[4] Exploring the Illusory Nature of Existence - with Mayra Lorenzana - Miles

4:03PM Oct 17, 2024

Speakers:

Myra

Keywords:

yoga Nidra

meditation practice

Atisha teachings

householder challenges

slogans wisdom

precious life

karma connectivity

illusory universe

unborn awareness

self-liberation

kite visualization

pure light

body sensations

gratitude intention

ripples effect

Hi everybody, nice to be with you again. I trust that all you are all doing well. You and I don't know if you guys got the rain that, but it's been raining here that I almost feel like I'm going to just be able to breathe on the water pretty soon. Hi. Thumbs up. So here we are. We're in week four, which is kind of very, very strange of this yoga. Nidra, thank you for joining us. And I was just going to begin with that little poem I did not forget. When am I doing early medications? Because I think that that little poem is still has wisdom, a lot of wisdoms to bring us. So here we are. You probably some of you know by memory now, and remember, it's just silver, silver, I think, unless I was trying to put it up, I don't know if it's in your screen. I don't have it yet. But anyway, there it is. If you're a dreamer, come in, if you're a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic bin buyer, if you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flex golden tails to spin. Come in. Come in, and I think the whole journey that we all embark together for some lucky stars, I feel very fortunate to share this journey with all of you. This journey is one of coming in, and we dress it in different ways, but it's a process of almost just getting a little bit more familiar with our minds, the way that our minds work, with the hope of less suffering. And that's not a little task. That's a big task. In fact, as the Dalai Lama says, we all have any we all are seeking the same thing, and is to be happy, to be in happiness, and for us to be happier. Our heart gets bigger, and then we wish for everybody also to be free of suffering and to be a happy life. So what we've been doing, and I was kind of curious, because, like I said, maybe four weeks, four classes ago, I was very attracted to Atisha in the way that he related with the beginning of the Kadampa tradition. And the reason for that is because it goes more to the householder, which is what I am, people that are right there in in daily life, battling the news, the goods and the not the possibility of war or famine or or the warming of the earth. We have children, or maybe grandchildren, and we look into their futures and we wonder how they're going to be doing, and at the same time, we are ourselves trying to make sense, make sense of what's going on outside and what is going inside our heads in our immediate reality, and those that his teachings always spoke to me, so I found that the slogans to be kind of little nuggets of wisdom that we can take and just think about him and let him go, and think about it and let him go, but then I want you to know that there are different ways to deal with him. I'm following the teaching and the PDF again, that Julie leaf has online that anybody can reach, and it could be a subject of contemplation. And there are some teachings that that they just go for with the first one for hours and hours and days and weeks, because the slogan is like a punctuation. It's like just chiseling away trying to make that help us to make that connection of the body and the heart and the mind of that Bodhisattva there that would be the relative and the absolute polish that is that immense love that is not love by itself, is so much more than that. Is that connection where we are just just in absolute certainty of the bigger the larger picture. So we are today, in week number four, and we've been going very quickly, because my intention is not. The wisdom that some of the teachers that can do, because what we're trying to do here is going to the practice of meditation with the form of yoga, Nidra. And yoga, Nidra very related to the liminal states, very much related to dream lucidity and Dream Yoga, which is what brings a lot of us here through Andrew hollacek and the other teachers with them. But then the slogans, they've been coming in my life, everywhere, Andrew mentioned them the other day, like we should begin teaching the slogans I heard that other schools and the slogans are being like bombarded again from every place that I'm studying. I say, oh, maybe we I have to reiterate and bring it back. So if you're interested, begin to kind of contemplate and see it they are like they're little nuggets of wisdom that keep giving, almost in a fractal kind of way, so they keep expanding. The teachings say that the first one being first trained in the preliminaries, that by itself, it could be the whole teaching, because it goes to the four reminders, and you see the four reminders in different teachings, in different ways, and just to look back, so we'd be like we many times we look into a meditation. Is the preciousness of this opportunity, the preciousness of the ability to study, to have the mental capacity to understand certain things, to have the availability of this medium, of the books, of the T shirts, that we have created, a merit that we had that portion of having those to be to have some shelters, to have food, to have the loved ones around us, and so many things that we do not maybe we take, we don't think about it all the time, but that that makes our life precious and very the opportunity to work and to get maybe to that space that we're aiming for, the uncertainty of that would be the second one that just remember, that Andrew says, when you do not think about that, I think it's breakfast, lunch and dinner, you're wasting your day, because it's not because we're thinking about the dark part. We think that we're not going to be there, we're being marvelous or something, but that each moment is an opportunity, is a chance, and that we don't know when this moment is going to end. This expression of this body we may never end in terms of the absolute but this expression of this opportunity, we really do not know. We think that we're here for good, but we know now, as older, we get older, that we don't and even us that have been listening to him for so long, I think it's very difficult to really understand that it could come at any moment, it could come tonight, it could come in 10 years, and that nobody really knows, and that uncertainty, instead of making us sad, just Give us the opportunity to celebrate like for every minute that we have the certainty of the laws of karma. Karma, not so much into the causality, but there is a connectivity in the way that things are, in the way that we perceive is according to the imprints that we have and the habits that we have to see what we see, and not in a you know, something bad happened to you, so that's your karma, and I don't care, no, it's just to take the response. I really did that every thought, every movement, every action, every inaction that we do do have, like the ripples effects in the universe at large, and that by itself, is one of the most difficult teachings. And it takes a very, very good teacher to teach karma with a sense of openness instead of causal lineal relationship, which is, it is not. And then we have that when we are not connected with all those things, and we don't realize the preciousness of life, or we forget and we do not think about death, and that could happen at any moment, and we act without thinking that there's ripple effects, then suffering is certain. And the one that gives me a little bit of I don't like it is that suffering come from the good things too. And that's still kind of because even good things that can happen to us if we attach. Very purely to them, and we don't want them to finish. They also consult suffering. So that was the first week.

And then we had all dharmas are like dreams, and they that illusory nature of the universe outside the way that we see things. The perfect way to see it is that as an illusion. And then we brought it back to say, and that's one of is that that's the daily practice of Dream Yoga. Is the scene where we go outside as an illusion, and it's an illusion because they are not rigid. They're changing all the time, even when we don't see it. And they own awareness of that everything changes. We like it or not, and not seeing how things to really work make us suffer. But when we realize that just are just the expression of that bubble of expression and that moment, that's what they mean with Lucian. It's not that they're not real, and it's not that they don't function, and it's not that I cannot touch it. Is that even when I can touch it, that itself is just something changing all the time, and it's much faster that I can perceive. And then we went last time that we met a little bit. And then we that was towards the outside. And then we went inside. When we get into meditation, we were thinking, Where were the thoughts coming from? Where did they originated? And we do that in many meditation do they have a beginning? Do they have an end? And that's the mind expresses it so they that's the nation of unborn awareness is. That's one of my favorite subjects, because when I meditate, or when I see something, or when we had that one first story at the beginning, it's, you know, it if we slow down. Let's see if I can slow down the way that I talk right now. And just, let's go back to something really, really simple, where, if you have a car, where is it park? There was no awareness of your car before, and that awareness the car became something that became a concept. You may be so colors, you may be seeing something, and that's the way that each thought comes into our mind stream. And when we interact with that thought, and we make it a story, that is the way that our habits take over, and that's that 90% that forms that of that subconscious mind. So that was towards that that born, unborn awareness is what we, many times, play with the meditations. And when we go into yoga nidra today, just remember that sometimes we don't see the same way. For example, if I say again, we're we're going to fly a kite in visualization today. So you may have a kite, you may have a kite that you flew before. You may, you may have never flown a kite, but have an idea of a kite that you saw in a movie, or you saw a child, or your children have and you may go to the last site that you saw that flying kite, and all those are that are born awareness that is coming into and I would like you to see just like you're observing that formation in whatever. Maybe you feel it with feelings. Maybe you see it and remember it. And if you remember it, and it's a moment that you kind of like you may get lost in the story and you come back, because it does little things of noticing in a normal life that allows the the awareness and the sharpness of the clarity to begin to identify and when some of us, or that may have practices where they visualize a mantra, or they visualize the Wings of the body or chakras or or or deities. Visualizing those things in this meditation helps to make the mind sharper when you want to do all those other things too, because that's the innate ability that we have. And we don't see it all, but maybe you feel it so today, maybe when you are in meditation, I invite you to maybe contemplate it. So today, we go back to my favorite one, the fourth one is you have to self liberate, even the antidote. So. That means that even when you realize that, okay, I'm going to once in a while, I know that life is precious and there is karma, I know that that is going to happen. And I heard that, I heard it again. Yeah, life is a dream, so everything is an illusion. Where's the mind? Where's the mind? Where's the mind? It could be a moment that we do if actually have an experience. We have an experience that we feel bigger than ourselves. We may see lights, we may feel the whole body vibrating. We may feel like we float. We may feel that we understood and the most difficult part down, that then that by itself, has a an origin and abiding, and it fades away. So even the antidote of this, slogans of the meditation, of the scriptures of the teaching by itself, they're just tools, guiding through, guiding through the inside to the coming in, the coming in, that when you go in, in, in, they tell me there is no in, no out, no up, no down, no inside, no outside, just pure awareness. And it's called rigpa. And you abide there. And there is that is what continues in one expression of life to the other. So as we go in today, any comments, any that, anything that does not make sense at all, and I begin from the first one, because, actually, they're all little expressions of the beginning. It's just different ways. Just imagine that we are this little ball of light, and it's almost like this little rays come in and come from all sides. In one, one of this day, one of them is going to go through, and it's going to just give us an experience that for us is going to be a good connection, where we connect a little bit better. And that is, is your own. And you know, nobody can can take it away, and nobody can explain it, and you just have a certainty that is so. So we begin to slow down. We're going to go into Nidra, so if you have your place, we're going to sit first for a little bit to get subtle. If you do have one of those dark that mask that cover your eyes and and you can open your eyes, I invite you to do that sometimes. If you can have earphones or something for your ears that absorbs a little bit of the other noises, it is helpful.

Maybe the works that we've been saying so far, have a little bit of sense, likes, dislike, agree, not agree, and where we're settling. I wanted to share one of the first lessons that I learned when I began to study the land rim like the step. It was that when you hear something that for you know, just not sure, you have to think a little bit more about it. Do you listen to it and you shelve it. That means you put it away. You don't have to believe anything. You just put it away and you allow that to simmer on you. And then you may look at it one more time and let it go. You may decide that doesn't work, but do not discard it completely with much judgment, but allow it to be there, like in the background, something to think about. So those slogans also invite us to do that. Some things are difficult to relate. Some things are easier to understand, but just just leave them there, back there, almost like you're putting a chill behind you, and allow them to permeate your body. So we begin just to. Feel the body

and feel the breath. Make sure that you have as much comfort as you can. So if you have a little pillow for your head, make sure that you're not looking just straight up, just crunching your neck so your shin comes a little bit down and your head is resting a little higher than your heart. Some of us need a little bolster under our knees and

I allow the arms to come to the side. Sometimes I like mine in my tummy, because I feel like it, they ground me a little bit. Just listen to the wisdom of your body.

Feeling that weight. Imagine your bones heavy, and it's almost like you come down Back,

releasing your head against the support.

Maybe you feel your shoulder blades, your buttocks, your thighs, the back of your legs, the back of the arms and your heels, allowing the feet to flare to the side,

and noticing whether the body feels even maybe You're still lifting one head more than the other and

I just spend a few seconds just settling the back of the body. What I mean with that? Imagine that you have this very thick foam mattress, and you're laying back and each part of the body feels the bright amount of support and release you

now we're going to breathe from the bottom of the feet to the crown of the head, and from the crown of the head to the bottom of the feet softly, sometimes the breath will not be long enough to follow. Do not panic about that. Just imagine the flow of energy between those two spaces through the body. So we inhale to the bottom of the feet, all the way to the crown of the head, and we exhale from the crown of the head all the way to the bottom of the feet. Two more times. Inhale up, exhale down. Inhale up, exhale down. Now, inhale from the bottom of the feet, and we exhale to our sacrum. Inhale from the sacrum to the crown. Exhale from the crown to the second. Two more times. Exhale down, inhale, up, exhale, now. Now you inhale from the sacrum to the crown of the head, and you exhale to an area of our four finger width below your belly button. Inhale from there and. Exhale from the crown to that belly button. Two more inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Now you inhale and exhale to your heart area two more times, inhale, exhale to the heart, inhale, exhale to the heart, inhale from the heart, exhale to your throat. Inhale from the throat, exhale down, inhale from the throat to the crown, exhale, inhale from the throat to the crown, exhale to the point of your third eye two more times. Inhale up, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, and now just bring the energy to the crown of the head. Now. Imagine in that tender area, the babies, soft spotted,

notice your body and how it feels and

any sense of lightness or heaviness. Sometimes we think build tingle and sesation, so just a little bit more space, or maybe you do not feel much different. All of them are good. It's just a noticing. I

letting go the back of the head, the arms and neck, the torso, the legs, the feet.

Your body is dissolving, connecting, opening and letting go.

My words are only pointers, kind of leaving the awareness soft. Softly,

what is your breaths?

Noticing the breath soft without intention,

and then coming to the heart area and

do A little point like a diamond,

and right in there, find an intention for your practice, if that serves you well,

once you come to an intention. And repeat it to yourself three times. And it could be the same intention. You can keep working with the same intentions you may have before you have any commitments that you make in your practice, you can repeat it now you

and if you like and it feels well for your practice. I'd like to begin with a sense of gratitude for this moment, for all the teachings, for all the teachers,

for all of you for this platform and this opportunity,

thank you.

And now bringing the attention to the center of the center of your head, to a point of light, just like a bright star, like the North Star,

we're going to place a star different parts of the Body, bright light, stars, your right eye, eyebrow, your left

your right eye, light bright your left eye, your nose

and bright starting about, relax and Let it go. Another point of light to left ear,

your jaw, your right ear and

bright, beautiful Light your right shoulder, let it go, right collarbone, left shoulder, left collarbone, bright, Bright light the center of your chest, brighter and brighter your body becomes just Pure Light. The right shoulder, right elbow, wrist and this little stars, one in each one of your fingers of the right hand, thumb, index, middle, ring, little finger and the palm of your right hand, bright coming back to the star at your wrist, your right elbow. Your right shoulder, right collarbone, left collarbone, left shoulder, relax. Bright, vibrating energy, pure Star Dust, left elbow, wrist, bright light,

beautiful, bright light in each one of your fingers, thumb, index, middle, ring, lot of finger shining, vibrating, vibrating energy, relaxing and letting go the palm of the left hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder, the center of your sternum, right like this star, just begin To just right, run into each other shining solar plexus,

below Your belly button, right, bright light, right, wrist, hip

Right knee, bright night, bright star. Right ankle and

heal the bottom of your right foot, relaxing your right foot, releasing your toes, relaxing your leg completely, shining, vibrating then a bright side in each one of your toes and The right foot, big toe, second, third, fourth, little One

coming up right ankle, bright. Knee, relaxed, hip your sacrum, bright, bright point of light, really allowing yourself to feel the warmth of the energy running through your body, waking up, lighting up every little corner of this body, the left hip,

left knee, ankle, left heel, the bottom of that left foot and

and then bright light in each one of Your toes, in that left foot, big toe, Second, Third. Third, four, little one,

coming out to your left ankle and. Knee, hip, sacrum, and this light comes to your back, slowly, placing motor start up your spine just keep going up.

Left shoulder, right shoulder, the back of your neck, bright, shiny. Folded way back to the center of the center of your head and

it's almost like your body is a constellation, and in between, each one of the stars is just pure space and

any thoughts, any sounds, any movements, they come in And out, not affecting the light or the space that your body occupies. I

will be quiet for a couple of minutes and just notice whatever sensations come into the body.

And if you feel like you're falling asleep, try to just hover without going all the way into sleep. Notice in images that may come through your body's vibrating pure light, light and Space And

So as we begin a little bit of visualization Before anything else. Just see if you remember, what was the last thought you had before I began to talk.

Was it a story already, or was it just something that just came up? I

and who's thinking the thought and who's answering the thought.

These see somebody back there? Is there an image? Also? Just thought, I

did it come from a specific space in the mainstream? I

and then just let go, coming back to the bright lower Points of Light, feeling the expansion of your body,

and Then just listening to this like a little story and

so imagine that you're in this beautiful field. You can see the ocean or body of water and the horizon, the grass is green. The skies are blue, such a special kind of blue.

It's almost like crystal like

and it's sunny, but you don't feel hot. There are other people enjoying this feel. We came just to play, to fly a kite,

and the wind is soft, but is there, and you find your place, or your kite doesn't interrupt the others,

and you look around to find your spot. Maybe you are with a loved one, maybe you are with a child and. Maybe you're by yourself, and you look around and there are many others with the same purpose, the more looking up to the immensity of this blue diamond like skies, ready to fly their kite.

And you find your place, and you get it all together, and you have your thread, of course, to let it go,

and you try to find the same the right amount of wind, so It takes off.

It may take you a few times before, because at first it goes up and it goes down,

and then it goes up a little bit again. And you think that it's going up, but something happened. It dies all the sudden, and it tie comes down,

and others are doing the same, but some other people have their kite flying very high, and you say, Oh, look at those. Maybe they know to do something that I don't know. No, mothers are struggling more than you, but they're all trying to fly their own sky.

And you try and try until you get the right wind the ride moment and you begin to let it go, and it goes to go up. Ooh, it's going up. Now it made it up. And now you know that it's going to be steady right there when you see it up, and you begin to give it a little bit more so it goes higher and higher and higher, and it gets to be so steady that sometimes it's almost like you can put A stick and just tie it up because it's flying steady with the wind, and you just laid back. And look at that guide flying by itself. Once in a while, you hold it and feel the tension and look up.

You feel so vast.

Your heart is at peace and is flying well,

and all the starving and

the tension is not there anymore. Out

by itself is gone.

But before you panic or maybe do not know what to do. There was a space I

you let go of any image. Shin come back to the body,

noticing the stars shining,

relax. Relaxing your face, the inner and corners of your eyes,

your jaw and

your shoulders and arms, let go your spine,

the front of your body and your legs.

Noticing any sensations of tightness or roughness,

any sounds around You? I

any smells,

any taste in your mouth and

noticing your thoughts and what comes into your mind, strain and letting all go.

You Feel that peace.

Your body's calm,

vibrating. Energy, relax and Let it go.

So the last slogan for today is to release even the antidote

any experiences that we have. Any apparent solutions? They were pointing just to that moment of release and an ability to see. Stay there.

None of those tools

are the answer.

They also can become chains.

So we begin to breathe a little colder,

and remembering again the intention that we set at the beginning.

Maybe you can repeat it to yourself three more times,

feeling the density of your body, the weight of your Body, against the surface you're sitting or laying down

Feeling your bones, your muscles, nerves, blood, organs and

As your body becomes denser, almost like coming together and

we're going to breathe three more times. Imagine that you can breathe through every pores of your body and bring into the area below your belly button. So exhale first and inhale through every pores of your body and bring it to that area of the body. Hail and inhale from that area spreading all the way out, everywhere.

Inhale, give it away.

One more, let it shine.

Maybe bring a smile to your face, bring movement to your wrist, to your ankles, moving your head from side to side and

and when you are ready, you scroll if you're laying down, go towards one side, especially the right one, if you can take their three More breath before you come To a certain pose. And you

maybe you like to begin to move a lot slower, knowing that there's a legacy to the practice and

and then, how Was that kite thing going? Was it too tough? I

Did I lose all of you into the night I

I was just curious whether you related to a lives and the kite, and whether you felt the break or it was it didn't work. Then I want to know that even more

Thank you, Renee, you

in a way, the kite is, you know, that thread of our consciousness that keeps us here, and sometimes we feel like we do have control of that, but we don't know when they can break. And there comes a free fall.

And it's our ability to stay in the free fall that is a real Teaching. So

now I'm going to honor this silence. I'm if you have no other comments or questions, I fly it in less than 12 hours to go to Puerto Rico. Feels good, yeah. If you have fun memories of a kite flying. That's that's fun and and it's funny, because the thing with kites, it used to be really competitive. You know, we are all in this field, all flying our own kite, and sometimes in details of the kite, they even put some research. So you take the other kite down, because they're competitive when they're competitions, sometimes it's a free thing that is fearless. And if you get really competitive, you let it go, the pressure of it gets different. And when you lose it, it's like a big sneeze, it's the push. And then to be able to stay in that, that expression of timelessness. It's a challenge, but it's a goal to to be able to feel that, that the tension, sometimes we don't feel it, but the tension is there in one day it's not there anymore. So thank you. Thank you. So I fly to Puerto Rico tomorrow morning. Thank you, Barbara. So I'm still packing to do I'm excited, but I could not pass being here with you, because I really enjoyed. Oh, thank you, yes. So keep thinking about that. I think the slogans are a great tool. And I often like to think how many times the antidote can become. I don't liberated because I'd like to experience, like the experience of yoga nidra. That's no different. We like that experience a lot, so we can get attached and just give her value that it does not. It's just to begin to feel those little spaces where we're not there anymore, but we're so present. So thank you. So we finished the same way. We raise our hands up. Things come together and towards the heart, thinking about your intention, and more than anything, just imagine each one of us really matters and real counts in what we do, what we think, the way that we relate to others continues to make ripples in the fabric of this space that we occupy right now, so our energy carries on. May all sentient beings benefit and be safe, be happy. For your suffering and be free.

Sweet dreams tonight, may you awaken hearts grow and flourish ever more and more. Namaste. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. We see you soon, I'm sure, bye.