Category: Insight Meditation

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A Mind of Ease Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Meditation techniques

Going beyond the mind (The spaces between your thoughts)

Dear Integral Meditators,
How can you use meditation and mindfulness to go beyond your mind? This is the subject of this weeks article!

In the spirit of the spaces in between your thoughts,

Toby

Going beyond the mind (The spaces between your thoughts)

I was taking a mindfulness class the other day and one of the participants was relating a story about how relieved she was to discover that practising mindfulness did not require you to stop your thoughts (which she, like many of us considered a near impossible goal); to be mindful she just had to focus on the breathing or watch the thoughts as they came and went. This was a relief to her, and gave her both heart and confidence pursuing her practice.

Going beyond the mind as a goal
Whilst it is true that you don’t need to stop your thoughts when you practice mindfulness meditation, it is also true that one of the capacities that we are trying to develop in the medium and long term is to become able to create and sustain states of mindful awareness where we do actually go beyond or ‘behind’ the thinking mind. We can then start to explore this open space of silence and regeneration that is unknown to the vast majority of people, and leverage upon the developmental potential that it offers us. Below is a technique to begin learning to do this now, starting small and building consistently.

The practice: Watching the spaces between the thoughts

Stage 1: Begin by focusing on your breathing for three breaths, then for the next 10-30seconds mindfully watch your thoughts coming and going as a witness and observer. Then go back to another three breaths to center yourself, after which you then return to watching your thoughts. Alternate between the breath and the watching of your thoughts for a while.
Stage 2: Continue to come back to the breathing for three breaths, but now in the 10-30second gaps in between, rather than watching your thoughts, pay attention to the spaces in between your thoughts, and gently try and extend them for a moment or two longer each time one appears.
Stage 3: Once you get a feel for stage 2, you can start to use the three breaths in a slightly different way; as you breathe in feel yourself opening to the spaces in between your thoughts, and as you breathe out feel yourself relaxing into them as deeply as you can. This way each time you come back to the breathing you use it to deepen your ability to relax into the spaces between the thoughts.

Building comfort in the space beyond or behind the mind
The practice above is designed to be a simple way of gradually building your familiarity and comfort with the inner space in your mind that surrounds, interpenetrates and contains your thoughts. Your thoughts are like clouds, your mind itself (or your consciousness) is like the sky. You are learning to relax into your inner sky, and become comfortable in the space beyond your thoughts.

Leveraging on fatigue and exhaustion to go beyond the mind
Another space you can use to go beyond your mind is when you are really tired. Let’s say you are commuting back from work after a long day, mentally and physically exhausted; to exhausted even to think. Consciously ‘give up’ thinking for a while as you sit or stand in the carriage – let your mind become an open thoughtless space, do absolutely as little as possible, almost as if you were falling asleep (which you may do!) Relaxing into this experience will give you some insight into a state of consciousness ‘beyond the thinking mind’ as well as giving you a bit of a rest!

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm (next class July 6th) – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Enlightened Flow Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present

Mindful Mobility – Stepping in and out of the river

Dear Toby,

Building inner flexibility and mobility are really core parts of an integrated mindfulness practice, in the article below I explain two core practices for building mindful mobility.

In the spirit of mindful perspective taking,

Toby

Mindful Mobility – Stepping in and out of the river (& from self to other)

One of the fundamental skills that we are trying to develop as mindfulness practitioners is to be able to shift consciously from one perspective to another, and use these perspectives appropriately. In this article we will be exploring how to shift between subjective and objective perspectives, and between self and other.

Moving from subjective to objective; Stepping in and out of the river of your consciousness
Imagine your mind is like a river, with the stream of thoughts, images, memories and sensory impressions being like the water. Spend some time in the river ‘being the water’; as thoughts, emotions and feelings come up experience yourself as them; be the thought, feel the emotion as if you are the emotion, let your attention absorb into the senses. This is experiencing your mind subjectively, from the inside.
After a while imagine yourself ‘stepping out’ of the river of your consciousness onto the river bank. Spend some time watching your mind as an observer, as a witness; watching the river flow by with a clear gap between yourself and the ‘water’ of the thoughts, images, feelings and senses in your mind. Watch your mind like a scientist; this is mindfully watching your mind objectively, from the outside.
The aim of doing this practice is to be able to consciously shift ‘at will’ from observer to subject, from subject to observer. This then enables us to:

  • Enjoy our emotions, thoughts, feelings, memories, senses (etc…) fully by entering into them and ‘owning’ them
  • Detach from our experiences when we need to so that we can see them more clearly and make more objective decisions and rational choices

Moving from self to other and extending care
In this second exercise you imagine yourself with another person, or a group of people. It might be a situation where there is a little tension between yourself and the others for whatever reason.
Stage 1: The eyes of self – See yourself in the situation and view it through your eyes, from your subjective point of view. Experience what your point of view feels and sounds like. If you do this mindfully you may well become aware of aspects of your experience that you had not been aware of before!
Stage 2: Become a fly on the wall – Look at the situation and group from the outside for a while, as if you were a fly on the wall. This is like ‘stepping out of the river’ from the previous exercise; it gives you an objective, witnessing perspective.
Stage 3: Becoming other – Enter into the shoes and see through the eyes of the other person, or group or people. See the situation from their point of view, what do they see? How are they feeling? Why are they acting the way they act? Use your imagination to mindfully understand as far as possible where they are coming from.
Stage 4: Go back, extend care – At the end of this exercise, go back to seeing through the eyes of self (stage 1) and spend a while extending care to the other person/people based on the understanding of then you have gained in stage 3, ‘becoming other’. Back in ‘your shoes’ extend care, compassion and understanding to them.

These two exercises are ‘mindful mobility exercises’ that, if practiced regularly will greatly increase your mental flexibility and ‘range of motion’ as you go about your daily life, as well as having the basic side effect or most mindfulness practices; greater peace of mind and centered-ness.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

July details out soon!

Integral Meditation Asia

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

 

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A Mind of Ease Enlightened Flow Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindful Breathing Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Three levels of non-striving

Dear Integral Meditators,

Is it possible by letting go of our striving to then learn how to strive better? That is the topic of this weeks article!

Mindful goals coaching offer ends tomorrow, 8th June.

In the spirit of non-striving,

Toby


Three levels of non-striving

In a previous article on non-striving I defined non-striving as “a refusal to be in conflict with yourself and your life. Put another way, rather than seeing yourself in an adversarial relationship to yourself and your circumstances, you practice accepting and working with what is there”.
What I want to explain here is three levels of non-striving that we can work with in our mindfulness practice. These three stages are:

  1. Noticing your inner conflict and striving
  2. Practising non-striving
  3. Striving better

Noticing your inner conflict
This first stage is simply about awareness. You sit down and notice all of the tension, conflict and striving that you have within yourself at this point in time. Without trying to change it, simply notice the tension you may feel about a conversation you had earlier in the day, an unfinished project, an uncertainty that you can’t control, a mistake that you wish you hadn’t made and wish to rectify, something that you are looking forward to and can’t wait for, something that you are sad about and wish hadn’t happened. Simply breath and be present to all of the different types of conflict and striving you notice. Is there one above all of the others that is stronger and stands out? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Relaxing into non-striving
In this stage the object is to progressively drop the different levels of striving and conflict that you feel within yourself.
Take a few breaths to center yourself, then encourage yourself to move into a state of acceptance of yourself, what you find within you, and whatever circumstances you find yourself in. Alternate for a while between the breathing (to center and focus yourself) and entering into a state of easy, relaxed non-striving. With each round of breathing and relaxing, try and enter one step deeper into the feeling of non-striving; learn to move easily and smoothly with whatever it is you find within. You can stay with stage two for as long as you like, it’s good to really immerse yourself in it deeply when you can.

Striving better
In stage one you practiced mindfully noticing the different types of conflict that you have in your life currently. In the second stage, non-striving, you practiced stepping out of that conflict refusing to be in an adversarial relationship to yourself, going with what you find with acceptance. In the final stage, ‘striving better’ you come back to the conflicts that you notice in stage one and ask yourself the question ‘is there any way I can strive better and more harmoniously in this situation?”

  • You might choose to strive more patiently with the project that is stressing you out
  • You might choose to make good for a mistake made without using the fact that you made it in the first place as a hammer that you keep hitting yourself over the head with
  • You might choose to emphasize being playful in a situation that you have been taking overly seriously

There are infinite potential discoveries that you might make and decide to focus on implementing at this stage, the point is that you are using your mindful intelligence to make the quality of your striving wiser, more ergonomic, more realistic.

By using these three stages we learn not just to relax by practising non-striving, but to combine our striving and non-striving into a mutually strengthening and re-enforcing whole. As always with integral mindfulness its ‘both/and’ rather than ‘either/or’!

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday 11th June, 10am-5pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism

Saturday June 18th, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditation & Mindfulness for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention – An Introduction to Contemporary Meditation Practice

Integral Meditation Asia

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Awareness and insight Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness spiritual intelligence

Lazy compassion

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is about how to use mindfulness to be as ergonomic as possible in the development of your deepest compassionate potential.

In the spirit of our naturally compassionate awareness,

Toby

Lazy compassion (compassion & care through awareness)

I was doing mindfulness coaching with some executives last week. At one point in the session I asked them to complete the sentence ‘Compassion to me means…’ a number of the replies went something like this:

  • – listening more
  • – being more empathetic
  • – paying attention to the needs of others
  • – caring
  • – taking the time to understand

If you look at all the way in which they completed the sentence, you can see that all of them are a direct consequence simply of directing awareness to ourself or others.

  • Listening more begins by paying attention to others, or to ourself
  • Being empathetic and/or aware of people’s needs follows from greater awareness
  • Caring and taking time to understand comes quite naturally from focusing mindfully on a person or situation

From this we can see that if we want to develop our compassion and caring, all we need to do is practice being more mindfully aware, and increasing the quality of our attention. You can understand this from your own experience; if you recall the last time you really felt that someone was extending their compassion to you, you’ll see that much of that experience came from the feeling that they were paying you attention fully, in a way that made you feel understood and valued.

So ‘lazy compassion’ comes from simply recognizing that all you need to do to begin developing and increasing your compassion is to pay attention; to yourself, to others, to your environment. When you practice non-judgmental awareness of any of these things, the warmth of your own human compassion will begin to extend quite naturally to your objects of attention.

Sky and sun
If you think about your awareness as being like the space of the sky, and your compassion as being like the rays of the sun.  Just practice bringing your sky-like awareness to people and things, and then let the sunlight rays of your natural compassion follow the direction of your attention. In the Buddhist teachings where I first learned meditation your natural compassion was called ‘Buddha nature’; whenever our minds become clear and unclouded our natural compassion begins to shine out.

Practicing
Bring your attention to your body, sustain gentle non-judgmental awareness upon the body for a short while, recognize that all you need to do to extend compassion to your body is to bring your attention to it. If you do that then caring and compassion will follow that awareness. Do the same with your mind and emotions. Extend it out to include significant others in your life, then perhaps to people you don’t know or even have a difficult relationship with. Extend your awareness to aspects of your environment, to the non-human creatures that are there. Make the circle of your compassion as large as you like!
In your daily life, whomever you are paying (mindful) attention to, allow your compassion to connect with them through the simple act of awareness.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday May 28th, 2.30-5.30pm – Finding Liberation Through the Witness Self – Connecting to Peace, Abundance and Creative Freedom Though Mindfulness Practice

JUNE
Saturday 11th June, 10am-5pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism

Starts Thursday June 9th – Thursday Evening Integral Meditation Classes @ Bencoolen Street

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Awareness and insight Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

Witnessing – Being That Which is Not

Dear Integral Meditators,

What does it really mean to ‘be the mindful witness?’ and why is it useful to us? This weeks article seeks to answer these questions in a practical way.
For those in Singapore, last call for the upcoming workshop: Saturday April 30th, 2.30-5.30pm – Mindful Self Confidence: Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation

In the spirit of the witness,

Toby

Witnessing – Being That Which is Not

Really the first basic ‘position’ that you are being asked to take with your mindfulness practice is that of the witness self. Other ways of describing this is to say we are trying to:

  • Become the observer self
  • Strengthen our capacity for taking and keeping a 3rd person, detached perspective
  • To dis-identify with that which we observe arising within our mind, body and environment. To watch but not to engage

Dropping all that is not the witness
Then the question may arise if I am becoming the observer of my mind, body and environment, who am I? Who is the observer? One way to clarify this is to carefully and systematically note that the witness self is:

  • Not any element of your environment or senses
  • Not your body or any part of it
  • Not your feelings or emotions
  • Not any part of your mind

If you drop all of these one by one, what you are left with is awareness itself; that which is conscious and observes. It has no form, and because it has no form it exists out of time in the eternal NOW. The witness is present at all times in your mind, as it is the basis of your consciousness itself. However most of the time it is invisible to us, or in the background of our awareness, hidden by our identification with the activity of our body, mind and senses.

Getting started with witnessing
To become the mindful witness then, simply do the exercise above, stripping away all that is not the witness, and then practice recognizing and resting in that which is aware, that which is witnessing; pure awareness or consciousness itself. As the witness you can then start to observe in a detached manner the contents of your consciousness, body and senses, simply be that which is the watcher rather than identify with what is being observed.

The benefits of mindfully being the witness self

  • It is relaxing and calming
  • It gives you more objective perspectives on your experiences, both the good and the bad
  • It gives you a deeper experience of who you are, and answer to the question ‘Who am I?’
  • It gradually liberates you from the attachment, clinging and consequent fear and anxiety that comes from being over identified with the contents of your mind, your body and senses.

An image: The Watchman
I sometimes think of the witness self as like being a soldier on guard duty. As s/he stands on guard his job is simply to watch and scan his environment, to witness it with awareness and alertness. If he should see something that needs action then he is ready, but the vast majority of his time is spend simply being the watcher, the observer, the witness or watchman. Practice being the Watchman; that which observes and witnesses with alertness and discipline.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday April 30th, 2.30-5.30pm – Mindful Self Confidence: Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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

 

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A Mind of Ease creative imagery Enlightened Flow Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness spiritual intelligence

The Middle Way

Dear Integral Meditators,

What might a mindful path of balance & harmony look like? This weeks article examines this using the paradigm of the middle way.
For those in Singapore please note in addition to the weekly Wednesday evening class there is also an additional monthly class in the centre of town starting on 21st April: 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly Thursday Evening Integral Meditation Classes @ the Life Chiropractic Centre with Toby

In the spirit of balance & harmony,

Toby

The Middle Way

The Buddha talked about his path as ‘the middle way’. As I understand it and practice it, essentially the middle way is the path of balance and harmony, facilitated by engaged, mindful awareness.
The middle way as I experience it in my own life this means that I am always walking the middle way between two poles or opposites, holding the tension between the two. If I move too far toward one pole, I move into state of imbalance, if I move too far in the other direction then I become imbalanced in another way. For example:

  • Aspiration and ambition – If I am too ambitious in my work I will find myself continually dissatisfied/frustrated, but if I am not ambitious enough then I will not reach my full potential
  • Attachment and non-attachment – If I don’t allow myself to feel any emotional empathy and attraction to other people then I will become negatively detached, but if I feel those emotions too intensely I may find myself obsessively attached and co-dependent
  • Anger and assertion – If I feel too angry about what someone has done to me I may act in ways that cause the relationship to deteriorate further, but if I do not assert myself powerfully enough, then the other person may continue to walk over me, or behave inappropriately
  • Over and under preparation – If I don’t prepare enough for a talk I am giving then I may mess it up in one way, but if I prepare too much, then the detail may get in the way of delivering the speech also
  • Focus and Relaxation – If I try too hard to focus in my mindfulness meditation session, then the effort of focus will get in the way of developing a single-pointed state of mind, but if I relax my effort too much then the over-relaxation will cause my mind to wander anyway

A question
So, in every situation there is a middle way between two opposite or opposing forces in your life. So then the question becomes ‘What are the two opposing forces in this particular situation right now, and what is the middle way between them?’ Asking a question like this stimulates our mind and awareness to seek out these polarities and find the harmonious, balanced middle way between them.

The point of harmony and balance is always changing
The challenging thing about the practice of the middle way is that it is always changing, because the reality around us is always changing; in the morning the middle way may be to act, in the afternoon to sit back. At times it requires us to make a judgment call, other times to refrain from judging.

An Image
The path of the middle way is a bit like riding a bicycle; you are always having to seek out and sustain your point of balance. Sometimes sustaining the balance is relatively simple, such as when you are riding at steady speed down a straight road. At other times it can be quite complex and demanding such as when you are racing, going across rough terrain or in a busy street. In these circumstances finding the middle way requires constant, active & mindful adjustments.

Getting started
In the material above there is an image and a question that are designed to help mindfully direct you along the path of the middle way. If you like you can start working with them in your daily life, using them as guide posts for you to start seeking and sustaining your own middle road.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday  April 16th, 2.30-5.30pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment – A three hour workshop

Thursday 21st April 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly Thursday Evening Integral Meditation Classes @ the Life Chiropractic Centre with Toby

Saturday April 30th, 2.30-5.30pm – Mindful Self Confidence: Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Awareness and insight Concentration Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Motivation and scope

Think Well or Don’t Think

Dear Integral Meditators,

What would happen to your quality of life if you chose to think more carefully about what you think? This weeks article explains a practical method with which you can start to explore this question.

In the spirit of thought-art,

Toby

Think Well or Don’t Think

Here’s a mindful game that you can play with yourself. Take a period of time, say between 3-15 minutes. In this time frame your principle object of mindfulness is going to be your thoughts. The rules are that whatever you are thinking about you should either think about it well or simply stop your thinking. To think about something well means:

  • To take a consciously positive perspective on what is going on or
  • To make an objective mental note/observation or
  • To make the thoughts caring, constructive and/or allowing

This morning I did this exercise on the train to work. I was feeling a little emotionally strained and confused, and it would have been quite easy for my train of thought to reflect that emotionality, creating instinctively negative perspectives on my life. Amongst the thoughts that I brought to mind during the exercise were:

  • It is ok to feel emotionally strained, we all do, but I’m not going to allow that strain to create a negative dialogue in my head
  • Objectively speaking my feelings do not reflect many of the aspects of what is happening in my life, which are fundamentally pretty good – I feel fortunate, and things are essentially on track
  • I’m going to choose to adopt a playful and light stance to my present experience, even though part of me feels a bit wounded right now.

So you get the idea, I am just being really conscious about my thoughts, I’m not letting difficult feelings produce a negative inner dialogue, I am expressing disciplined empathy and care for my experience, I am using an objective perspective appropriately. If my thinking is not in any of those categories, then I simply choose not to think, just to be present to each moment and hold it with awareness.
Give it a try, you may be surprised at how quickly being mindful of your thoughts can start to have a real, tangible influence on the quality of your life. You can also try applying the same principles to your conversation with other people to make it an inter-relational mindfulness exercise.

Sculpting your feelings
One thing that this practice also gives us the ability to do is start using our thinking to skillfully sculpt and shape the way we feel. We can start to use our mind as a precision tool that we can use to benevolently shape our raw emotional energy.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

February 2016

Ongoing on Wednesday’s (Jan 13th, 20th) 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

March classes coming soon!

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Awareness and insight Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness meditation and creativity Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Effortless Effort – The Cycle of Mindful Growth

Dear Integral Meditators,

The path of mindfulness when engaged in properly can offer us a relatively effortless, gradual, ergonomic and aesthetically beautiful path of personal growth. In the article below I break the process down into four essential stages that can be applied to any area of your life that you may wish to work with using mindfulness. Its simple. Not always easy, but simple!

The Integral Mindfulness On line Course starting on Feb 4th is now passed its early bird offer, but up until until 29th Jan you can still get 10 bucks off the price. And there are still 10 days before the January 20% offer on 1:1 coaching expires, so do have a look if you are interested!

In the spirit of effortless effort,

Toby

Effortless Effort – The Cycle of Mindful Growth

Mindfulness invites us upon an experiential journey of learning and self-knowledge. How does it do this? I’m going to break the process down into four stages:

Intention – To begin with we start with the intention to investigate something that we wish to understand more deeply – our emotions, our beliefs, our relationships, anything that we want to work with.
Attention – Secondly we then practice placing our attention or focus on that area of our life or experience. This is not just for a few seconds, but over an extended period of time.
Enquiry – With our attention we then dwell upon our object of observation, not trying to ‘solve it’, ‘fix it’ or ‘judge it’, but simply seeking to see it clearly and understand it.
Insight – The point of our focused enquiry is to produce insight; an essential, experiential new understanding of what is happening. This experiential insight then enables us to make positive changes in our life.

Unlike other personal growth methods, mindfulness focuses upon change and growth through experiential insight and understanding rather than through sheer willpower. Because of this the change that we facilitate through mindfulness (when done well) is gentle, natural and relatively effortless. When we see what is going on clearly, we change naturally. When we do not see what is going on clearly our efforts to change generally miss the point – It’s difficult to have an effective strategy to change something you don’t understand.

A simple example:
Let’s say I am feeling confused. Firstly I develop the intention to investigate and understand the nature of my confusion.
Secondly I sit, turn my attention inward and focus it upon how the confusion shows up in my body, emotions and mind.
Through my attentive enquiry I notice that the feeling of confusion is centered physically in my brain – It feels like a fog sitting in the frontal part of the brain and forehead.
Through my enquiry I discover the insight that simply by placing my awareness gently upon this front part of my brain I can clear the fuzzy feeling and my head feels clearer, and so I find a solution to this aspect of my confusion.
As a result of my had feeling clearer I can then start to see clearly the emotions in my heart and chest that are causing the confusion on a deeper level, and so the cycle of mindfulness continues to go from attention to enquiry to insight in a circular process helping me to deal with my experience of confusion on progressively deeper and deeper levels in different ways.

What area of your life would you like to practice the cycle of mindfulness with today, or this week?

© Toby Ouvry 2016, 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 Asia:

JANUARY 2016

Ongoing on Wednesday’s (Jan 13th, 20th) 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday January 16th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Transforming Your Stress into Happiness – Meditation & mindfulness for cultivating a state of optimal flow in your mind, body, heart and life – A three hour workshop

Saturday, January 30th, 2.30-5.30pm  – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment – A Three Hour Workshop

Starts 4th February – Transforming Stress into Happiness – An Introduction to Integral Mindfulness Meditation – A Five Week On line Course

Click the link to find out about the special 1:1 meditation and mindfulness coaching offer in January!

Integral Meditation Asia

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

 

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Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Don’t Let Difficult Feelings Become Negative Thoughts

Dear Integral Meditators,

When you are feeling bad, its easy to think negative. The article below explains how to use mindfulness to stop difficult feelings becoming negative thoughts in your mind.

In the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Don’t Let Difficult Feelings Become Negative Thoughts

At the moment I have jet lag, which means that I wake up feeling groggy and dis-oriented, and when I lie down to sleep I have been spending some hours wide awake. The dis-orientation from the jet lag produces a lot of difficult, turgid, feelings which, if I let them could very quickly start to produce negative thoughts, which in turn would start to generate full blown negative emotions. So, here my basic object of mindfulness is to be attentive to the fact that I am experiencing a lot of difficult feelings in my body due to the jetlag, and simply focus on noting them as feelings, and not letting them escalate into something else. This is the basic practice of not letting difficult feelings become negative emotions.

Similarly, if I am with someone who is irritated or upset, and they start to direct it at me, then I experience a difficult or unpleasant feeling as a result. If I don’t watch out, then I’m going to find my mind creating a lot of negative thinking around that feeling and the other person’s action, so I will suffer more than I need to, and may do something that I regret.

There are many other situations where we may find difficult energy around us:

  • On the commute home when there is a lot of ambient irritability in the minds and bodies of the commuters
  • When things aren’t going our way at work or in our relationships
  • When we are ill or fatigued
  • When we are upset or anxious regarding change or uncertainty
  • When we feel disapproved of by ourself or others

The list goes on, but the main thing is that if we can catch difficult feelings and energies within us early enough through mindfulness, then we can save ourself a lot of pain by making a conscious choice not to let difficult energies we face trigger negative thinking.

Awareness of feelings and energies
A lot of progress in this art and discipline involves simply greater awareness of the energies and feelings that you are experiencing in the moment. What you are aware of you can start to exert benevolent control over, what you are not aware of can easily mushroom into a cloud of negativity before you really know it. So a really basic mindfulness exercise is simply to ask yourself regularly ‘How am I feeling?’ and use this question to direct your awareness mindfully to what is there in the present moment.

Difficult feelings need only be that, they don’t need to become negative thoughts.
© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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 Flow Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Presence and being present

Experiencing the Mind as the Mind

Dear Toby ,

Often meditation and mindfulness work well when you use a short, significant phrase as your object of enquiry. In the article below I share one that I have been enjoying over the holiday season.

Wishing you, your families and loved ones all the very best for the Christmas season!

Toby & Integral Meditation Asia

Experiencing the Mind as the Mind

Often meditation and mindfulness work well when you use a short, significant phrase as your object of enquiry, which can then lead you relatively naturally into progressively deeper states of awareness. Over the Christmas holiday and winter solstice period the phrase I have been focusing upon is ‘Experience the mind as the mind’ (or my mind as my mind). This phrase invites me to connect to the experience of consciousness itself as directly and non-conceptually as possible.
Normally we experience our mind conceptually, dividing into different categories, for example:

  • Positive and negative thinking
  • Conscious and unconscious
  • Practical and daydreaming
  • Mundane and spiritual
  • Busy and peaceful
  • Upset or happy

With the practice of experiencing the mind as the mind I am deliberately setting aside all of these (useful in their own context) conceptual ways of experiencing my mind, and simply trying to experience the mind as a whole, directly in the present moment. At different times during the day different things will be appearing to my mind, which is fine, but I am focused simply to being conscious, and paying attention to what that experience feels like. As a result of this I have found that:

  • Many of the things that my habitual and conceptual mind normally does not see start to become visible
  • I naturally start to move back into the peaceful centre of my world and experience in the present moment
  • I am freed to then think or approach my daily life and challenges with my experiential, problem-solving intelligence operating at a higher level

If you like over the next few days you can take experiencing ‘the mind as the mind’ (or your consciousness as your consciousness) as an object of mindfulness in your own meditation practice, either formally or informally, and allow it to invite you into the space of immediacy and presence that it invites!

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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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JANUARY 2016

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, (Jan 13th, 20th, 27th) 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby
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