Month: September 2018

Categories
Concentration Energy Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindful Breathing Presence and being present Qi gong

Learning to conserve, build and circulate your energy

Dear  Integral Meditators,

How can mindfulness improve your energy levels and energy efficiency? The article below looks at this question in general, but also specifically from a qi gong perspective.
Two classes related to this topic, firstly the Qi gong workout and meditation class this Saturday morning. Secondly this week sees the beginning of a new series:  Five stages of integral meditation practice, from beginners to advanced. A five module course the first class of which will be in how to create an integrated, energetically strong body-mind.

In the spirit of energy,

Toby

 

Learning to conserve, build and circulate your energy (not waste it though dissipation and distraction)

One of the basic principles of Qi gong is that, through our awareness of energy we are trying to learn not to needlessly dissipate or “throw off” our mental, emotional and physical qi. Instead we learn to keep it within our energy field and circulate it within our mind-body continuum. Here are some practical ways in which we waste our qi and life force habitually:

  • Continuous physical fidgeting and habitual muscle tension (often due to lack of awareness of how our busy mind is causing our body to feel uneasy all the time)
  • Discomfort with feeling deep emotion (positive or negative), due to a habitual aversion to the vulnerability that deep emotion makes us feel. In general, deep emotion carries with it large amounts of qi that we can learn to circulate in our energy system. Repressing emotion, or becoming addicted to it/acting compulsively on it, causes us to lose our ability to use its qi in an effective way
  • Doing our physical actions, using much more muscle power than is necessary. For example typing at a computer with our facial muscles locked in an unconscious frown.
  • Compulsive and excessive (mindless or meaningless) speech
  • Compulsive and excessive thinking or worrying

In all the above ways and many more, we dissipate our qi on a daily basis. So, one of the best ways to start practising Qi gong is simply to make it a daily habit and discipline to be aware of how you are using your qi on a moment to moment basis. Ask yourself questions like:

  • “In the last hour, how effectively have I been using my life-force?”
  • “How much physical energy do I really need to walk from one place to another, how can I make my walking more energetically efficient?”
  • “Is the amount of thought that I am giving this problem really ergonomically effective?” (ie: the amount of good results relative to energy spent on the issue)

Here is a simple, 6 minute exercise that you can do to help develop awareness of your qi, and start to build it in your mind and body, rather than dissipate it needlessly. If you do this and nothing else as a Qi gong practice it will help you raise your energy levels:

For first two minutes:
Sit in a comfortable position. Visualize an energy field around your body, the shape of an egg, extending roughly 10-20cms from the surface of your body. Simply sit still, and focus on the physical stillness of your body. Notice the temptations to fidget and don’t follow them. Try to keep all of your energy in the present moment, and within the boundaries of your energy field. Use your breathing, your still body, and the edge of your energy field as your basic points of focus

For minutes 3-4:
Use the core body breathing technique to breathe energy into the core of your body and out to the edge of your energy field. As the qi moves in and out of the core of your body, retain it in your energy field so that you can feel it building and increasing.

For minutes 5-6:
Relax and breathe naturally, your body and energy field will now feel energized. Practice keeping mentally and physically still, whilst at the same time feeling full of energy and life-force.

This final state is the one that we are aiming to make the base line of our daily life and awareness as Qi gong practitioners particularly, but also as any type of meditation and mindfulness practitioner really: Simultaneously relaxed and energized.

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

September: Saturday 29th , October: Sat 6th/20th , Fri 5th/26th– Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Begins September 26th/27th – Five stages of integral meditation practice, from beginners to advanced. A five module course

Saturday 29th September, 2-5pm – OneHeart Open Day ‘Activating your journey of healing and empowerment’.

October Events:

Saturday 6th October 1-4pm – Mindful Resilience: Sustaining your effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure

Saturday 20th October 10.30am-5.30pm – Integral Meditation for Intermediate and Advanced Meditators

Saturday 27th October, 9:30am – 12:30pm – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention 

Saturday 27th October, 4-5.30pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Tues & Wednesday 30 & 31 October, 7.30-8.30pm – Samhain Meditation – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

Categories
Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditation techniques spiritual intelligence

Seven essential dimensions of meditation practice

Dear  Integral Meditators,

Once you go beyond the initial beginners level of meditation, what are the essential building blocks that you need to create a well rounded meditation practice? The article below offers a list of seven practices that you can use as a simple template. In relation to it, heads up for a workshop I’ll be doing in October: Integral Meditation for Intermediate and Advanced Meditators

…And a reminder of this weeks sessions: the Tues and Weds Autumn equinox session, and Shamanic mandala meditation on Saturday 😉

In the spirit of well rounded inner growth,

Toby

Seven essential dimensions of meditation practice

People come to meditation for many different reasons, and there are a lot of different types of meditation. The following list below outlines seven essential dimensions of meditation practice, that you can use as a way of expanding your own meditation, so that it includes all of them in one form or another:

1) Cultivate conscious intention and motivation– The general principle here is that you should cultivate a conscious intention for doing things, for as much of the time as possible. In particular, your meditation practice can be done with four basic levels of intention: To bring healing and wellbeing to yourself, to develop your own benevolent inner power, to bring benefit to your circle of personal influence, and to bring healing and wellbeing to the world at large.
2) Build a right relationship to your emotions – Meditation should help you to make friends with your emotions; to look after and guide those that are in pain (sadness, anger etc…) and to cultivate and strengthen those that are positive and benevolent. There should be a portion of your practice that is focused explicitly on this.
3) Embodying your values through ethical action – Your actions need to be consistent with the states of mind that you cultivate in meditation, your outer actions should support your inner development. If your action and ethics don’t, match up to the mind-states that you are cultivating, then inevitably this interferes fundamentally with practice 4, building focus.
4) Building your capacity for focus and concentration – Based on an alignment of your outer actions with your inner states of mind (practice 3), you then have as a basic bread and butter activity for your meditation the building of concentration and focus. In the information and smart phone age of distraction, this is more and more of a premium activity.
5) Develop wise insight into the nature of yourself and life – The function of stage 4, focus is to then give your mind the power to look deeply into yourself and your life so as to experience insight into the deeper levels of who you are and what is important in your life.
6) Cultivate your capacity for wise learning in the moment – Meditation should facilitate your capacity for experiential learning in the moment. Essentially this means that you actively practice  observing and learning as you go about your daily activities on a fuller and more creative level.
7) Giving back to the world, engaging in acts of service – As a result of practices 1-6, you should fine that your own happiness, fulfillment and sense of wellbeing starts to be increasingly plentiful and abundant. As a result, the question then becomes ‘How can I go about expressing this abundance to the world as an act of service that will enrich the lives of others?’ The way in which you actively go about answering this question is your final essential practice.

Is there an underlying set of purposes for doing meditation that is common to all different types and traditions? The perennial philosophy says that there is. The list above is one that I have put together on the basis of the ‘one mountain, many paths’, integral approach to meditation that I expound, which in turn is based somewhat on the principles of the perennial philosophy. The order of this list is based very loosely on Roger Walsh’s Essential Spirituality, which is a very worthwhile read.

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

September: Saturday 29th , October: Sat 6th/20th , Fri 5th/26th– Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday September 15th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for transforming negativity and stress into positivity and enlightenment 

Tues 18th & Weds 18th September, 7.30-8.30pm – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday 22nd September, 10.30am-5pm – Shamanic Mandala Meditation and Art Workshop

Saturday 29th September, 2-5pm – OneHeart Open Day ‘Activating your journey of healing and empowerment’.

October Events:

Saturday 6th October 1-4pm – Mindful Resilience: Sustaining your effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure

Saturday 20th October 10.30am-5.30pm – Integral Meditation for Intermediate and Advanced Meditators

Saturday 27th October, 9:30am – 12:30pm – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention 

Tues & Wednesday 30 & 31 October, 7.30-8.30pm – Samhain Meditation – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Saturday 27th October, 4-5.30pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

Categories
Energy Meditation Meditation techniques Mindful Breathing Qi gong

Qi Gong 101: Mindfully increasing & harmonizing your subtle energy 

Dear  Integral Meditators,

Qi gong is a way of working mindfully with the subtle energy in your body. This week’s article reflects upon two fundamental questions: What is Qi Gong? And what are the different elements of qi gong practice? I have placed the answers in six parts or divisions. You’ll see links embedded in the article that will take you to some simple practices from my Qi gong blog.In the spirit of energy,

Toby

If you enjoy the article, then do check out my QG coaching and healing page. On the coaching page I share a little about my own personal journey with qi gong meditation!

Qi Gong 101: Mindfully increasing & harmonizing your subtle energy 

What is Qi Gong? Here are six different ways of answering this question, that together give an overview of the different aspects of qi gong practice.

1) Qi Gong is developing awareness of and circulating ‘qi’ or subtle energy.
All qi gong practices really focus around this basic point. They are all methods to improve the amount (quantity) of qi flowing through our body and mind, thus giving us more energy. Secondly, they improve the harmony and balance (quality) of the qi/energy flow. What is commonly referred to as ‘qi’ in qi gong is the subtle magnetic or bio-electrical energy that flows through the energy meridians in our body. The qi in our body is a part of a vast field of bio-electrical energy that pervades and infuses planet Earth. Other equivalent words for qi are vital energy, prajna, etheric force and “ki” (as in the Japanese word “re-ki” or “universal energy”).

What does Qi Gong practice consist of?

2) Standing
Qi gong practices teach us how to increase and harmonize the flow of energy through our body by adopting certain special standing positions. If you think about the sky and stars above you as being the positive pole of an electrical circuit and the Earth beneath you as being the negative pole, then your body is like the conductor of electrical energy between these two poles. Qi gong standing postures show how to tap into the energy of the universe simply by standing in an optimal manner.

3) Breathing
Qi gong practice teaches basic breathing techniques to develop and enhance the flow of qi around our bodies. At any given time, if you observe your breathing, you will find that it reflects the way in which your body and mind are feeling at that time. Qi gong breathing techniques focus on giving our breathing patterns eight fundamental qualities; Silent and fine, slow and deep, long and soft, continuous and even.

4) Smiling
This is such a fundamental part of qi gong that I tend to draw it out as an individual element. The expression on our face has a fundamental effect on the energy in our mind and body. By practicing a technique called the “inner smile” we can harness this form of qi or energy for many positive purposes in our life.

5) Movement
Qi gong promotes special types of gentle physical movement to help promote the flow of qi through the body. There is also a mechanical (in the positive sense of the word) aspect of qi gong movement that focuses on putting the joints of our body through their full range of movement on a regular basis. “A used door hinge never rusts” as the saying goes. Qi gong movement help us to exercise our joints and basic muscle groups in a way that helps to maintain them in a healthy, optimal state.

6) Practical philosophy
Qi gong is based around a great wealth of practical wisdom from the (mostly) Taoist tradition of health, primal psychology and spirituality. This provides a context and way of life that surrounds, infuses and informs the Qi gong practices outlined in points 1-5 above.

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

Categories
creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Insight Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Stress Transformation

Baseballs or confetti?

Dear Integral Meditators,

If you were to learn to deal with your suffering in life, what might start to happen to your access to rapture and joy? The article below explores this question in a practical way…

In the spirit of baseballs and confetti,

Toby
​Baseballs of confetti? 
The truth of suffering
One of the big gifts of my time as a Buddhist monk and studying Buddhism was its orientation around looking squarely at pain and suffering. Of course, Buddhas first noble noble truth is the ‘truth of suffering’; in our life it is absolutely certain that we will meet various forms of pain. The brief summary of Buddhas seven unavoidable sufferings would be: birth, ageing, sickness, death, parting from what we like, encountering things we don’t like, and uncertainty. So, the basic ‘mindful injunction’ here is ‘be ready’ because in multiple ways small and great you are going to suffer. The good news is that, if you are ready for the pain, then you can reduce the amount of pain you experience, and you can also use it to become wiser, happier and more capable in your life. Put another way, your suffering becomes useful to you.What are you expecting, a baseball or confetti?
Whether our suffering is useful to us or not depends alot upon our expectation. If you are standing there expecting life to throw confetti at you, then when a ‘baseball’ of suffering gets thrown your way, then you are going to be completely unprepared, and the likelihood is that it’s going to hit you flush in the face, and cause a lot of pain. If your ‘ready’ for the suffering, or ‘expecting the baseball to come at you’ then when it does, you can basically ‘catch’ it, without it really doing to much damage. For example:

  • If I am wrestling with uncertainties in important areas of my life, if I have a sense that this is a ‘normal’ part of everyone’s life which I expect then I’ll be ‘ready’ to have to deal with it.
  • If I expect my body to give rise to a certain amount of pain, to age and so forth, then chances are I’ll be able to work with pain when it occurs and relax more gracefully into the ageing process (and perhaps as a result staying ‘beautiful’ longer?)
  • If when I engage in a romantic relationship I expect to have my emotional triggers and vulnerabilities pressed, then there is a much better chance I’ll be able to work with them, and preserve the beauty of the love in the relationship for longer, perhaps indefinitely….

The bottom line here is, if you are ready for it, then the capacity of suffering to cause painis much reduced, and the reduction comes in large part from your expectations…

The truth of rapture
Another truth that I think is equally important to grasp, but that isn’t explicitly in Buddhas four truths (but may be implicit?), is what I call the truth of rapture. This truth is really that life contains within it inherent forms of rapture, beauty and bliss. This rapture is available to all of us, but it exists amongst the suffering, messiness, uncertainty and difficulties of our life. The big payoff of opening to the truth of suffering well and courageously is that you them start to open up spaces in your life that contain wonder, beauty and amazement. Sometimes these experiences are quiet and unobtrusive, and sometimes they come to us in waves, loudly and in technicolour. If you take care of your suffering well then there is more and more room for genuine and sustainable rapture. For example:

  • If you are prepared to meet the ‘pain’ of intimacy in a romantic relationship and deal with it mindfully, then the stage is set for a long term and sustainable experience of rapture
  • If you are prepared to accept and deal with the pain of working hard to build a business well and with integrity, then the stage is set for the long-term pleasure and joy of having done so. You can enjoy the joy of both the process and the result!
  • If you are not pre-occupied with, trying to avoid or being consumed by your suffering, then you can find quiet moments of rapture during the day, in the beauty of a view, the presence of a loved one, the passing of time and so forth…

When you know how to catch the baseballs of suffering that come your way, you may find life spontaneously and as if by accident starts to throw a lot of confetti your way!

Related article: Practical Rapture (On rapture, beauty and mindfulness)

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Energy Meditation Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindfulness Presence and being present Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

The body within the body (infinitely small, infinitely big)

Dear  Integral Meditators,

In your body, according to the great meditation traditions, there is another body, which when discovered is a wonder. The article below explains a simple(ish) technique to discover it for yourself!
for those in Singapore: The Qi gong meditation/workout this Saturday 8th is currently FULL, but the one on the 29th still has places.
Details of this weeks evening classes can be found here.

In the spirit of deep body awareness,

Toby

The body within the body (infinitely small, infinitely big)

‘The body within the body’ is an originally Zen term that I use to refer to a particular technique that enables access to a deep state of formless meditation, using the body and the senses as a starting point. It’s a useful technique to know because as well as being very simple, if you get good at it combines:

  • A simple technique that you can use to calm and center yourself with in daily life
  • Enabling access to a deep and expanded state of awareness that is often only experienced after years of meditation practice

The technique: 
Begin with the body – Start by focusing your attention upon the sensation of your physical body. You can focus on the sensation of the body in general, or you can take one area of the body, such as the rising and falling of your belly as you breathe, or the weight of your body on the chair/cushion. Either way, use the sensory experience of the body as your object of focus.
Let the mind still – As you focus on the body in this way, you will find that naturally, over time your mind and thoughts start to slow down, resulting in greater and greater periods of time where your mind is merely an open spacious experience of awareness, with no thoughts in it. You keep your physical body as the anchor for your attention and let the mind still gradually in its own time. No need to push things.
Let the body dissolve – After a while you’ll find that your sense of your physical body will start to dissolve away, and you’ll be left with what feels like a huge ‘white’ open space, which appears more and more directly to your awareness. This is the ‘body within the body’, or the formless, timeless ‘body of consciousness’.
Rest in the ‘body within the body’ – This is your principle object of meditation and attention for the session. It’s quite a radically different experience from our normal everyday state of mind and is characterized by not just a mental experience of stillness, but also a sense of inhabiting a ‘body’ that is itself infinitely still, spacious and consisting of consciousness, rather than any kind of physical form.
Come back to your physical body – Finally, when you have finished the time you intended to spend meditating, really come back solidly to your physical body and awareness of your outer environment. Concretely ground yourself in your sense of physicality and everyday physical surroundings. This last stage is very important!

A personal story
This method can also be practiced using external objects of the senses as your point of focus. I had my first experience of this type of ‘body within the body’ meditation 100% by accident as a 12-13 year old. I was sitting underneath a row of polar trees at school, enjoying looking at them and the breeze running through the leaves. Relatively suddenly I had the sense of the trees and my own physical body ‘expanding’ to become as if infinitely large, and then dissolving away to leave an open empty space (the body of consciousness) that felt at the same time both infinitely large, and infinitely small. This stayed with me as ‘peak’ experience that I dipped in an out of for several weeks, before disappearing. Later when I took up meditation in my twenties I had similar experiences that I was then able to identify as useful and meaningful as a part of the meditation journey.

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Begins 14/15th September – Effortless effort – Insight meditation for self-healing and transformation – a five week course

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 8th September & 29th September 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Tues 18th & Weds 18th September, 7.30-8.30pm – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday 22nd September, 10.30am-5pm – Shamanic Mandala Meditation and Art Workshop

Saturday 29th September, 2-5pm – OneHeart Open Day ‘Activating your journey of healing and empowerment’.

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology