, exhale, slowly. You know where we're going. Shoulders come down. The body gets heavy. You feel the weight you're in. Hands. Feet are firm. Just exhale, exhale, exhale, and exhale. Even more, just the belly button comes in and up exhaling, you almost feel the bottom of your spine. Let it go and just relax you
touch base with your intention one more time, we're going to do a little bit of that open awareness. So we're going to slowly open our eyes. If that is okay with you, if you prefer to leave your eyes pose, do that so we open the eyes a little bit, looking down without focus, imagining that we can see in a lot of more permanent view.
Just relax your eyes getting wider to the left and to the right. The eyes are not tight on any object.
Maybe you have. Little bit of the image of your body in front of you, maybe you do not. You
we raise or view a little bit, not completely in the horizon, just a little bit, and open a little bit more to the sides and
I sometimes like to have a little bit of a smile here, with my mouth a Little open,
any thoughts, any images,
they come And
then we raise a little bit more and
there's no limits to the size to open now this open,
open and relax and and now
in here, just imagine the back of your head, almost like You can step back and
any images, any issues, any pains, any noises, any thoughts, just witness them. They're part of this meditation.
But you don't have to Create a story. You
way, the dream body, the body that we think we have in our dreams, just a little bit About the sensation that we may have right now. You
slowly begin to close your eyes a little bit, and while you're. Closing your eyes a little bit, maybe noticing how the body becomes a little heavier you
I know the third Looking down,
coming down into the sensations of the body.
Then closing the eyes completely.
And then the sensations in your face, Maybe closing your mouth, the People's open and
I bring into mind your intention or aspiration from the beginning of the session.
I know, although those things so particular seem so particular to us, just bring to mind all the people that may have the same wishes for peace, for health or knowledge or well being,
the vision that they will all benefit
From your practice, our practice and
we take an inhale to the nose. We let it go with the big side. We open our eyes slowly before we say goodbye. Any other comments
the in
natural liberation, which is one of the great writings from Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche, there's a lot of meditation, is one of the great works, where they talk about meditation, the different levels of meditations, the signs of a good meditation, the effects the yams, and also the cities. So sometimes we're enamored with the cities, meaning those little like telepathy or clairvoyance or recognition and things like that. And from all the practices, it's the basic practice of shamatha,
the one for the breath
or in another object that is set to help the student and a practitioner to develop those cities, those gifts, those realizations, they always work with them very, very carefully, because we get like we like to relax, we get those as being a focus of what we want to do. And those can be. Instructions can can be very destructive, but I'm always very curious that is that basic meditation in one and I've been meditating and thinking, why? But why is that you have to have the stability the mind, to notice the changes,
to be able to perceive with your other senses,
to be able to proceed with your whole body. So although we love the higher meditations, higher because it's not higher
the ability to be able to place an attention, make the mind serviceable. Placing the attention, the breath being such a good tool, because this is always with us, and it fluctuates so much, that's why sometimes instruction when the breath is short, notice that the breath is short. When the breath is long, notice the Buddhist. So it seems like it's no more depth to it. It seems kind of simplistic, and we want to move to higher, more elevated teachings. But it's in that teaching that a lot of the skills they have, a good yogi or a t
shirt that has those gifts
are are developed, is that ability.
And you may notice that when you have one of those sessions, maybe there's something that occurs to you. You have a bright moments. You know, the old thing about I was thinking about you, and you call me, and things like that, which we all have, but we become more sensitive to our environment in different ways. You know, to enter in a room and knowing the vibrations of the room and things like that, or some of us do in dreams, or see dreams. So I wanted to, I always go back to the breath once in a while, because that in the breath, being so accessible is one that we need to to continue with that intuition. And it's that connection to the intuition, to all of that.
Um, I had one more thing, and I promise I let you go. So it was the breath. What was it?
Any questions before it comes back to me? Oh, in terms of the open awareness meditation,
I when
we withdraw a little bit and begin to see from here, if you see the the you look at yourself and the body right now probably feels a lot more complete, and you see more of the body and your surroundings that you did when you were doing the Open,
open awareness,
because people are not when you begin to go like that and go like this, the body kind of disappears in the background a little bit. So pay attention to that. That's that when you have a dream body, you think you have a body, but you are creating the body as it goes when you see it, and it feels like that same sensation, like when you are in open awareness and you are not there, and all the sudden you thought your hand is here, or your body comes out when we begin to close our eyes. So that's one technique that, um, if you want to play during the day, sometimes I do it like in a line at the store waiting for three or four people in front of me, so I'm in the car and I'm here, and I step back to see everything in completely a different way. Somebody may tell you, go ahead the next time, because you lose a little bit of sense of time. But that's another way to play with the the bigger you the bigger energy body of you. Does that make sense? So those are two little tricks, yes, but play the next time you're in the line of the store, you're going to see minera set. Just try that. Just kind of step back from the back of your head and look out, and that could be a little bit of your dream body showing up. Do you guys know what I'm saying? Dream body that you you your body comes into when you when and when you are in a dream. You think you have a body, but you really do not have a body. It comes into effect when you do something about it, but when you're running, or when you're going to the bathroom, where you're putting a piece of clothes, when you're seeing somebody, but it's mostly a mind body. We don't notice that in an open awareness, sometimes we get glimpses of that mind body.
Yeah, I'm
telling you all my tracks. I will not have anything for next year. Hey, it
worked for me,
blaming it. Did you feel it when your meditation? Well, it was
more than feel it. Maybe because when you got to the open awareness part, I actually thought I missed it because I fell asleep. Okay for very short period of time, maybe three seconds, maybe not even and and I felt the dream body, okay? So you know now that I'm thinking back as definitely what was going on. So there you go. That's the trick.
So even if I like to think about the back of your head, the back of the seat, where you are, so you didn't until I said the back of your seat, the back of your seat was not there.
Well, I was in a seat long enough to
just right now, just right now, in terms of dream, how we come to reality. So we're sitting right here. So what is so? You are here. You are looking at me, you are looking at the screen. You are not thinking of the back of your seat. Think about the back of your seat. It is not only the back of the seats, the whole body, that comes into effect. Otherwise we were ready,
right? Yeah, it's always there, if you think about it,
so, when you think about it, comes into effect and in the dreams like that,
exactly, exactly the dream.
So thank
you for your kindness, thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you. I do not know when I'm coming back around, but I think it would be next month for us. You know that I would be in all classes because I I cannot not go, I cannot not be any questions. I love to respond to, to emails, and just knowing that whatever mistakes I make, they're all mine, doesn't come from the teachings. It's my own interpretation, and that I do not come as a teacher. I come as a fellow student with you guys, because we're learning together. And honestly, I do feel like I get more of these sessions than I can give you, and for that, I'm very grateful. So thank you so much. So we raise our arms
as an energy field, and they come together with a little space between the hands, and we touch body, speech
and mind.
Sweet drinks tonight, may your awakened hearts grow and flourish ever more and more. Namaste.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Would you like to do a yoga class with me online once in a while? Yes, yes. Okay, I'm
going to propose it to the team.
Yes. Could be 2015, or 20 minutes.
I will promise not to let you fall.
Yes. Why do we? I
think it's something like that, and that's why, because it's through the body that we learn. And sometimes at this, you know, I am not going to be doing headstands or anything, but we need to move the energy on the body that we create like little kinks on the hoses.
So that's something I was wondering whether you have some interest.
