The Map Is Not the Road
We all know the moment: following the blue dot through an unfamiliar place, we take a wrong turn. The app quietly recalculates, without judgment, and the map snaps back to You are here. Join us for a guided meditation in which we press the “re-center” button on our own experience, followed by an exploration of what the maps app on our phones can teach us about the inner journey.
A contemplative tradition gives us maps: formal instructions, practices, stages, teachings, lineages, and precepts. But practice, the road we actually travel, unfolds moment by moment in a living body, in a particular mind, and under conditions that were not fully predictable when the map was drawn. IMCC teacher and Board member Matt Fritts will draw on his recent cross-country move to the Bay Area to explore, metaphorically, how the maps app on our phones can illuminate our inner journey and help us find answers to questions familiar to any traveler:
Where have I been?
Where am I now?
Where do I go next?
What if the road leads somewhere unexpected?
Together, we’ll consider how teachers (guides) and fellow travelers (sangha) can support us when we lose our way, knowing that the journey itself may change both the traveler and the destination we had in mind.
A map can tell us where we intended to go. Awareness tells us where we actually are. Wisdom emerges in the conversation between the two.
To join by zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/380465452?pwd=SjdqQUh0aW4xQzJMTG9pOUJHTnl2dz09
Meeting ID: 380 465 452
Password: 041087
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