Category: Meditation techniques

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Enlightened love and loving Enlightened service Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present Uncategorized

Boomerang – The Mystical Aspect of Kindness


What happens when you throw a boomerang away from you? Of course we all know the answer, it comes back to you. The mystical aspect of practicing deliberate kindness, compassion or any other related positive act is that it tends to come back to you in unexpected but consistent ways. The upshot of this is that if you want to have kindness and compassion expressed toward you, the best way to achieve this is go out there and start practicing it yourself to others.
You might think of it as a form of enlightened self interest where we are creating a win-win situation;

  • Fulfilling the happiness of others by practicing kindness and consideration for them and,
  •  At the same time helping ourselves create the cause to receive similar treatment now and in the future

Perhaps the most important time to pick up this practice is precisely the time when we feel least like doing it; when we are feeling hard done by, upset or alone or uncared for. If at this time we can remember the boomerang of practicing kindness we can make the effort to go out and express caring for others and ourselves, send something positive out into the world so that we are inviting similar energy to come back to us.
Often an act of kindness has an immediate positive effect upon us; the act of caring itself makes us feel better, or invites a caring response from someone else. It also seems to work in more general ways. For example as a bouncer on the Student Union for three years during my University days I was generally calm and caring. As a result I found myself rarely in fights or trouble, and the punches and head-butts that did get thrown at me always seemed to ‘miss’ (and this was not because I was any good at fighting!)
Another example is I have a tendency to leave my wallet, phone and watch in public places (yes, I know, I’m a mindfulness teacher, I shouldn’t’t be leaving things around all the time!); the toilet in Starbucks, dropping money behind me on the pavement, in the changing room at the sports center and so on…yet they always seem to come back to me in the hand of some kind person.
Of course there is no guarantee that tomorrow I won’t have my wallet stolen and get beaten up in the process, but I do have a strong sense of how my own positive intention actively protects me from the worst that life can throw.

Practicing the boomerang of kindness
So, if you want to take this practice up for the week, just imagine that you have the boomerang of kindness in your hand as you are going about your day. Whenever you have the opportunity, throw it at people. Do it as much as you can, safe in the knowledge that every time you throw it out kindness, consideration and compassion will come back to you some way, somehow.

For more reflections on the practice of kindness see last weeks article on “The Tightrope of Kindness”.

© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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:

The courses and workshops for January 2014 will be up shortly.

Special Coaching offer at Integral Meditation Asia for December 2013-January 2014!

Sign up for three 1:1 coaching sessions with Toby (either Meditation, Stress Transformation or Shadow coaching) for only Sing$435! (Usual price Sing$600).

This is a great opportunity to get some very personally focused coaching for a great price. The only condition is that the three sessions must be completed in the month that they start, so start in December the sessions must be completed in December, likewise start in January the three sessions must be completed in January.

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Enlightened love and loving Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation

The Tightrope of Kindness and Compassion

The Tightrope of Kindness and Compassion

I think of practicing kindness and compassion as like being on a tightrope, because there are many ways to ‘fall off’! To really practice them consistently and master them takes a lot of discipline and dedication.

How can you fall off?
It’s easy to practice kindness to others (and yourself) when you feel like it, but what about when you don’t feel like it?
Examples of this might be when you have had a tough day, when you are tired, when someone has wounded you with words, when you feel sad or in some way inadequate, when you feel insecure, when the people around us are not demonstrating kindness. These are all situations when it is all too easy to snap at people, to be unkind, to say inconsiderate things, to switch off our capacity to be kind and express kindness and compassion. We all know these types of situation and how easy it is to lapse.

From this we can see that really dedicating oneself to the discipline of kindness is not for the weak of heart or weak of mind. The flip side of this is that one way to build a truly and deeply strong heart and mind is to dedicate ourself to treading the tightrope of kindness each day

Getting on the tightrope each day
Each day you can begin by visualizing the tightrope of kindness and compassion in front of you. The platform at the other end of the tightrope is the end of the day. The game and the challenge is to stay on the tightrope of kindness all day, expressing kindness and compassion in all that you do, without falling off.
The good thing about a visualization meditation of course is that if you do fall off, then in order to get back on you just need to realize that you have fallen off, and mentally ‘get back on’!

© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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:

The courses and workshops for January 2014 will be up shortly.

Special Coaching offer at Integral Meditation Asia for December 2013-January 2014!

Sign up for three 1:1 coaching sessions with Toby (either Meditation, Stress Transformation or Shadow coaching) for only Sing$435! (Usual price Sing$600).

This is a great opportunity to get some very personally focused coaching for a great price. The only condition is that the three sessions must be completed in the month that they start, so start in December the sessions must be completed in December, likewise start in January the three sessions must be completed in January.

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creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation techniques mind body connection Primal Spirituality

On Healing and Meditation

Dear Toby,
I don’t know about you, but for me the run in toward Christmas has been a busy one, and I feel my body and mind a little fatigued as a result! With this in mind in this weeks article I thought I’d share one of the very simple healing meditation forms that I use to keep me pepped up and invigorated through challenging times

As you can also see below I’m also putting out a special coaching offer for December and January, so if you have been wanting some really intensive coaching focus on your life-journey and meditation practice, this is a really good opportunity to take advantage of! The coaching can be done face to face or via skype.

Yours in the spirit of healing and wellbeing,

Toby

On Healing and Meditation

Traditionally meditation was and is associated with the quest for enlightenment, and for contact with God. More recently it has drawn attention for its capacity to relieve stress and promote inner calm, but what about its capacity to heal the mind and body of sickness and ailments?
There are various traditions of healing meditation, from Qi gong meditation and the Tantric traditions in the east, to the Quaballistic (Tree of Life) and nature based spiritualities of the west, to the tribal Shamanic traditions that you find across the world.
The meditation that I outline below is a very simple healing meditation that I use quite extensively myself. The technique is simple, but the depth at which you are able to practice it depends upon your capacity as a meditator. It can be very effective if you are a beginner, but as you grow and become more advanced, you will find this technique will grow in power and effectiveness as you grow.

A Basic Healing Meditation Form

Sit on a chair with the soles of your feet comfortably on the floor. Take a few moments to focus on your breathing, calm your mind and bring your attention into the present moment.

Focus on the Earth beneath you. See and feel within the heart of the Earth there is a huge ocean of light and energy. See two streams of this energy rising up and connecting with you through the soles of your feet, filling your whole body with light and in particular forming an intense ball of light and energy within the centre of your chest.
Now focus your attention upon the sky above you, feel light and energy from the stars, sky and universe flowing down into your body and filling your whole body from top to bottom. In particular see it gathering in the centre of your chest so that you now have a very bright and intense ball of light and energy in the centre of your chest filling being fed by the energy of the Earth below and the sky above.
See and feel this ball of light and energy as being alive and pulsing with energy.

Optional: Bring your hands up to the level of your chest with the tips of the fingers a few inches apart, palms facing inward toward the ball of light. Use your palms to ‘hold’ and focus the ball of light, increasing its intensity.

See and feel the ball of light in the centre of your chest ‘pulsing’ energy out into your body, filling the organs, muscles etc from the centre of the body out to the skin with healing light and energy.

If you have any particular organ or area of the body that needs healing, or where you are aware of fatigue or blocked energy, see and feel the light going into that area.

Begin by doing this just for 5-10minutes at a time, build up to 20.

One requirement for this meditation is that you view the Earth beneath you and the sky/stars above as being living things, filled with energy and life force that you can tap into and bring into your own body mind for the purposes of healing.
© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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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Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Presence and being present Shadow meditation Stress Transformation

The Four Essential Stages to Transforming Negative Stress into Positive Energy

Dear Integral Meditators,

What are the essential skills that you need in order to transform negative stress into positive energy? The article below is a summary of the fundamental skills needed to effect transformation.

Yours transformatively,

Toby

The Four Essential Stages to Transforming Negative Stress into Positive Energy

When you think of the word stress, what sort of images, ideas and associations come to mind? It might be a nice idea just to pause for a few moments before you read on and explore this question for a few moments in order to connect to your own personal experience of stress.
This article starts with the assertion that stress in and of itself is a neutral energy that can be experienced in a positive or negative way, and that, to a large degree our experience of stress is defined by our approach to the stressful situation, rather than the situation itself.
So what is positive and negative stress? Here are some working definitions:

  • Negative Stress is: Any form of stress that inhibits our ability to respond of adequately, appropriately and successfully to the challenges of life, and to learn from such challenges
  • Positive stress is: Any form of stress that improves our ability to respond adequately, appropriately and successfully to the challenges of our life, and to learn from such challenges.

So, what then are the four stages of transforming your stress?

  1. You have to believe and understand that your negative stress is simply energy that is moving in an inappropriate pattern – For example, if you are feeling anxious, aggrieved and stressed because you are feeling mis-treated by a colleague at work, you have to take the perspective that the situation is highlighting your own inability to deal with aggressive people. Thus it is offering you a positive opportunity to learn how you can deal with such people and learn to thrive on the pressure of their presence.
  2. You have to cease resisting and fully acknowledge your negative stress – When you feel negative stress, the instinct will generally be to avoid, deny and repress the feelings associated with the stress because they make you feel uncomfortable. Whilst your negative stress remains denied and repressed it cannot be transformed. Thus in order to begin transforming it you first need to acknowledge that you have it, and bring it fully into the conscious mind. Continuing the example of the aggressive colleague, you need to fully acknowledge the feelings of anxiety, fear, anger and intimidation that you may feel around them, and explore fully the discomfort that you feel; you need to become comfortable with the discomfort that negative stress causes you.
  3. You have to have an idea of what your current negative stress can be turned into – With step 2 firmly in place, you can then try and identify ways in which you can re-contextualize the situation so that it becomes positive stress and not negative stress. Using our example, we identify our office colleague as a person who is helping us to become positively and politely assertive, and to learn how to hold our own when in their presence. It becomes positive stress not because all of a sudden we become totally comfortable with it, but because we understand that the experience is taking us somewhere and teaching us something valuable.
  4. You have to practise the transformation repeatedly – With your aggressive colleague, the practice them becomes learning how to become comfortable in their presence, even when they are trying to intimidate, to respond firmly, politely and clearly to their negative comments, and to use them to become stronger, more capable, more evolved human beings. The situation becomes an environment where you learn to become a master of life rather than a victim of it.

For your own practice then, simply select a life experience that is currently negatively stressful for you, and apply these four stages to it, see where they take you….

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present Uncategorized

When You Are Trapped in a Thorn Bush…

Dear Integral Meditators,

If you’ve been under stress or upset recently, you’ll know how strong the feeling is to say or do something to get yourself out of that painful situation as quick as possible. However, often our impulse reactions make things worse rather than better. This weeks article explains by analogy how we can most effectively and quickly get ourself out of our mental and emotional pain by first becoming still.

Quick reminder for those of you in Singapore, Saturday 7th December, 9.30am-12.30pm: Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment – A Three Hour Workshop, it’ll be more than worth your while!

In the spirit of thoughtful action,

Toby

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Saturday December 7th – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment – A Three Hour Workshop

When You Are Trapped in a Thorn Bush….

…the best thing that you can do first of all is to stop struggling. This stops the thorns digging into your skin, thus preventing the short term pain, and enables you to see carefully what you need to do in order to free yourself one by one from the individual branches, eventually becoming free from the thorn bush and the pain altogether.

When we are in a thorny mental and emotional space, the instinct can be for us to keep struggling and struggling, trying to find a way to free ourselves from the pain. Actually, the best thing you can do in such a situation is to first still your mind, create some inner space and perspective from which you can start to move yourself out of the situation, step by step.

From lose loose to win-win
Feeling pain and conflict in your mind often results in you feeling compelled to act, often unwisely and non-reflectively. These unwise actions in turn create more friction and pain, which in turn compels you to act once more in an unwise manner. A vicious cycle is established between your busy, uncomfortable mind and inappropriate, unhelpful actions.
A habit of stilling your mind and body when you are in pain and simply watching/observing for a while creates a space for your natural intelligence and wisdom to start functioning. This in turn enables you to see what needs to be done clearly so that you can act in ways that are actually going to solve your issues. This creates a virtuous cycle where the stillness of your mind enables you to act wisely, solve your challenges and thus create more peace of mind.

So, the next time your mind feels painful, busy, uncomfortable think of yourself as being in a thorn bush; relax, pause and then when you are ready slowly and mindfully remove each of the branches from around you, one by one.

© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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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creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

The Way of the Rat

Dear Integral Meditators,

If you look at my website, articles and workshops, you’ll see there is quite a lot of material on transforming difficulties, re-directing negativity into positive energy and so on. Who taught me all this? Well I had a meeting with a rat 14 years ago that set me on the right track…

Yours in the spirit of fur and claws,

Toby

The Way of the Rat

When I first came to Asia as a Buddhist Monk in 1999, I stayed for 6 months or so in Johor Bahru at a small Buddhist Centre, whilst making regular trips into Singapore to explore the possibilities of setting up a meditation center there.
Over the 2-3 days of new year period 2000-2001 I was at this small centre, pretty much all alone, and at the time having doubts about my capacity to do the work that I had been asked to do. The meditation center was an apartment on the top story of a shophouse, with the stair well being the only way in and out.
During this period of aloneness and self-doubt, a large rat ran up the stairs from the street and disappeared under a cupboard before I could scare it back out. Realizing I was stuck with it for the night, I shut my bedroom door firmly before bed!
The next morning I was sitting meditating on the floor in the main shrine room, deeply relaxed, when suddenly I felt this pressure on my knee. I opened my eyes and this big rat had crept up on me and now had its front paws on my knee and was staring up at me inquisitively. He only had half of his fur, and was clearly a bit worse for wear! I had actually been in quite deep meditation, and so having a big rat suddenly leaning on my leg and staring up at me really shocked the cr**p out of me! I jumped up very quickly with a yell and he then ran off and hid in my bedroom.
I never saw him again. After checking he had moved out from my bedroom, I left front door open that night, with the metal gate shut, and I think he must have just gone down of his own accord when he found there was nothing much to eat!

Qualities of the rat
My encounter with the rat was the beginning of a series of experiences where I became aware that chance meetings with animals were actually playing and active part in my spiritual path and journey. This was a time in my life where I had really been thrown back on my own resourcefulness and capacity to survive, persist and problem solve as intelligently as I could. What better a companion, example and object of meditation could there be for me than the rat, an animal that survives and thrives in the most difficult, dirty and persecuted of circumstances?

Looking out for animals in your life
If a dragonfly flies through your window and spends a couple of hours with you while you are cooking dinner, or you go for a run and see a snake in the path, it’s worth just exploring what the qualities of the animal are and how its virtues and strengths could be applied to the challenges that you are going through right now. You may find it surprising how quickly your mind can free-associate a tangible and useful meaning between the qualities of the animal and what you need to do.

Re-awakening to our intimacy with the animal kingdom
For our ancestors living close to nature it would have been natural to feel close to animals (to both love and fear them), and to see spiritual meaning in their interactions with them. I think contemporary society has numbed our sense of intimacy with the natural world, but looking out for the coming and going of animals in your life in the way described above can be a first step toward re-awakening our own intimacy with, care for and support from wild creatures, even the dirty ones that live in our drains!

© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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 Integral Meditation Meditation techniques spiritual intelligence

Meditating on the Sound of Silence

Hi Everyone!

Inner silence is often spoken of as one of the main goals of meditation, but how can you go about getting there? In this week article I talk about something called the “sound of silence” as an object of meditation that can really help enhance our capacity to move into a space beyond thought without too much difficulty.

In the spirit of silence,

Toby

Meditating on the Sound of Silence

When I was young I can remember sitting in my bedroom, or lying on the bed and becoming intensely aware of in inner ‘ringing’ in my ears that became louder and more prominent the quieter my surroundings became. I used to enjoy just listening quietly to this sound and allowing my mind to become free from thought almost effortlessly as a side effect of listening.
Now that I am an adult and a meditator, I find that this inner “sound of silence” makes a very pleasant object of meditation; it is constant, relaxing and, with a little practice you can learn to ‘hear’ it even when there is quite a lot of sound around you. Because it is constant and continuous, it is has a natural relaxing effect on the mind, which gently encourages us to enter into a state of non-thinking.

One way in which you can encourage a greater sense of stillness and silence as you are listening is to focus on your brain and try and find the inner space or cavity in the middle of the brain that the Taoists call the “cavity of original spirit”. This is an actual space in the centre of the brain where, if you place your attention there you find that there is no mental activity whatever, it is literally a silent space that you can find by exploring and finding it using your own awareness. It is in the area where the thymus and hypothalamus are located in the brain, but you really don’t need to know too much about the brains actual anatomy, if you just go into the middle of your brain and explore, you’ll find that there is a specific place where, if you place your attention there it has a naturally quietening effect upon the mind.

Meditating on the sound of silence:
So, a basic meditation on the sound of silence would look something like this:

  • Sit down somewhere reasonably quiet and focus on listening. After a short while you will start to become aware of a gentle high pitched sound within the ear that is ever present, but that becomes especially prominent when everything around is quiet. Once you have found the sound of silence, simply focus on it gently and allow your mind to relax into the experience.
  • If you want to, you can then enhance the depth of the silence by combining your focus on the sound of silence with deliberately locating your attention in the central area of the brain, or “cavity of original spirit” as explained above.
  • Remain focused in this way for as long as you wish, it makes a great short three minute meditation, but you can also use it as a way of moving to deeper, expanded states of consciousness in longer meditations.
  • Once you have finished the meditation, do take time to ground yourself fully into your physical body and environment, particularly if it is a longer meditation!

© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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 Concentration creative imagery Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection

Shifting Down the Gears – On Meditation and Power Napping

Dear Integral Meditators,

I’m a great believer in power napping, in fact I am quite a believer in napping in general! This is not just because it is a good way of relaxing, from a meditation training point of view a nap offers a great opportunity to bring the experience of our ordinary everyday mind together with states of deeper, formless awareness. The article below offers a simple technique for making greater and more effective use of a power nap.

Just in case you missed it, here is the link to the Shadow Meditation free audio recordings that I sent our midweek, they are simple and effective ways to start developing an experience of working with your shadow.

If you enjoy the shadow meditations, then do consider joining us on the 27th October for the Shadow Meditation Level 1 Workshop.

Yours in the spirit of effective power napping,

Toby

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:
Sunday October 27th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical Meditations And Techniques For Working With your Shadow-Self – A Three Hour Workshop

Tuesday 19th  November, 7.30-9.30pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Zen Level 1

24th November – An Introduction to Meditation From the Perspective of Zen Levels 2&3 (full details shortly)

Sunday December 1st – Shadow Meditation Level 2: Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self

Shifting Down the Gears – On Meditation and Power Napping

Let’s say you have ten minutes for a power nap during your day. The problem is that, by the time you get to the end of ten minutes your mind only has only just started slowing down fully enough for you to become truly relaxed, so the amount of actual fully rested time you get is not that substantial.
The following technique is one that you can use to slow down your mind in order to achieve a state of mental and physical deep calm and lucid resting relatively quickly. The key is not to try and go from active mind to totally still mind in one leap; rather it needs to be done progressively in stages.

Once you are lying down or sitting comfortably simply become aware of the current activity in your mind. Think of this natural activity and momentum as being like a car in fourth gear cruising along the road at say 50 kmh.
After watching the activity in your mind for a short time, deliberately try and reduce the amount of momentum/activity in your mind just slightly, as if you were shifting down from fourth to third gear in a car, and reducing your speed from 50kmh to 30-35kmh. You can use the exhalation if you like; as you breathe out feel the pace of your mind gently reducing…
Once you are in “third gear” then after a minute or so take the pace of your mind down another increment, like going from third gear to second gear, or from 30kmh to 15kmh. Again, use the exhalation of you like as a way of doing this.
After another minute or so of “second gear”, take your mind down another incremental level, down to first gear, or 5kmh or so. Again use the breathing to do this, or just mentally “reduce speed” just slightly.
Now you are down in “first gear”, your almost at a standstill, the mind is slow and relaxed. When you are ready try and let go of all activity in the mind and simply move into a state of deep, still resting. Stay there for the remainder of your power nap. Even if you can’t keep your mind totally still for the rest of the time, the state of relaxation that you will have achieved by this progressive “winding down” of your mind will still be deeper than it would otherwise be.

You can also use this technique as a method for going to sleep at night, or as a meditation technique for slowing down the mind in general. From a meditative point of view the interesting thing about power napping is that when you do it you can often find yourself in a state of “lucid napping”, where you are technically asleep, and yet you still have an element of conscious awareness. This state of mind resembles (note, not quite the same as) deep states of formless meditation that are achieved by proficient meditators who have meditated for long periods of time. Thus power napping, as well as making us more effective at work can also give us a glimpse of the deeper and higher reaches of consciousness that lie beyond our ordinary waking awareness.
© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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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Essential Spirituality Inner vision Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

Glimpsing Spirit – How do You Meditate on Something That is Beyond the Mind?

Dear Integral Meditators,

For me one of the major benefits of being a meditator is that it opens us up experientially to a place and a space of rest, regeneration and renewal that we can go to at any time. It is a place  that is there for us no matter what else is going on in our life.
You could call this place Spirit if you like, though of course you could call it plenty of other things….

This weeks article is on the subject of that special space.

Yours in the spirit of Spirit,

Toby

Toby

Glimpsing Spirit – How do You Meditate on Something That is Beyond the Mind?

If you were asked to give your own definition of Spirit, that is to say of the ultimate, causal domain of reality beyond the world of the senses and of the mind, what would it be?

It is worth pausing for a moment here and seeing what you come up with in response to this question.

How do you meditate on something that is beyond the grasp of the conceptual mind? that is literally transcendent in nature? This is one of the age old problems in connecting tangibly to the spiritual dimensions of reality; it is very difficult to explain using our mind and words.

However, I feel that there are some images and concepts that really can do quite a good job of inviting us into a space where we can start to explore spirit experientially, using the images as a ‘prop’ so to speak, inviting us to go beyond the limitations of concepts.
With that in mind here are two of my favorites. The first is a traditional one from the Western Mysticism* that goes as follows:
“Spirit is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”

The second is a more contemporary postmodern/evolutionary definition of spirit**:
 “Spirit is the non-existence from which the world of existence emerges”

So at this point there is quite a lot of detail I could go into about both of these definitions both philosophically and metaphysically (and post-metaphysically for the integral geeks amongst you), but that would kind of miss the point and power of what I want to convey in this article, and that is that these words are meant to be sat with and contemplated directly in order to reveal the experience to which they are pointing.

They are not a riddle in the sense that there is a right intellectual “answer” to them that you need to find. Rather by focusing upon them in a gentle, poetic and imaginative way with your mind they have the power to start revealing something beyond themselves, giving us a feeling and intimation of that which Spirit is from an experiential, meditators perspective.

What is it that lies at the centre of everything and yet whose edge is nowhere?

What is the no-thing from which the everything emerges in each moment?

*******

*My source here is the “Mystical Qaballah” by Dion Fortune.
** My source here is Andrew Cohen, author of “Evolutionary Enlightenment”

© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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 creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

Transforming Specific Aspects of Your Past Through Shadow Meditation

Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope that you have had a good week that you feel has served your inner growth well! This weeks article explains an meditation practice that I really have something of a soft spot for, and that is of real practical value. Our past experience is constantly impacting our experience of the present, and the meditation is specifically designed to effect a healthy ongoing relationship between our past and present, so that we can face the future with confidence.

In the “upcoming courses” section you’ll see that I have mapped out the  workshop program from now until the end of the year (I’ll have to see about online courses, I’m not sure yet). The main thing that is ‘new’ is that I will be backing up the Shadow and Zen meditation workshops with level 2 workshops, so for those of you that have done the introductions, there will now be an opportunity to go onto the next step!

For any of you that missed the mid-week email with the free meditation audio on transforming stress, you can have a listen just by clicking HERE.

Toby

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:
Sunday October 27th, 3-6pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical Meditations And Techniques For Working With your Shadow-Self – A Three Hour Workshop

Tuesday 19th  November, 7.30-9.30pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Zen Level 1

24th November – An Introduction to Meditation From the Perspective of Zen Levels 2&3 (full details shortly)

Dec 1st – Shadow Meditation Level 2 (full details shortly)


Transforming Specific Aspects of Your Past Through Shadow Meditation

This article explains a practical way of working with aspects of your own individual past history in order to transform the way in which we experience the effects of that past in our lives right now.

Often we are not fully aware of the effects that our past history is having upon our present moment experience; the purpose of this meditation is improve our awareness of the way our past is impacting our present, and to effect a healthy communication and reconciliation between the person we are now and the person who went through those past experiences.

Those of you that have done some shadow coaching with me, or attended a shadow workshop will recognize some of the techniques in this meditation. The meditation technique is simple but powerful, and there is plenty of room for you to follow your own intuition and imagination.

The Practice:

Stage 1: Select a past experience to focus on 
Choose an area of your past that you wish to investigate, perhaps one that you consciously or intuitively feel that there are some unresolved issues for you. Examples might be:

  • A particular period of your childhood upbringing or schooling
  • A particular relationship with a parent, sibling or teacher
  • A difficult time such as post-divorce, being layed-off at work, or times when you had to experience your parents going through this

Stage 2: Connect to and travel down your life tree:
Having set the past experience you wish to investigate, set your intention to investigate it. Then sit down in meditation and see yourself in front of a huge tree, with its roots going deep into the earth, and its branches reaching high up into the sky. Think of this tree as your own personal Tree of Life, or Life Tree.
In the bottom of the trunk of the tree there is a door. When you are ready open the door. See extending down into the earth below there is a spiral staircase. Follow it down as far as it goes until you find a second door, which takes you out into a landscape connected to the period of your life that you wish to investigate.

Stage 3: Encounter and communication
In that landscape you encounter a figure connected to that past period of your life. For example if you are investigating a period of your schooling, then you might meet yourself as a young boy, or one of your teachers (whatever appears at this stage is right for you, trust what you see). Investigate the feelings that arise from your encounter with this figure (or figures). When you are ready, ask the figure three questions:
What is it you wish to communicate to me?
How can I help resolve the issues that you are unhealed?
How can I be of service to you?
Pay attention to and note the answers that come back.

Stage 4: Conclusion
When you are ready, say goodbye and return back up the spiral staircase to the surface world. Try and implement whatever insights you have gained from your encounter into your present life.
© Toby Ouvry 2013, 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