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Awareness and insight Enlightened love and loving Essential Spirituality Inner vision Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

The Inevitability of Peace, Happiness and Fulfillment

Hi Everyone,

This week’s article looks at the a perspective on happiness and wellbeing that I have been finding particularly useful over the last couple of weeks, so much so that I felt I would like to pass it on to people, I hope you enjoy it!

Yours in the spirit of inevitable peace,

Toby


 

Article of the Week:

The Inevitability of Peace, Happiness and Fulfillment

The world can seem a difficult place to find fulfillment and give happiness

Even with the best intentions sometimes finding and giving happiness can see like a difficult and intractable process. It seems like one personal problem that we solve only gives rise to another, people we are trying to help sometimes turn around and stab us in the back or refuse to take any constructive advice. The world at large seems unfair, with some like us enjoying wealth and affluence easily whilst vast tracts of the population remain stuck in absolute poverty.
Looking at life from these perspectives it can be tempting to give up on the prospect of ourselves or the world at large ever finding a lasting solution to our own challenges, let alone to the collective problems that we face.

From a spiritual perspective fulfillment and peace is inevitable

Why does spirit bother creating anything in the Universe, worlds, planets, living beings and the like? The traditional answer found in the great wisdom traditions of the world is essentially that spirit engages in the process of creation for fun, for amusement. In the Hindu tradition this idea is called “lila”, meaning sport, pastime, or play. Spirit creates the diversity of the universe from its own inherent unity as a celebration of itself and to alleviate apparently a certain cosmic sense of boredom. What will the end result of this play and sport be? Inevitably it will be a return to the natural and inherent peace, happiness and fulfillment of unified spirit.
If we see our own life and world from this perspective, as the sport, pastime or play of spirit, underpinned by the inherent unity and  loving nature of spirit, then this enables us to find a point of equilibrium in the chaos of our daily life and complex world, with all of its uncertainty and intractability.

That fulfillment is not somewhere in the distant future, it is here and now

One of the main aims of meditation in the above context is to bring home a subjective and experiential realization of this inevitable happiness, fulfillment and peace. By realizing this inevitably, we start to experience it in our lives right now, as an underpinning current of energy that gradually pervades everything we do. You could say that having access to this current of energy in everything that we do is one of the markers of success in our daily meditation practice.

Meditating on the inevitability of happiness

If you are interested in trying to integrate this perspective more into your daily life and meditation practice, here is a simple method you can use. Sitting quietly and contemplatively, focus on the words:
At the end of the life-paths and trials of every living being lies inevitable peace, happiness and fulfillment”.
Then spend a bit of time just breathing and relaxing into the recognition that however difficult things seem for ourself, our loved ones and the world at large, the only final endgame is the return to the peace, happiness and fulfillment of spirit.
During your contemplation and afterward, whilst going about your daily life, try and feel this final peace, happiness and fulfillment as a presence in your life right now. As Thich Nhat Hanh is so fond of saying “The Pure Land is Now or Never!”

© Toby Ouvry 2012, 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

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Enlightened love and loving Essential Spirituality mind body connection Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

Six Aspects of Sacred Sexuality

Hi Everyone!

In this week’s article I give a quick guided tour to the uses of sexual energy in spiritual practice. I would venture to say that most of you may not have seen all these different practices in a single article, and I hope you’ll find it of interest!
Detailed below is also the meditation class routine for April, full details to follow in next week’s newsletter.

Yours in the spirit of sacred creativity,

Toby

PS: If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out how you can use the latest meditation technologies to enhance your bliss and joy, then click here: Digital Euphoria


 

Article of the Week:

Six Aspects of Sacred Sexuality

The following is a list of the different uses that sexuality has been and is used for in the different wisdom traditions of the world. Of course each of them contains elements of each type of sacred sexuality within their tradition, but because different traditions emphasize particular uses of the sexual energy, I use them as descriptive terms for the particular “genre”. For example Taoism uses the sexual energy extensively for healing, so I call this type of sexuality “Taoist sexuality”.

As you read through the six below, some you may feel familiar with, others may not be so well known to you. All are very useful when used in the right context, but as with any spiritual practice appropriate discernment should be used in its practical application.

Shamanic Sexuality– Here the sexual energy is generated specifically with the intention of being used for traveling to different locations on the inner world in one’s “astral body” or “energy body”. From one point of view you can mentally project yourself to anywhere you want in the universe just by thinking of it, but if you want to travel to an inner world location in your energy body more energy is required and sexual energy works very well to fully charge the subtle body for its journey. Shamanic sexuality is also used in a healing context, assuming the authenticity and integrity of the Shamanic practitioner.

Taoist Sexuality– In Taoist sexual practice the sexual energy is deliberately generated and then circulated energetically within the body so as to regenerate areas of the body that have become weak nor deadened, and to clear our energetic blocks that are perpetuating and may have even been the original cause of an illness. It can also be practiced by healthy individuals and couples to promote energy levels and long life.

Tantric Sexuality – Here sexual energy is generated with the intention to circulate it through the subtle energy centres of the body in order to promote expanded and enlightened states of awareness.
Another aspect of tantric sexuality is the sexual union of ourself with a divine “other” which is to say the divine appearing in a God or Goddess form, which in turn can enhance the expanded and enlightened states of awareness that are the goal of tantric sexuality.

Psycho-spiritual/Psychoanalytical  Sexuality– The point of this form of sexual practice is, to quote Robert Masters to release “Release sexuality from its obligation to make us feel better”, and to engage in sexual activity with our partner specifically with the intention to open to our psychological vulnerability and explore whatever emotional/energetic pleasure or pain may come up during the interaction consciously and honestly. I suppose this could be thought of as a form of healing sexuality, where the emphasis is placed upon psychological healing.

Non-Dual Sexuality– Non dual sexuality can be practiced simply by deliberately mixing any experience of sexual or sensual bliss with formless emptiness, or inner and outer space, and then remembering that the sense of bliss and the sense of space arise from one primal, non-dual source of all that is.

Biological Sexuality– This is where you use your sexual energy to have babies. It is a s sacred as all the rest, although it is not always presented in a format that is obviously sacred

A final point on all the above is that all of them require dedication and a willingness to confront challenges and difficulties as well as bliss in order to gain authentic results.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, 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

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A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight Enlightened love and loving Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present

How to Meditate on Gratitude

Why Should we Meditate on Gratitude? What are we Trying to Achieve?

The function  and purpose of meditating on gratitude is to train our attention in such a way that even when we are under pressure and feeling unhappy in some way we never lose sight of the things in our life that are there for us to appreciate, value and feel grateful for. Moreover, when we are not feeling unduly under pressure or unhappy, the practice of gratitude helps us to substantially enhance and stabilize our happiness and sense of wellbeing.
Meditating on gratitude is a way of leveraging more fully upon the existing good in your life. By consciously noting and appreciating that which is there to be thankful for, the amount of happiness that you get from that person, object of event increases exponentially. Whenever we take someone or something/someone for granted we minimize the amount of wellbeing that we can derive from our relationship to it or them.

Success in Meditating on Gratitude.
One of the main signs of success in our meditation on gratitude comes when we start to realize that there is something that we can be appreciating and feeling happy about in each and every moment of our life. There is in fact an abundance of things to feel positive about in everyone’s life, it is just a matter of training our attention through meditation to be aware of it!
Our biological brain is hardwired toward picking our faults, threats and dangers in our life. This was good for our survival when we were fighting of bears and tigers and other tribes, but in today’s modern world this tendency to pick out the negative serves most often to inhibit our quality of life and constrict the amount of potential happiness that we experience at any given moment. The meditation on gratitude is designed t remedy this issue.

How to Meditate on Gratitude.
The perception can be that meditation is an activity that you do sitting down in silence, and then once you get up you then start doing something else. In reality however good meditation involves training our attention through-out the day to focus on objects that make us calm, peaceful and happy.
Correspondingly this meditation in gratitude is something that you can in the midst of your daily activities in spare moments.

The Basic Practice:Finding short periods of time to come back to a mind of gratitude and appreciation.
Think about the way in which your day is structured and try and come up with 5-6 one minute slots where you can consciously come back to a mind of gratitude, and focus on it for just that very short period of time. By doing this over the period of the week you will start to create some strong practical habits in your mind that naturally incline toward valuing, appreciating and feeling grateful for the good in your life.

What Should I feel Grateful For?
There are almost innumerable things that we can choose to be grateful for, three main areas are:
– Gratitude appreciation for ourself and our own actions. Give yourself a regular pat on the back for the positive efforts you are making!
– Gratitude and appreciation for others in our life who help or assist us in some way.
– Gratitude and appreciation for the Earth, for nature and the opportunity to participate in life

Some Samples From my own journal
Of course there are many other different things that we can focus on as objects of gratitude and rejoicing. One thing that I find really powerful is actually writing down the thing that I am feeling grateful for, either actually at the time or later in the day. Writing down our object of gratitude makes it really stand out in the field of our awareness, and therefore has a powerful and accelerated effect upon our development of gratitude (and yes, writing can be very much a part of our meditation practice!).
Here are some examples from my own journal over a twenty four hour period:

9th September

3.15pm – I am waiting for my daughters’ bus to arrive, there is a pleasant breeze blowing through the bushes and flowers, the sky is cool and overcast. Next to me on the wall a little family of sparrows observes me closely whilst preening themselves. I take a moment to appreciate and soak in all of these gifts from the natural world, freely available to me as long as I care to notice.

6.15pm – Whilst waiting at the bus stop on the way to the shopping centre I took a minute to appreciate the trees around me, and the calming energy that they gave me at a time when I was feeling a little bit irritable. I also took the time to notice the sun setting behind the clouds and value how pleasant it can be to view the light of the sun when it is hidden behind light cloud.

9.30pm – Took time after my evening meditation to appreciate myself for making the time and effort to meditate. I also spent a short period of time enjoying and appreciating the evening moon and its cooling and calming light!

12.30am – Reflected on the enjoyment that both I and my daughter are getting from reading “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” together each evening.

10th September

8.30am – Took a few moments whilst watering the plants on our roof to appreciate and feel gratitude for the good energy that they give to us and the way in which they visually enhance our living space.

11.15am – Spent a few moments appreciating myself for having done the vacuuming and other cleaning tasks around the house, as well as feel grateful to the makers of the vacuum cleaner for saving me time by making such an effective machine! Finally felt grateful for our pleasant apartment.

2pm – Felt gratitude for the excellent Japanese vegetarian meal that I had just participated in, and for the efforts of the people who had created such an excellent alternative Japanese vegetarian restaurant!

4.15pm – After spending an hour taking research photos for my new project, I took a moment to feel grateful for the fact that I have such a relatively large amount of time to devote to my artistic practice in my life.

As you can see none of the above are hugely unusual or remarkable events. Enjoying the daily happiness that gratitude can give is simply a matter of training your attention to look in the right directions every day!

© Toby Ouvry 2011, 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

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A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight Enlightened love and loving Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope

On the Three Types of Relational Love and How to Integrate Them Into Your Life

What does it mean to be expressing love fully in your relationships? There are many ways to answer this question, but one answer deriving from classical sources is that you should aim to have three types of love functioning fully in your day to day interactions with others and yourself. These types of love are eros, filia and agape.

Here is a brief explanation of what each of them are in the context of relationships

Eros – This put simply is the creative spark that arises between two people or between ourselves and  something that we love. This is most commonly thought of as the romantic love between lovers which over time may lead to the biologically creative result of a baby, but it can just as validly be understood as  other forms of creativity. For example an intellectual spark between two people in a platonic relationship that inspires both of them to become more creative, dynamic and inspired in their life and work.
Most commonly this type of love is felt between a man and a woman (in a sexual or non-sexual context), because the interaction of masculine and feminine energies is an important aspect of the arising of eros. However, between two people of the same sex who both have well developed masculine and feminine energies it is perfectly possible to have a very inspiring “erotic” relationship, although this has a quite different meaning and connotation from the common usage of erotic!
Essentially to have eros in your relationships means that they are regularly supplying you with a source of creative inspiration in your life. Conversely to give filialin your relationships means to provide others with creative inspiration.

Filia – Filial love is classically the love between siblings, but it is also a common way of bonding between friends. Here the two people find strong ways of non-sexual bonding with each other that provides a source of mutual support, enjoyment and potential growth for each other. The ideal with filial love is to have the both parties on an equal footing in the relationship and a sense of mutual respect.
So, with images love the ideas is to be seeking and finding respect, support, self esteem and enjoyment from your friendships, and likewise seek to give these things to the people whom you share your life with.

Agape – One of the archetypal images of agape is the mother and child (eg: Mary with the baby Jesus), but more broadly speaking agape is empathetic or compassionate love. Agape seeks to understand and sympathize with its object like a parent caring for a child, seeking as Saint Francis would say “To understand rather than to be understood”. To give agape in your relationships with others is a wonderful thing, and likewise learning to receive it is an important source of sustenance.

So, using these three type of love as our model, our relationships should contain healthy elements of giving and receiving the following:

Eros – Creative inspiration.
Filia – Support, enjoyment, bonding, esteem building.
Agape – Empathy, compassion and healthy sympathy.

Working with these three types of love

Here are some possible ways to start working practically with these three types of love in your relationships:

  • Firstly we can simply look at our current relationships and appreciate the people who are currently providing us with these types of love in our life right now.
  • Secondly we can look for ways that we can actively increase the amount of eros, agape and filia to those we love.
  • Thirdly if it feels as if there is something lacking in your relationship with someone close to you, reflect upon which of the three types of love is most lacking. Having had an insight on this, then try and increase that particular type of love in the relationship through your actions.
  • Finally, practice agape, filia and eros toward yourself each day. Support yourself, inspire yourself, understand and have compassion for yourself!

© Toby Ouvry 2011, 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



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Tapping Into Your Invisible Sources of Love and Support, A Contemporary Interpretation of the Process of Prayer

One of the great illusions that we often battle with is the feeling of being isolated and alone. This feeling of loneliness and isolation can exact a heavy toll upon our psyche. There are three approaches that we can take to this challenge:

  1. Get more comfortable with being alone
  2. Reach out to other people and build more of a sense of external community
  3. 3. Tap into sources of invisible love and support that surround us all the time

This article looks at the third option, which in many ways can be understood as tapping into the power of prayer. The meaning of prayer as I am referring to it here is as follows:

“Prayer is a way of invoking and requesting support from the invisible sources of love that surround us at all times” .When I say “invoking” here this can be done in both an active and a passive way. To pray actively means to make a specific request to any invisible source of support. Prayer can also be done in a more passive way simply by becoming aware of the invisible source of support and focusing on consciously receiving supportive energy from that source.

So, what are these invisible sources of loving and supporting energy? Here is a list of examples:

From Yourself – We can prayers and requests to the higher dimensional aspects of ourself that we can term in many ways, for example our Higher Self, our Divine Spark or our Buddha Nature. Since these higher aspects of consciousness are literally a part of who we are, it is safe to assume that they are always wishing us success and happiness, and are sending us that support all the time. Through the practice of prayer we can leverage on this invisible support much more.

From those who love and like you, and from your Ancestors – We are energetically and mentally connected to friends and family all the time, and there is potentially a constant stream of positive energy and support that we can be receiving from them even if they live in a far away land. Moreover there is also an ongoing stream of invisible love, support and wisdom that flows through our life at all times in the form of our ancestral group as a whole.

From the “Power of the Common Good” – This level of support is really about remembering that there is within the group mind of humanity a common intention to benefit, do good and support. Easy to forget amidst the mass of seeming negativity and chaos, but it is nonetheless there for us to tap at will!

From the Wise – Those Saints Saints, Sages and Great Souls, the great and the good, past and present who are filled with love, wisdom and compassion, and are at the cutting edge of human evolutionary consciousness.

From the Earth and from Nature – Sit in a park surrounded by trees for a while and any problem or pain that you have will reduce. I’m reading the Ramayana with my daughter at the moment, where all the characters pray for support from rivers, tress and mountains. It is a bit of a forgotten art in modern society that we could well do with remembering and practicing more!

From Spirit or Source – By this I mean the formless creative energy that creates and sustains all of the above, call it God or what you will…

A One Minute Prayer/Meditation Method for Tapping into Your Invisible Support Network

Pick one of the above invisible sources of love and support and focus on it mentally. You can then either:

  • Offer a specifically worded prayer requesting support for a particular area in your life, or
  • Just recognize this invisible source of love and acknowledge its readiness to support you.

Having made your prayer or recognized this source of invisible love, feel it surrounding you and supporting you, breathe with this feeling of receiving love and support for a few breaths, share your burden and release your worries.

A slightly longer Prayer/Meditation Method for Tapping into Your Invisible Support Network

Take the time to go through the above list of sources of love and support. Having offered your prayer for support, spend a few moments breathing with and feeling the support of each of these sources in turn. Take the time to recognize and feel the support of each of them. Feel the love you are receiving increasing with each source that you focus on. End by focusing on a feeling of having released your worries and burdens, and of being NOT ALONE!

© Toby Ouvry 2011, 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

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Awareness and insight Enlightened love and loving Meditation techniques Motivation and scope

Meditating on Detached-Compassion and Divine Playfulness

The first of the five enlightened powers that I outline in my meditation technique “The Five enlightened Powers” is the power of embodiment. This involves, quoting from my previous article on the subject:

Remembering that you are, in essence a spark of Universal spirit experiencing (temporarily) a physically embodied life on Earth as a human. Whatever situation you find yourself in, grounding your awareness in your true identity and not getting caught up in your small or egoic identity is the power of embodiment. Wherever you are, remember WHO you are!”

A question that we may then ask ourselves is “So then what is it actually like to experience ourself as such a spark of Universal Spirit? What qualities and emotions would we experience?” In this article I intend to highlight two specific qualities and perspectives that we can seek to bring into our daily life that will enable us to function more authentically as a divine spark amidst the push and pull of our daily lives. These two qualities are detached-compassion, and divine playfulness.

Detached-compassion

Detachment and compassion are qualities that often we think of as being separate because they appear to exclude each other.  We think that when you are detached you are disconnected from others, and so cannot feel deep compassion for them. Likewise if we are truly being compassionate we cannot be detached because that would mean disconnecting from our feeling nature, which is where our compassion is located.

However, viewed from the perspective of our spiritual being, it is perfectly possible to bring deep compassion together with as sense of detached, witnessing observation. This is because from the perspective of spirit:

  • We can be detached from any situation because we are always viewing things from the “big picture” perspective; nothing is truly personal in the egotistic sense of the word.
  • At the same time we feel totally close and intimate with all living beings because we realize that on the essence level we all share the same common identity. Ultimately we are all one being viewing the world from billions of pairs of different eyes!

So, from the perspective of our spiritual being we experience our life as impersonally-personal, as deeply involved and at the same time not involved, as passionate at the same time as being totally even minded.

The main take away from this is that if you practice bringing detached compassion together simultaneously in life situations, gradually improving your ability to do so, then you will consistently increase your experience of what it is like to be a spiritual being embodied in a physical body.

Divine Playfulness

One of the fundamental qualities of spirit is playfulness and a corresponding sense of humor. From its perspective the whole process of creating and evolving a universe is done as a type of game, a way of creatively expressing itself and its potential.

Consequently, if you want to increase the level of spirit in your daily life then entering into your daily tasks in the spirit of divine playfulness is a great practice to have.

Most of the time we tend to get a little too serious about things and as a result allow our life to become unnecessarily stressful and unhappy. Thinking about the challenges in your day as playful games and puzzles set you by the universe and your own spiritual being in order to help you evolve and grow is a technique that both relieves stress and enhances the deeply felt spiritual nature of your human experience.

One to Five Minute Meditation to integrate Playfulness and Detached Compassion into Your Daily Life

Step 1: Mentally select a particular life situation/challenge  that you wish to work on in the meditation. One of the characteristics of meditating with the Five Enlightened Powers technique is that you are always trying to work directly with a practical “real time” situation in your life. It should never be allowed to become totally abstract.

Step 2: Recollect your understanding of detached compassion. Open your heart to the feelings that you are experiencing and the other people that are involved AT THE SAME TIME AS mentally taking a step back and seeing what is happening from the big picture perspective. Experiment and try to feel both empathic compassion and witnessing observance SIMULTANEOUSLY. Breathe with this combined feeling experience for a while.

Step 3: Introduce playful humor to your perspective of the challenge. Think of the challenge as a game that you as a spiritual being are being set by the Universe to stretch and improve yourself as a human being. Stay with this perspective and the experiences it gives rise to for as long as you wish.

If you do this brief exercise a few times over the next week or so you will find that compassionate detachment and divine playfulness will become a real experience for you in your daily life that can help you to gain an authentic experience of what it is like to be a spiritual being appearing as a physical body!

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first. Contact info@tobyouvry.com

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Awareness and insight Enlightened love and loving Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope Presence and being present Shadow meditation

The Role of Courage in Meditation

Two Types of Courage

In order to build a successful and authentic meditation practice you need courage, and the two types of courage that I want to highlight today are the courage to initiate, and the courage to persist. You need the courage to initiate to get through all the excuses and distractions that are in the way of you starting or restarting your meditation practice, and just ‘put your bum on the seat’ so to speak. You then need the courage of persistence, which is really a steady type of willpower, to simply keep going on a regular basis week in week out, so that your practice has a chance to bear fruit. Without these two types of courage, the inner clarity, wellbeing and centeredness that is within the grasp of anyone who persists in meditation will remain out of your reach.

Two Types of Meditation: Sitting With the Silence and Sitting With the Noise

When many people approach me for the first time to talk about meditation, the most common reason for them wanting to start meditating is that they want to find some headspace, some inner silence that they can relax with. They then tell me that they simply cannot stop their mind chattering, and so they find it “impossible” to actually start a meditation practice. What we need to realize (and this is really important) is that before we can enjoy “sitting with silence” we first need to enjoy the process of “sitting with the noise”, that noise being the inner noise of our mind incessantly chattering with itself!

The way to learn how to sit in silence is first to get comfortable sitting with the noise of your mind. Over time and out of your daily or regular practice of sitting with the noise of your mind you will gradually start to notice an inner silence emerging, at first only occasionally in brief flashes, but the gradually emerging more and more fully as time goes by.

The Story of Tom

Back in the 90’s, when I was a Buddhist monk teaching meditation in the north of England I had a man in his 70’s come to my meditation class called Tom. Tom was an ex coal miner. He was in constant discomfort due to rheumatism, and his wife was a mental and physical invalid (Parkinson’s disease I think) to whom Tom was the sole care giver. He arrived at my class for the first time in deep despair regarding the loss of his wife, of his own physical fitness and of many of the other good things in his life that had previously made it enjoyable. He made a courageous choice to sit down for 20minutes at the beginning of each day to meditate, a choice to which he stuck to. He used to describe his meditation to me, saying that usually for the first 5-10 minutes all of the anger, despair and sadness would well up within him about his life and about how unfair it all was. Then, at some point in the middle of his meditation, patches of silence would start to appear, and the noise in his mind would quieten. Usually, for the last few minutes of his meditation he said, he would find a state of deep peace, and those few minutes at the end of his meditation were enough to get him through the rest of the day.

Tom’s story is a simple story of courage and persistence in meditation. His description of his own meditation experience shows the truth of how very often before we experience peace in meditation we first have to sit with the “storm” so to speak. The way to meditate in silence is first to get comfortable with sitting with the noise!

Practical Work: Get Comfortable Sitting With The Noise

Pick an amount of time that you can commit to every day, from 3-20minutes. Resolve each day during that time to generate courage and self-compassion, and then simply “sit, breathe and be” with the noise inside your mind. Forget about immediately making your mind silent, just focus on sitting breathing and being with what is there, pleasant or unpleasant, happy or sad.

If you do this consistently each day the inner silence will emerge in its own time. If you make this a lifetime practice the inner silence will grow organically within your life a tree. A tree grows too slowly to spot the changes from day to day, but from month to month, year to year it grows from a fragile seedling to a mighty tree.

Long Term Results

The final thing that I want to mention about meditating on inner noise and inner silence is that eventually, after you have been meditating for quite some time you will discover that you are equally happy to experience inner noise or inner silence, you realize that they are really just two sides of the same coin and not so different in reality.

This can be difficult to grasp conceptually without experience, but an analogy may help: In the same way that a bright, sunny day and a thunderstorm are both “weather”, so a loud noisy mind and a silent one are just “mind”. If you are sitting in a strong house looking out of your window, a storm and a sunny day can both be interesting and enjoyable to experience. Similarly once we have grounded our awareness in the centre of our being through meditation, both noise and silence are equally enjoyable 😉

© Toby Ouvry 2011, 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

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Awareness and insight Enlightened love and loving Inner vision Integral Awareness Presence and being present

Re-Awakening To Your Bliss

When was the last time you enjoyed bliss? By bliss I mean not just an isolated experience of pleasure in either your physical, mental or spiritual bodies, but an experience of pleasure that touched them all three levels of your being  and brought them naturally back into alignment and harmony with each other?

Perhaps when you read the paragraph above the experience of bliss seems a little bit abstract, something difficult to attain, something that happens to us only occasionally and even then caused by something outside of ourselves, something that “happens” to us, rather than something we ourselves create?.

In my opinion and experience the experience of bliss is a lot simpler and more accessible than that. As  human beings and as living creatures, we are all NATURALLY full of blissful energy. Energy is what we are, and in its natural state, our sensory, mental and spiritual energy is deeply blissful and pleasant.

So, if this is the case, why does experiencing bliss seem like such a difficult experience for us? Well, put very simply, most of us live too much of our life “in our head” or in an abstract mental state divorced from the depth and pleasure of our own natural energy. Get out of your head and step back into your moment to moment direct experience of life and bliss starts to return.

Two ways to begin re-connecting to your bliss:

1) Remembering and experience of bliss.

You can try this one right now. Recall a past experience of genuine bliss. Spend a minute or so remembering it and re-creating it in your mind, until you can feel a bit of that blissful energy in your body and soul. Now let go of the memory, and simply focus of the sensation of bliss in your body-mind. There it is, still there even though you have let go of the memory. This exercise helps show you that bliss is a state of being that is present within you right now, it is not something that you have to go out and purchase, or fight hard to obtain.

2) Taking moments in your day to touch bliss

Try and do five short activities (of one minute maximum) every day that are specifically focused on generating bliss. For example I can look up from my keyboard now and just observe the sky and the cloud formations, as I really drink in the richness of that visual experience, I can feel a natural gentle bliss beginning to flow through my being, it is not just an intellectual appreciation, it is a feeling that I can feel relaxing me and expanding into my physical, mental and spiritual being. So there you go, one minute of bliss!

Later I might give my partner or child a hug, and really focus on the experience of bliss that rises from the physical, mental and spiritual touching of two human beings. Again, another minute of natural, easy bliss.

If you like you can make a list of things that make you feel blissful and then just make sure you touch one or other of these activities a few times each day.

Life should be blissful. The interesting thing about true bliss (not to be confused with craving and attachment) is that it makes us less selfish, more giving, more sane and more happy. As it turns out the most important thing to do if you want to re-awaken your bliss is to REMEMBER it, as it is always there!

 

A final warning: Most people these days do seem to have forgotten their bliss, and are tied up in complicated mental knots. Resolve firmly not to be like them;-)

Thanks for reading, and here is to a blissful week ahead!

Toby

© Toby Ouvry 2011. You are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first. Contact info@tobyouvry.com

PS: If you enjoyed this article and would like to find out how you can use the latest meditation technologies to enhance your bliss and joy, then click here: Digital Euphoria

Categories
Concentration Enlightened love and loving Motivation and scope

Motivating Yourself to Meditate Part 1 – Looking at How You Can Meet Your Needs Through Meditation

Hi Everyone,

One reason why people find it difficult to hold down a regular meditation practice is that it is very easy for meditation to get knocked down our priorities list. It seems like there are so many things that need our attention. It is easy to think that we have so many “important” priorities that we can put off meditating until tomorrow, and so it goes on. We never really get serious or consistent about our meditation practice because it is not enough of a priority.

So, what I am going to do in this and next week’s article is have a look at Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and see how meditation can help with these basic needs.  If we have a clear idea about how meditation helps us with our human needs, then we will keep it high on our priority list and make sure that we do it! 

A quick outline of Abraham Maslows hierarchy of human needs, he starts with the most basic first, and then ascends in terms of depth and complexity:

  1. Physiological needs – Food and drink
  2. Security needs – Shelter, physiological safety
  3. Belongingness and love needs – Affiliation, acceptance, affection
  4. Esteem needs – Competence, approval, recognition
  5. Aesthetic and cognitive needs – Knowledge, understanding, goodness, justice, beauty, order, symmetry
  6. Self Actualization

How meditation helps us with these basic needs:

Needs 1&2: Physiological and security needs

I am guessing that if you are reading this article, you will have your basic food, drink and shelter needs being met. You may not be in Buckingham Palace, but you aren’t homeless either right? Although many of us have our basic needs met, many of us remain stuck psychologically in “survival” mode, fighting our way through a hostile universe oblivious of the good fortune of having our basic needs met.

Meditation helps us with this by helping our mind to be calm enough to appreciate and enjoy the fact that our survival needs have been met. Meditation gives us the presence of mind to enjoy life’s simple pleasures; Food, drink, shelter and a basic quality of life. Without peace of mind studies show that those in first world countries are no happier than those in 3rd world countries. Meditation makes sure this does not happen to you! 

Need 3: Belongingness and love needs

A daily meditation practice is a statement to yourself that you are important and lovable enough to deserve happiness and peace of mind. Belongingness and love needs are often projected outward onto other people, but in reality our primary love relationship is with ourself. If we get this right it will help our love relationships to others.

Meditation also puts you in touch with a source of love inside you that might be termed as “Universal” or unconditional. This love starts to rise up in our mind whenever we truly touch mental peace and calm (see last weeks article on the “Two Main Lessons of Love”). You deserve to receive love every day right? So give yourself that pleasure by sitting down and doing a bit of meditation every day! One final point here, meditation by its nature makes us more mindful, relaxed and aware. This quality of mind helps us to see that there is love being directed toward us all the time by our friends, family and colleagues. A relaxed, meditative mind can open to this love and receive it deeply into our being, instead of shutting it out.

So, next week I’ll write a few thoughts on needs four, five and six, but I think if you contemplate the above three, there is plenty of reason to renew your determination to find time and space for at least a little meditation each day! 

Thanks for reading,

Yours in the spirit of the harmonious meeting of our higher and lower needs!

Toby 

PS: Two opportunities for meditative activities over the next week:

  1. I will be facilitating a Qi Gong workshop for beginners this Sunday, 9th January. Qi gong is a whole world of meditative movement exercises for health and wellbeing, if you have been interested in learning how to start a practice, this is an ideal opportunity!
  2. Next Tuesday sees the start of a new series of Tuesday classes entitled  “Finding Your Outer Balance, Inner Harmony and Spiritual Centre Through Meditation on the Tao, Yin Yang and the Five Elements”. Recordings will be available if you are interested but not living in Singapore!

 PPS: Relating to point 2 above, I have started a new series of articles on meditating with the Tao and Yin Yang on my Qi gong blog. You can find the first article HERE.

Like this blog, if you wish to receive automatic updates of these free articles from my Qi gong site, then you can simply sign up on the top right hand side of the page after you read the article on the Tao and yin/yang.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@tobyouvry.com

Categories
Enlightened love and loving Enlightened service Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present

The Two Principle Lessons of Love

Golden TreeI was thinking the other day that there are two main lessons that we need to learn about love. I think if we get these right, then other aspects of our relationship to love and loving will tend to be good.

  • The first is that we are loved
  • The second is that we are love

We Are Loved

Knowing that we are loved comes from two levels.

  • On a conventional, everyday level remembering that we have friends, family, pets, colleagues and so on who love us, and allowing ourselves to open to and receive that love, rather than unconsciously blocking it out or forgetting about it.
  • On a more spiritual level it means remembering (and trying to experience in meditation everyday) that as a child of the Universe, a child of the Planetary Being, a child of God, or whatever way in which you conceive the forces of the Cosmos, we are loved. If you sit still in meditation and allow your mind to open to it, you will feel the conscious spiritual love of the Universe flowing into you. Its free, and its unlimited, unlike oil and other material commodities!
  • So, on a conventional and spiritual level we are loved

We Are Love

This second understanding takes it a step further to the realization that our very nature is love and to love. Again you can look at this on two levels.

  • On a conventional level the impulse to create, to form relationships, to nurture, to bond are a part of everyone. These are all characteristics of love, and we all have them. Therefore we are all love. Sometimes these impulses get misguided or expressed in inappropriate ways, but fundamentally love is at their core.
  • On a deeper level, if you sit in meditation each day and practice receiving the love of the Universe, there will come a time when the distinction of you as the receiver of love and the Universe as giver starts to drop away. The subject object duality will gradually dissolve and you will simple become the love of the Universe, full stop. At this point you become a gateway through which the creative and loving power of the Universe can flow forth into creation, you have become love.

Simple Breathing Meditation on receiving and being love.

  1. Sitting quietly in meditation, as you breathe in know that you are loved and breathe in that love, RECIEVING it deeply into your being. Follow this pattern for a few breaths.
  2. Then as you breathe out, practice BEING love. As you breathe out feel love and joy radiating out from your heart and touching others. If you like you can visualize particular people or beings such as your friends, family or pets. Alternatively you can simply practice being and giving love to all beings, with no one specific in mind.
  3. Once you are used to both forms of breathing described in sections 1&2, you can practice combining them together. As you breathe in feel yourself receiving love. As you breathe our practice being love, and giving it to all beings.
  4. End with a short period of just simply sitting in silence and being love.

Thanks for reading and all the very best for your inner growth 2011!

Toby

 

© Toby Ouvry 2010. You are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first. Contact info@tobyouvry.com