[5] Resting in the Nature of Alaya: A Guided Yoga Nidra Practice - Mayra Lorenzana - Miles
4:03PM Oct 17, 2024
Speakers:
Myra
Keywords:
dream sharing
heart energy
breath awareness
lucid dream
abundance feeling
slogans importance
emptiness concept
unborn awareness
meditation insights
yoga nidra
body sensations
contraction release
liminal state
community feast
meditation practice
There we go. Changed a few I can see people.
Hello, hello.
How are you see? I'm trying to change a little bit the image that I see you guys better.
So I was telling Alyssa, first of all, I trust that everybody's weekend was good. Do we really rest a little bit this weekend?
Um, I was telling Alyssa that last night I've been, um, let's, let's begin with my poem. I was just jumping right into it, but I would not like to lose the tradition. So here we go. Just remember that all these gatherings are an invitation, an invitation, as we gather together to learn a little bit about the tales that we spin. So if you're a dreamer, come in. If you're a dreamer, a wisher, liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic bean buyer, if you are a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax, golden tales to spin. Come in and come in. Maybe we can close our eyes
and check in. If you like to put your hands over your chest. Sometimes it actually distracts me a little bit. I
like to feel
the image of the heart area. And sometimes immediately, when we place our hand, we feel that warmth of that center of energy in our body,
chicken
with scent of sense of gentleness towards ourselves and others.
How do we feel?
And sometimes even notice that the person that is right here, doing this right now is a different moment,
an expression of life than just 30 seconds ago.
So without making any changes,
just noticing your breath,
noticing whether it is short or Long,
maybe asking what is your heart's desire right now?
And again, with a sense of immense gratitude for this forum, for the opportunity that we have to gather here for Andrew and the people that help him to make this possibility for us to gather here,
for his teachers, for our teachers, for
family members or pets, the loved ones.
Thank you. Applause.
Take an inhale through the nose and
let it go through your mouth.
Inhale through your nose and
and make a count. And this time we're going to count to six as we inhale, inhale, 23456, hold, 234,
exhale, 87654321,
if your hands were in your chest, place them down in your lap, notice your breath and.
I bring a smile to your face and open your eyes and thank you so
last night, because I begin to prepare for these classes a long before we meet. I I was I had a dream. I've been listening. If you guys are not listening, Charlie Morley has a newer version of his book, dreams of awakening. So when I woke up at three o'clock in the morning, I began to listen to Charlie Morley, which I have never taken a course with him. But I love his energy and his voice, and I like always to review things. So after I listened for him for a while, of course, I had a dream. It was not completely lucid, but it was lucid. So in the dream, we were, I was in a in one of Andrew's activities and and it was a lot of us. So we, I knew they were all students. I could not identify one specifically, Andrew was sitting and talking to somebody, but I decided I needed to cook for the people that were there. And I didn't have much to cook with, but I began to cook, and it seemed like it was good. I said, just, I like to do that. I want to share, and I want to share what I'm cooking with everybody, and people began to gather it. It was like a very beautiful long table. And it was kind of funny, because I didn't have many things to cook with, but it seems that it was so abundant and it was for everybody, and people were wanting to cook, and I could not cut the things fast enough for people to begin to to eat. So I woke up with a sensation of abundance, of sharing, of giving, of gathering. And I said, Oh, I think that I'm just getting ready for tonight, and I hope that maybe we can, between each other, just have that sensation that we are this is a feast. This is a gathering that is a feast in the way that we can share with each other. There's nourishing, there's good food, there's care for each other, and there was more and more when it didn't seem that we had so much. So I wanted to share that dream, because for me, was kind of kind of significant in terms of the feast that we share every time we gather together in this in this kind of events. So we are going back any comments. Do you guys like the dream? Isn't it kind of significant? I love it. So if I'm doing this, I'm trying to see as many people as I can in the screen. Now we do that. So we are talking about the slogans and one of the things that I like to do see, one of the things that I like about the slogans also, is that they begin with the deepest of the messages, which actually is The concept of not reification and bodhicitta. And the the slogans, even if we learn only one or two of them, if we take them to heart in in themselves, they're like fractal, they, they, they, they have a condensation of everything, of the essence. And then we began saying the same thing that we hear so many times, and we're we're going to repeat only five like the preliminaries are more important than the actual teachings, and we know that the preliminaries talk about this, the great fortune that we have of being Here, the uncertainty of death, the causality and the way out in a way. And then from there we go to all dharmasar dreams. And that's what we especially in these communities, the illusory sense effect of everything that we see in our our need to reify, to have firm ground not to have a free fall. And so in that sense, this, that slogan, the second slogan, it talks about emptiness. So shouldn't shunyata. So it's those are the deepest teachings that we can ever had, if we only were to understand that's that the potentiality of emptiness, the the that empty is actually fullness, and that the potentiality of everything that could happen and will happen is is there, and our our relationship with that, that would be by itself, all the teachings, but. We don't learn that fast. So then there comes the other one is not only what we see from the outside, but we also we have to examine the nature of unborn awareness. And that's when we had the meditation. And we go in, and it's a little bit of insight meditation, and we question where the thoughts coming from? Who is aware? Where do they come from? And we begin to question question, and we remember that with each question, we are just chiseling away, chipping away. We're not looking for a solution to it. We are just questioning, and in that sense, then he said, who is aware? Who is aware of, what is there something that is constant? And then when we're doing that, then we, when we meditate, we have those little openings, and we begin to believe, once in a while, that we're beginning to figure it out. And then this next slogan says, wait, wait, wait, wait, you have to liberate even the antidote, because when you can get attached to those experiences, and even the antidote is just a way for you to begin to have a different kind of perception and awareness, but you have to liberate even that, because otherwise it becomes another little monster that what Andrew usually says chains that are made of gold and those are not good. So we get to today, and it says, rest in the nature of Alaya, which is essence. So we are resting in this essence. And resting is what we try to learn with yoga nidra in a way, there's other ways to do it. Meditation in self is is a way to understand that resting, and in that resting, according to the slogans, where we are now, is when we have that sense of space, of spaciousness, and it's not the same As the full rigpa, but we begin to have little flashes and little windows of the experience that is there all the time. So when we rest in that space
in between the breath
the words,
the sensations of the body, we slowly begin to allow ourselves for that free fall. There's different ways to do it. We have it in different perceptions. We have it in different meditations. You can lay down and look at the blue skies. You can be in a yoga nidra without completely falling asleep. You can be doing in your kitchen, like in the the yoga sutra. So potentially, they thought you can maybe looking at just a pot in the kitchen, and all the sudden, there is no space between what you're watching and what you're doing. Maybe you see those little sparkles, or they call it little dharmas of the expression of life, and that is maybe the essence. And we begin to to make the relationship how to rest is tough, though. How to rest is because we're doers and we are moving, and we need to move, and we're waiting for the next instruction, and we want to do the recitations, and we want to do the mantras, and we want to do the meditations, and we want to have devotion, and we want to do the mala, and we have to take another course, and we have to take care, and we always wonder, are we doing it right?
Maybe I'm just talking about myself, but sometimes I struggle and not
not
honoring the moment, because I think that maybe I should be doing something else. So before we do much more, let's just have a little bit of moment with just kind of filling the body again. So maybe you close your eyes again, notice how you feel. Notice the body. Notice your expectations of the body. If you're really laying down, because that's best for your body, like right now, just notice the back, your sit bones and
and then bringing an image of a day. Maybe it was today where you're so tired you've been going and going and going and going. Maybe you're doing yard work, maybe you were at your job outside of the home. Maybe you're just physically tired of doing things at home, or because you're not feeling well, and you finally get to your favorite chair, and you cannot believe it,
but you sit down. You
so before we begin thinking,
there's a moment of rest.
There is a flash,
there's a release,
and it's almost the same kind of release that we have when we had that fist very, very tight. And then we open and
we say that two more times a fist that is very, very tight, and then you open
So the fist is tight, is contraction, reification, solidity,
form
and then you Open, you relax. You become formless.
You let go. You
if you like, to open your eyes again. So I invite you to
look to your days, maybe the weeks to come, maybe when we meet again, and maybe try to find the times in your life where you've had that sensation where you feel yourself contracting, and you notice the release and the more we do it, the more aware, of course, we become of that fluctuation that is the normal pulsation of the expression of
life that we're living right now.
So the problem is not necessarily the contraction, and the benefit doesn't necessarily be the expansion. Is the duality of not relating to both of them the same way and knowing that it's just passing their illusion your beginning, they have a middle and an end, and then we release.
So we're beginning to get ready now for the yoga nidra. Any comments, any thing that you would like to say.
So, um, in the in a nightclub site, depending on talking about the mask a little bit, because there are some people that do not relate well to the mask, by the way. Um, I think it's two weeks from yesterday, we have Andrew has the menla retreat. I was hoping to I was able to go, but I don't think that I can. Make it, but so this is the last one that he recommended. I also have the other one. I'm surprised that some people really do not like it, because I'm really enjoying this one, and it's really a little bit more expensive, but it's good. So for the yoga nidras in the future and maybe for the retreat that he's doing now in mainland we have a great discount that, I think that Alyssa was going to put again in the system. I would be participating. I would love to see some of you there. Maybe we can talk a little bit about the experience in the next class. But this is also good for the Nidra. And remember that in the Nidra, we're connecting to that liminal state where we're not sleeping, we're not completely aware. More similar, similar to when we're falling asleep. I think for me, it's more than one falling asleep than when we're coming out. And this space is,
is good, in
fact, because I know that is going to be in two weeks, I'm going to try to use it every day to be kind of preparing myself for for the retreat. So I invite you, if you like to do that, and maybe we can comment in terms of our experience. So at this point, if you like to find your pose. It can be sitting. It can be laying down. Reclining chairs are some of the best. If you are laying down, remember, sometimes we need a pillow under our knees. It's better not to be completely flat with the chin completely up, maybe a little bit of like you're going to have something between your collarbones and your shin so the back of the head elongates a little bit. And just, let's get ready for a sensation of rest, maybe would not be 40 minutes of rest, but maybe we can notice while we are doing the process, when we are releasing and when we are contracting, when we understand the instruction. Or maybe you wonder, what did she say? And noticing that that is a sense of awareness, because it is the process of the fluctuation of the contraction and expansion that we'd like to become familiar with. So maybe sometimes, if your place is warm, you don't need a blanket. Sometimes I like to put a blanket, not only in my body. Would I like it to put it maybe around my belly button, because it sends a sense of grounding. So that's, I don't think I have told you that one, but that's one of my my secret tools. Sometimes when I need kind of feeling grounded, and we begin closing your eyes very slowly,
noticing the sensations around your body and
sometimes, if you have taken any Reiki or any energy work, you begin to feel like a Little vibrations in
your skin.
If you had experiences of a little
outer sense of consciousness, maybe you can retrieve some of the memory around
your body and
noticing the solidity of the surface
where you're laying down or sitting,
imagining the weight of your bones, the density of your body, and it's almost like you can come down A
little bit towards the surface that is supporting you.
And noticing the sensations in your body, warmth,
coolness,
tightness, numbness. Itch, pain,
and every time that you notice one of those sensations, notice the sensations From spaciousness to that concept contraction,
spaciousness feels open And
and contraction feels like foreign, more solid and
what parts of the body feels more solid? Maybe their shoulder blade, the buttocks, your head,
your heels,
and noticing how the mind travels when I mentioned the different parts of the body,
the back of your arms, the back of your hands and
and noticing the sensations of water in Your body, maybe the saliva, ears in your Eyes,
imagining the blood
running through your body and
all these little things happening at once.
Hey, the air, the breath,
the air around you,
and the way that you nourish your body through your breathing and
bringing awareness to your breath, not intentionally moving the inhale or the exhale. Was just
very grateful of your breath
And noticing how erase rises and lowers and
and fire,
noticing the warmth of your body and
maybe bringing an image
four finger widths below your belly button, towards the back of the spine, to a point of light and
take worn
like a bright sun, but it's just so powerful and
I just noticed a warmth.
And this warmth just runs through your body,
radiating and.
Illuminating,
purifying, and
if you cannot feel the warmth, just Imagine warmth
maybe near fireplace.
One plane
really warm and
purifying your body, releasing your body,
finding More space and
and now rest,
resting that essence and
that essence that has nothing to do, nowhere to go,
is present. I
releasing the back of the head,
the muscles of your face and
the inner and outer corners of your eyes, the back of your tongue let Go, maybe you open your lips a tiny bit and
collarbones open to the sides, releasing your shoulders, allowing your arms to become more now relaxed.
Your heart area,
the back of your heart area,
lower back and
lower stomach,
the left leg, the right leg and
coming to the center of the center of your heart area.
Maybe just formulating your sankalpa during tension. Maybe you have the same one that you had had before.
Maybe it's a different one. Repeat that
intention three times
to yourself and
making me Imagine all the people that may be meditating and are with us right now. We are not alone.
If you have commitments that you have made, maybe it's a good time you.
If you have a teacher or somebody that you're devoted to, maybe offering your practice do,
telling yourself that you're going to try not to fall asleep.
Your coins is try to rest in that awareness, that essence da Alaya.
And to do that, you don't have to go anywhere with a don't need a special method, we're going to guide the body and the mind to relax A little deeper, bringing the awareness to your right thumb,
right index finger,
middle finger,
ring finger, little finger,
the palm of that right hand, vibrating open and relax.
The top
the right wrist,
lower arm, elbow, open arm, then
the right shoulder,
from the shoulder to the tips of your finger as your right arm is relaxed,
is open,
open and let go underneath the right arm, the right side of your chest,
your waist, your hip and
your right thigh, Relax,
open
and let go the right knee, lower leg,
your ankle,
the top of the right foot, the right heel, the bottom of the foot. Your toes in the right foot,
big toe, second, third fourth, little one,
your right leg as a whole,
even, imagine in this space your right
leg occupies.
Imagining this space your right side of the body, from your right shoulder to your right toes,
occupies
open,
vibrating, pure energy, let go.
On the left thumb,
index finger, middle
ring,
little finger
the top of that left hand,
The Palm, the wrist,
relaxing completely your left hand And
the lower left arm,
left elbow,
upper the left shoulder,
the left side of your chest,
your waist,
your hip,
your left thigh,
left knee, lowered leg, ankle, The
top of that left foot, the heel, the Bottom,
your left toes,
big toe, second, third and fourth, lotto,
Imagine in the space that left leg occupies,
open, spacious,
pure vibration,
let go.
Now, imagining this face the left side of your Body occupies and no in, no out.
Your collarbone and
your heart area,
solar plexus,
your lower stomach,
imagining your organs vibrating fresh, working perfectly
your lower back,
your spine,
your thoracic area,
your shoulder blades, let go.
Now imagine in the area that they hold body occupies from your chest
to your feet, open
space. And relax.
You hear me.
You may imagine the next instruction, but at the same time, you're just aware. You
Your body's releasing the back of the head,
your forehead and
the area around your eyes,
the inner corners of your eyes, the outer corners of your eyes.
And even though your eyes are closed, imagine that you softly close your eyes one more time the eyelids just kiss each other. Your energy comes down and grounds
your nose, the back of your nose,
your jaw,
the inside of your mouth,
the size of your Tongue,
the back of the tongue.
Now imagine in the space your whole Body occupied,
like we're floating in space and
we're going to be quiet here For a few minutes. Any colors, any images, any dreamlets that may come.
Just notice.
Just notice what happens when you don't follow this story.
You just notice And you let go. You
just for a couple of minutes, imagining a little direct hurdle in the bottom of Your feet, bringing the energy All the way down and
moving back to your heart with your soul there, noticing your breath and.
Maybe remembering your intention again and repeating it to yourself or three times and
I don't know why, but this is what's come to me. So we're going to, you can do it mentally. I will do the Omani pane home mantra, maybe for a minute or so, bringing that sense of compassion towards yourselves and to others, allowing the mantra to vibrate if you relate to it, if You do not relate to it, just stay there. You
Oh, money fund me home. Oh, money fund me home, money fund me home. Oh, money fund me whole. Money fund me, hold on money find me home. O, money fund me, hold on money for me home. Oh, money find me home. O, money fund me home. O, money fund me home. O, money fund me home. O, money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me home, no money find me Home, oh money find me home. Oh money find me home. Oh man, you find me home. Oh money find me home. Oh money find me home. Oh money find me home, money find me home, money find me home. Oh money find me home. Oh money find me home. Oh money find me home. Oh man home, no money find me home. Oh man, you find me home, no money upon my home. Oh man home, money send me home.
On the whole
it almost like you're Making an offering come to the sensations of the dimension of the room where you're at
maybe imagine in that table that feast where we share
the abundance and we nurture ourselves
that community,
the Sangha and
coming to maybe four feet for where you are and notice and that little bit of a contraction of the energy of the body,
maybe two feet from your skin at The surface where you are laying down or Sitting,
your skin,
your bones, muscles, nerves,
organs, you
your heart, your throat, the center of your head and.
Maybe for two or three breaths of your own. Turn to your right side, if it's possible, if not, imagine that you do.
Notice how that shift makes your body feels different.
Notice whether you feel sensations or vibration, warm coolness in the body. Maybe your hands and your feet are little sweaty and
then you come back to a sitting pose. If you'd like to turn your cameras, that would Be good and
we meet in the front and
the same question. You know what I'm going to say? Any comments, any questions, any feedback, something you didn't like, something you like, something you felt maybe an image that came to Mind. Maybe something is really difficult to relate to. I
were you able to see the comment in the chat? Myra, no, I didn't. I'm sorry. It's okay. Tim said, what a nice deep space. Thank you, Myra and all for sharing this meditation, meditative time together. Namaste.
Thank you, Tim. You're always so sweet. Thank you so much. So sometimes when I ask these questions, remember that it's not so much for the answer that I hear, but for you to ask yourself, What things did make sense? What things didn't, didn't just you feel, not feel, you know, sometimes we don't feel something like, at least I'm talking about myself, I don't feel anything, or I felt that in a different way. So, so it's for yourself I am just guiding according to what I feel in my practice. So it could be completely different. So you guys have to this is your own practice, and you are all your own meditation teacher. I'm just facilitating here.
So
hopefully you're going to have a very good, nice sleep. Some of you may be far still have a couple hours to go. Thank you. Know your dream. Nourish in the Feast of the community. I hope to see you guys. I think Saturday is the dream Sangha,
which Saturdays are the things that I cannot do.
Menla is coming on the 16th, and we will continue the studies.
Thank you, Myra,
thank you. So we finished like always. So we gather all this energy that we accumulate, or we raise our hands almost to the heavens, and they come together, maybe with a little space in between, feeling the energy coming down.
Maybe we touch our forehead, our mouth and our heart, pointing the thumbs towards the heart,
just settling in and see how it feels.
If you can think during the week, during the month to tonight, noticing how. Contract and expand all the time, and noticing the space of rest
feels spacious.
Thank you for the opportunity of sharing my practice with you like always. May you awaken hearts grow and flourish ever more and more. Namaste. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
