Tag: balance

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope

The Story Of A Chance Meeting With A Meditating Taxi Driver – Taking Other Meditation Practitioners As Your Object of Meditation

The physiological and psychological benefits of meditation have been very well documented by science over the last fifty years (the best summary of this scientific research can be found in “The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation” by Michael Murphy and Steven Donovan). There is now really no doubt that daily meditation practice makes you look younger, age slower, feel more happy, improves brain function and is THE best method for accelerating personal growth, whatever your station in life or personal philosophy.

Meditation is free, and need take only ten minutes of your time each day, all it requires is a personal commitment based around an understanding of the benefits that you can get from it. I find that one of the best ways of keeping myself motivated to meditate is to look at other mediators and appreciate the very clear benefits of meditation that they are getting.

The other week I was leaving a clients office, and flagged down a cab and got in. The driver was an Indian, I thought perhaps thirty something. As I sat in the back I was really impressed by the positive ambiance in the taxi, and the courteous manner of the driver. We got talking, and very quickly we made the connection that we were both mediators. He talked enthusiastically about his (Hindu) practice, and I shared a little about my own practice and occupation as a meditation coach and artist.

I thought he was thirty something, he turned out to be mid-fifties.

I thought maybe he was some kind of celibate practitioner living in the world and going back home to meditate alone at night, turns out he had five kids, three already at University.

I ask him how he managed financially to raise five kids on a taxi drivers pay? I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect that people plan a bit too complicated in their financial planning these days, and if you live a simple life, you can provide ok for your family even if your income is not huge.

I left the taxi thinking I really want some of what he has got! Then I remembered, actually I have got some of what he has got, and rejoiced in the pleasure of meeting someone who was such a good living example of what happens when you commit yourself to a daily meditation practice amidst the busyness of a contemporary daily life!

If you have been thinking about starting a meditation practice, or have let your practice slip of late, have a think about friends and acquaintances who you know that meditate and as a result seem to carry a lot of good energy with them at all times. You want a bit of that don’t you? Time to get going!

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Presence and being present

Are You A Seeker Or A Practitioner?

You know when you have become a meditation practitioner when in times of crisis you turn to the states of mind that you have been cultivating in meditation to find stability, calm and clarity. The fact that you are able to use the mind-states that you focus on in meditation to solve actual challenges in your life indicates that your meditation has become a part of you, and that you are a practitioner of the art of meditation.

You are a meditation seeker if you meditate sometimes but, when the S&*#! really hits the fan in your life you basically revert to the old habits and coping strategies (or non-coping strategies!) that you used before you started to meditate. In this sense a meditation seeker is kind of like someone who is window shopping or superficially dabbling in the idea of changing their consciousness, but has not yet really committed to the process of transformation. As a result their meditation practice remains skin deep, and not effective when you really need it to be.

So, which one are you? What is the next step that you need to take to transform yourself from a seeker into a practitioner?

Thanks for reading!

Toby

PS: Click HERE to read Toby’s recent article on “Starbathing Meditation” on his Qi Gong blog

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Meditation techniques Presence and being present

A Simple Sketch Of Three Simple Creative Meditation Awareness Forms: Appreciation Of the Pleasure Of Simple Awareness, Taking a Third Person Perspective On Your Life, and Finding Your Inner Light

Here are three simple meditation forms that you can do anytime, either as a short 1-5 minute practice in a spare moment, or as a longer meditations when you have more time.

1. Developing appreciation of simple awareness.

One of the main things that we learn to appreciate when we take up a meditation practice is to appreciate how pleasurable the simple act of awareness can be.

Take a minute now and just allow your mind to rest on an object. It could be the sounds as they come and go from moment to moment, or the play of the light across the landscape or cityscape as you look out of the window. Just allow your awareness to rest on that single point of focus for as long as you want. As you do so, feel your mind and body moving into a state of rest and regeneration. Feel how pleasant the simple experience of relaxed, open awareness is.

2. Observing yourself in the third person

We habitually view our daily life and the events that happen in it in a first person, subjective manner. This awareness exercise offers another perspective on our life that we can work on integrating.

Sitting down, imagine that, rather than seeing life through the eyes of your physical body, imagine that you are outside your body, maybe two or three meters away, and observing yourself as you go about your day. Recall the events of the last 24 hours, and mentally see yourself engaging in your activities. As you observe yourself, you may find that feelings and emotions come up. If so that is fine, just allow them to. The thing that you want to try and avoid as you are watching yourself is to start analyzing it or making judgements about what you are seeing. Simply be an objective observer of yourself and try and experience as fully as possible what it is like to be free from an obsessive first person experience of your life.

3. Finding your inner light by relaxing into the darkness of your mind.

Relax your mind as much as possible, as if you are falling asleep. Allow your awareness to be enveloped by the deep, silky darkness that is normally experienced as you start to drift into unconscious slumber. The key here is to ALMOST fall asleep, but NOT to actually fall asleep! Keep a part of your mind alert and awake as the main part of your mind and body relaxes deeply.

Think of the darkness that you experience as you are relaxing in this way as being like the darkness that a baby experiences in the mother’s womb, or like the darkness of deep night when we are all asleep. Rest in this darkness as fully as you can without losing that small element of alertness and awakeness!

After a while imagine that you sense within the darkness a point of light. A little bit like the first rays of sun as it is still beneath the horizon at dawn. Focus on this point of light and allow it to become gradually stronger and more pervasive, like the rays of the sun spilling across the horizon as it rises. Gradually, without trying too hard, let the inner light within your mind begin to fill the darkness until your mind feels bright and radiant like a morning sun.

The key with this exercise is to relax as fully into the darkness before you attempt to find the light, and not to try too hard to find the light. If you relax fully and deeply into the darkness, the light will actually start to emerge in its own time. However you can stimulate it a little bit by imagining the point of light emerging from the darkness as described above.

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Concentration Meditation techniques Presence and being present

The Importance of Your Memory as an Object of Meditation

Hi Everyone,

We all know the old saying “You can’t change what has happened in the past”. On an obvious level this carries definite truth, but if we look a little deeper we find that in reality we change the past every time we think about it. To see how this is the case, let us consider a simple example:

Let’s say at work yesterday I made a simple mistake. Today I happen to be feeling generally happy and confident, and so when I remember the mistake I made at work yesterday I find it east to laugh off. When others make fun of me for it, I laugh with them. Life is good, and so my memory of a past mistake and its significance is generally benign and has no power to cause me upset.

Fast forward to tomorrow, I wake up feeling generally out of balance; I sense old fears and agitations in my mind as I go to work. Mid- way through the morning someone mentions the past mistake I made two days ago. Because the general climate of my mind is negative and turbulent, as soon as I remember my mistake mentally I start attacking myself for being so stupid, I feel embarrassed by the mistake. The gravity of my error seems significant enough to knock me further off balance.

In this example we have two different days, two different REMEMBRANCES of the SAME event. Each time we experience the past event in a new way according to our present state of mind. From this we can see that we do indeed have very real power to change the past each time we remember it.

To take our memory as our object of meditation means to be mindful of the power that our mind has to re-invent the past, and to ensure that we are mentally framing past events in a way that is constructive and serving us, rather than a way that is causing us to be trapped in a cycle of misery, pain, discontent and so forth.

Your life is your meditation, and meditating on positive use of memory is an important meditation practice to develop!

Thanks for reading,

Yours in the spirit of the journey, 

Toby

PS: All are invited to the new two part meditation class, Tuesday evenings February 22nd and March 1st: “Landscapes Of The Mind: Finding Inner Power and Balance In Your Life Through Meditation on Wild Nature And Landscape” .

If you are not in Singapore, the classes will be available for purchase as recordings.

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality

Meditating on the Five Chinese Elements as a Method Achieving Harmony and Balance Through Dependent Relationship

Hi Everyone!

In general meditations on dependent-relationship are very good for developing insight into the way that everything in our life is inter-related. It shows you that if one area of your life is out of balance, then that will affect other parts of your life detrimentally. Similarly, if you focus on getting one imbalanced area of your life back into balance and harmony, then that will affect pretty much all other areas of your life in a positive way too.

One cycle of dependent relationship that I have been enjoying working with recently, both by myself and with students is the Chinese five element cycle, specifically as it relates to our mental and emotional qualities. Here is a brief summary of the five elements, together with their mental and emotional characteristics (emotional section includes emotion when balanced, and the emotions when imbalanced:

EARTH ELEMENT/SEASONS: Balanced mental quality: Clarity, Emotions:  Empathy/Anxiety

WOOD ELEMENT /SPRING: Balanced mental quality: Sensitivity, Emotions: Kindness/Anger

FIRE ELEMENT /SUMMER: Balanced mental quality: Willpower/Creativity, Emotions: Hate/Joy

METAL ELEMENT/AULTUMN: Balanced mental quality: Intuition, Emotions: Courage/Grief

WATER ELEMENT/WINTER: Balanced mental quality: Spontaneity, Emotions: Calmness/Fear

So, the point about these five sets of elements and their qualities is that they are all in relationship. For example if you are able to generate mental clarity and appropriate empathy (earth element), then you with then be able to generate appropriate and balanced kindness to yourself and others (wood element emotion), which in turn leads to the experience of joy (fire element emotion). If you read through the list in a contemplative state of mind you will start to develop your own insights into how you can make emotional and mental adjustments in your own life to bring your own “elemental cycle” of emotional and mental dependent relationship into greater harmony and balance.

An example of a five element meditation on dependent-relationship:

Here is an example of one meditation on dependent relationship that I led in class last week

Stage 1: Sitting comfortably, generate an appropriate feeling of empathy (wood element emotion) toward your body and mind. Appropriate empathy means being in touch with the authentic feelings and emotions of your body-mind, without allowing your self-sense to get overwhelmed by them.

If you generate authentic empathy, this will give you a mental sense of clarity (earth element mind) regarding how your body-mind really feels.

Stage 2: If you have mental clarity, you will then be able to extend appropriate and balanced kindness (wood element emotion) toward your body-mind, which in turn will enable them (your body-mind) and you to feel joy (fire element emotion).

Stage 3: With the feeling of joy in your body-mind, and a sense of them both co-operating with you, rather than working against you, it will be quite easy to develop balanced willpower and creativity (fire element mind).

Stage 4: With your willpower working well and in an harmonious way, courage (metal element emotion) will be relatively easy to find within yourself. You will feel in control of your body-mind, and so it will be relatively easy to find that still centre within you where your intuition (metal element mind) resides.

Stage 5: With your intuition and courage working well it will be easy to find a sense of calm within (water element emotion), as well as to be natural and spontaneous (water mind).

Stage 6: Being calm and spontaneous further enhances our earth element qualities of appropriate empathy and clarity, and we find ourself back to the beginning the cycle once more! 

So, this is one example of meditating with the mental and emotional qualities of the five elements, as I said above, if you read thought the list of elemental qualities in a contemplative way, personal insights into how these emotional and mental qualities are playing out on your own life will start to flow… 

Thanks for reading!

Yours in the spirit of the harmonious five elements, 

Toby 

PS: New meditation classes for February:

February 8: Charity Meditation: Welcoming in the Spring and Lunar New Year of the Rabbit at Sanctuary on the Hill

February 22nd, March 1st: Landscapes Of The Mind: Finding Inner Power and Balance In Your Life Through Meditation on Wild Nature And Landscape

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Motivation and scope Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

Finding the balance between freedom and control

There is an eternal balancing act that we all have to find in our life between freedom and structure, or freedom and control. This basic polarity works on all levels. For example:

  • On the physical level if you want the freedom of good health it is important to have the structure of a balanced exercise routine and diet
  • If you want the freedom to engage in a creative project (musical, artistic etc…), you need to have the discipline and organizational ability to find a source of financial stability in your life that will facilitate that.
  • If you want the mental freedom to experience pleasant feelings and thoughts in your mind, you need to have the inner structures/control in and of your mindset to deal with negative and fear based thoughts.
  • If you want the spiritual freedom to enjoy the bliss of your pure, natural consciousness free from conceptions, you need to have the discipline, control and structure of a daily meditation practice.

So, basically on every level you find this interplay between freedom and control in your life, and mastering that balance is an ever changing and fundamental part of your overall process of integrated mastery…

As I final point I would like to point out a three level structure for mastering the balance between freedom and control (I seem to have been working a lot in threes in the last few articles!):

  1. In the beginning we oscillate between freedom and control; either we are “letting ourselves go” and losing our structure, control and discipline, or we are “getting back on the wagon” and re-asserting control of our life, meditation practice etc…
  2. On the next level we start to enjoy the freedom of control, we appreciate that freedom is facilitated by a certain degree of healthy control and structure in our life. At this stage freedom and control move into increasing levels of harmony and mutuality with each other.
  3. On the third level Freedom becomes control and control becomes freedom. Discipline, control and structure become effortless expressions of our freedom of choice and creativity. Our actions become naturally and beautifully controlled and this in and of itself is an expression of our inner freedom and sense of liberation.

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

How the balance between doing and being evolves as you evolve your consciousness

For many people interest in meditation comes from the stress of the prevalence of doing and achieving in contemporary society. Because there is so much busy-ness and activity, we feel a need to retreat into a state of pure being-ness where we can rest and recuperate our energies before returning to the fray of our daily life. Meditation provides us with regular contact with such a being-state.

For such a person the balance of doing and being is found by oscillating between the activity of their daily life and tasks, and their daily meditation practice when they emphasize relaxation, beingness, non-doing and non-thinking.

However, if such a person persists in their meditation, there will come a point where they will start to observe that the state of being-ness that they experience in meditation starts to bleed into their active states; they are able to maintain a sense of centre and balance even when under stress or in conditions of relatively frenetic activity.

At this point the meditator has evolved their sense of doing and being. What they have started to see is that doing is really a sub-set or sub-category of being. Now in their life they have two types of being-ness; in meditation they practice pure-being, and in their daily life they practice doing-being. Doing-being is a far less stressful way of doing things than a state of doing that is disconnected to our sense of being.

If the person persists in their practice then increasingly they will find that their actions become a vehicle for their being-ness, that is to say that the actions of the person are always accompanied by a certain quality and depth which makes the actions themselves causes of happiness and balance.

In summary, three stages of the evolution of the balance between doing and being:

  • Meditation as a way of cultivating our being-ness so as to balance all the busy-ness, stress  and action in our life
  • Doing becomes a sub-set or sub-category of being; In meditation we practice pure being-ness, in daily life we practice doing-being
  • Doing becomes an expression of our being

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