Toss Aside Your Map Of The World - Radiance Sutras Sutra 85

Welcome to you.

It's great to have you here whether you're here live or listen to a recording later.

It's good to just,

I suppose set an intention and maybe the title of this practice,

Restful meditation,

Invites in you a particular feeling.

Just the title.

I don't know.

Maybe you're ready for rest.

If it's later in the,

If it's I think for some of you it's around 8 in the evening for some of you it's 5 in the afternoon or somewhere between.

So you want to feel to start off with that you can be absolutely comfortable wherever you are.

Whatever it is that you've been doing through the day.

Now's the time for you.

Now's the time for you to rest and restore.

So maybe,

Maybe we can take a moment just to bring ourselves into our bodies,

Into this space,

Into this practice.

With a breath with a simple sigh.

Or maybe even with a yawn.

Oh goodness me,

It's time for,

It's time to restore or it's time to settle into your evening.

And before we,

Before we I suppose dive into the practice,

Let's remind ourselves of a couple of the core principles,

The core principles of instinctive meditation.

That this is a completely natural process for us.

It's built into our DNA.

This invitation to rest is a trigger for our parasympathetic nervous system to start to slow.

We can settle,

We've been in our day where we've possibly been working with the stresses of normal life in the sympathetic nervous system and now we're inviting ourselves,

Giving us the permission to come into rest.

This is natural.

We want to remember that our meditation practice can be based in pleasurable experiences,

Remembering something that we love to do,

Somewhere we love to be.

That our doorway is,

What is it that we love?

Our doorway is,

What is it that we love?

With a stroking dog.

Whether it's resting in memory of some place in nature,

Whether it's resting in the memory of lying in a bath,

Whether it's being with someone that we love.

Remember that our doorway,

The way in,

Is based in our pleasurable experiences.

And that whenever we dive into these experiences,

Whatever arises in our experience is welcomed.

Knowing that our instinctive meditation practice is a healing one and that when we give ourselves time to rest,

Whatever arises could have a little ouch to it.

We welcome whatever arises and we welcome it with tenderness.

We are tender with ourselves throughout our experience.

The fundamental core principles of welcoming everything that our practice is a natural one,

We enter the doorway through pleasure,

Through something that we love and that whatever arises we treat ourselves tenderly.

So I want to invite you to have this experience night through Sutra 85 and I'll read it in a moment.

We know that there are certain meditation practices that are really set in their ways,

But ours is open to your own experience.

So we're asking ourselves to toss aside any maps,

To let go of any paradigms that we have been set in.

And the first word in the Sanskrit is niradharam.

It's without receptacle or without support and this is perhaps an invitation to allow ourselves to dive into our meditation,

Feeling like I'm going in without having any rules or structure or things in place that guide my way.

But I'm giving over to my own inner wisdom and this sense of freedom that whatever occurs is right.

Whatever happens within my meditation doesn't need a structure,

Doesn't need a map,

Simply needs me to give over to that wisdom.

That wisdom that's in us and if we feel like that wisdom is part of something greater then we're open to being led by whatever that greater wisdom is.

So your invitation is to toss aside your map of the world,

All your beliefs and constructs,

And dare the wild unknown.

Dare the wild unknown,

It can be terrifying to let ourselves give ourselves over.

Here in this terrifying freedom,

Naked before the universe,

Commune with the one who knows everything from the inside,

Invisible power pervading everywhere,

Divine presence permeating everything.

Breathe tenderly,

Breathe tenderly as the lover of all beings.

So this is the invitation we will use as we'll come together in a few moments to enter your own doorway,

Tossing aside the map,

Opening yourself up to whatever the experience might be.

Any beliefs,

Any constructs you have about meditation,

Any beliefs,

Any constructs you have about life,

You're willing to dare the wild unknown.

This idea of being naked before the universe but communing with the one who knows everything from the inside,

This inner wisdom,

Your own inner wisdom that guides your way,

That powers your life,

All the while being tender,

Being tender with yourself,

Breathing tenderly as the lover of all beings.

So what's your doorway?

What is it that you love,

That you can soak in,

Some experience you can soak in,

Something that you practice that just makes you feel totally at home in yourself?

What's your own doorway?

And if for a moment you wonder how can I enrich this experience,

Whether it's in nature,

Whether it's being someone,

Whether it's eating a meal,

Whatever it is,

I can enrich my experience,

I can dive deeper into this experience by engaging with my senses,

I can visualize,

I can recall sounds,

I can bring smells back,

I can feel how my body is,

I can feel where I am in space,

How I move.

Just enriching my experience through engaging through the sense memory.

If you're a visual person,

Attend to your visual cortex that colors the shapes movement that you see,

Particular tones and textures,

Light and shade.

If your sensory doorway,

Your pathway is more auditory,

Engage with the space around you,

The 360 degrees,

You can hear what's in front,

Behind,

Above,

Below,

Whether it's close,

Whether it's far away.

If you're more kinesthetic,

If you more want to attune to how your body feels and moves,

You can notice the shape of your limbs,

The angle of the joints,

The movement of your muscles.

Once we've entered our doorway and we build a rich experience,

We let ourselves rest there with no map,

Without agenda.

And we let ourselves be free to experience whatever it is that our inner wisdom,

All the greater wisdom brings up for us and we stay with that tenderly.

We welcome it all.

You you you you you you you may be noticing in your experience periods of restfulness and periods of excitement action we're engaged with on some sort of a journey having some sort of conversation you might have moments where you wonder what it is what am i doing now and you remember ah yeah that's right we're in a meditation practice you can wonder again what was my doorway you you let yourself dive into that rich sensory experience again I'll just continue to journey you you you toss aside your map of the world toss aside your map of meditation toss aside your map of life all your beliefs and constructs and dare the wild unknown you can be terrifying to let all paradigms drift away to toss away our map here in this terrifying freedom naked before the universe commune with the one whether that's your inner wisdom or whether you give that wisdom to a greater power who knows everything from the inside invisible power pervading everywhere divine presence permeating everything and no matter our experience welcoming it all breathe tenderly as a lover of all beings nirada Ramana Kritva Vikalpand na Vikalpayet Tatatma paramatmatvi Bhairava Riga Loshanen you you you let's continue for a few minutes longer with no agenda at all.

Does being in your experience let go of your doorway simple invitation to rest in being you you you and we'll make a very leisurely gentle transition from this resting to a level of alertness that you know that you need to move into the next part of your day part of your evening.

If you know that you've got something that you need to attend to with a bit more alertness then you want to start to attune to your senses maybe hearing first maybe the sense of where your body is reconnecting with all the joints,

Tendons,

Ligaments,

Muscles.

If you have to be a little bit more active you might want to bring a little bit more movement into this transition.

Engaging with your muscles a little stronger if you're going into the evening and you have little to do you might be more gentle and soft and easeful with your transition.

Whatever is right for you eventually you might let your eyes drift open and attend to the space that you're in again reorientating and then when you're ready you can get up and go