Categories
Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Integral Awareness Meditation techniques Mindfulness

The Hidden Calm Within the Body

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article focuses on finding aspects of enlightened flow through your physical body, the technique is simple in its basic elements, but you can investigate it in almost infinite depth.

Yours in the spirit of calm,

Toby

 


The Hidden Calm Within the Body

Within your physical body itself there is an ever present space and calm that you can find through mindful reflection.
When you focus on the physical and energetic aspect of your body, there is constant change and flux; sometimes feeling heavy, sometimes light, sometimes healthy, sometimes sick, sometimes energized, sometimes tired, sometimes sensual and pleasurable, sometimes uncomfortable and unpleasant.
Within all of this change there is a part that remains the same, what is that? Well, think about what your body is primarily made up of. It is made up of parts, which are made up of cells, which are made up of atoms, which are made up of a nucleus (made up of neutrons and protons) with electrons orbiting them. The primary element in an atom, that is to say the part that it has by far the most of is space; it is just a few points of energy orbiting around a fixed point.
So if you look at the atomic nature of your body, really what you find is just energy and space, and mostly space. Whilst everything else in your body is always changing, its biggest element, that of space always remains constant; it is just open space.
So, finding the hidden calm in your body involves simply becoming aware of the space element that dominates its construction and tuning into it in order to find a sense of calm and relaxation even when other aspects of your body and mind feel out of balance or disturbed.
As well as an exercise for general pleasure and calm, I personally also find this to be a useful object of meditation and mindfulness when I am sick. The last couple of weeks I’ve had the flu followed by a nose infection. During this time because my body’s energy has been out of whack it is actually very difficult to meditate effectively. One of the easiest ways to find and sustain a sense of meditative calm in such circumstances for me has been to meditate on the space element of the body because, in the midst of all the energetic chaos, there it is, constant and unchanging.
It is difficult to say whether I have actually managed to accelerate the healing of my body through this technique (as there are so many other factors involved), but I would guess that I have, and even if not, it has certainly made the experience of not being well a lot easier and more manageable.

Focusing on the space element in your body

This is a very simple exercise:
First bring your attention onto the physical aspect of your body; sense its texture, weight, shape.
Then focus on the energy of your body; the way it feels, areas of comfort and discomfort ect…
Then become aware of the space element of your body; that fact that each of its basic atomic building blocks consists primarily (99.9 percent) of space; your solid, physical body consists primarily of empty space.
Relax into the space element of your body, naturally calm, constant and peaceful, breathe mindfully with it. You can also reflect if you like that all the other physical elements around you are also primarily empty space. The physical world is much more space-filled than we habitually think!

© 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 

Categories
Biographical creative imagery Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindfulness Motivation and scope spiritual intelligence

A Benevolent Universe? (Old Men Fighting)

Dear Integral Meditators,

What do you think the Universe thinks of you? Is it for you or against you? This mid-week article examines this question with a little bit of humor.

For those of you in Singapore, next Tuesday evening , 17th June is the date for the free preview talk on Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release From Stress, see you there if you are interested!

Finally, I am currently offering a decent summer deal on the Soul Portraits I do, see details below.

Yours in the spirit of the journey,

Toby


Special Soul Portrait Summer Sale 11th-26th June!

From the 11th-26th June I am offering a 15% discount on all Soul Portrait orders. For this limited time only the prices for Soul Portraits will be as follows:

For an Individual Soul Portrait:
  • For an A4 size (297x210mm) portrait Singapore $260 Sing $220
  • For an A3 size (297x420mm) portrait Sing $390 Sing$330
  • For an A2 Size (594x840mm) Sing $585 Sing$495

For Couples* (Ideal for weddings, Anniversaries and Valentines!):

  • For an A4 size297x210mm portrait Sing $340 Sing$290
  • For an A3 size 297x420mm portrait Sing $490 Sing$415
  • For an A2 Size (594x840mm) Sing $730 Sing$620

For further enquiries or to order a Soul Portrait please contact me by email:  info@tobyouvry.com

This is a great opportunity to get a Soul Portrait for yourself or as a gift for any of your friends or family for a very reasonable price!

To have a look at slideshows of past Soul Portraits click HERE

To look at past individual Soul Portraits click HERE


A Benevolent Universe? (Old Men Fighting)

Are the intelligent, creative forces behind the creation of our Universe benevolent toward us? That is to say are they friendly and wishing for us to succeed in our endeavours? Are they conspiring against our wishes and plans? Or are they just entirely indifferent?
At some time in our lives we have probably felt each of these three ways. At times  we have felt supported and guided, other times lost and ignored and at yet other times Beelzebub himself seems to be screwing us at each turn. What I want to do in this article is first to flag up how our own relationship to ourself affects this perception, and then relate a little story.

Your perception of your relationship to the Universe
Our relationship to the universe is directly affected by our relationship to ourself, as Emerson said “If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.” The corollary of that is that if I can maintain genuine and deep self confidence, self belief, self esteem and self trust (and demonstrate all of these things to myself through my actions) then even in the face of adversity there is the experience that, even though circumstances conspire against me the universe provides me with the solutions through the resource of myself.
So this is a first point to consider and contemplate. You can see this explored also in the recent meditation on Self-Trust that I posted.

Old Men Fighting
Recently, after finishing my regular Monday evening squash session with friends around 10pm I walk from the sports centre to a local open air coffee shop by myself,  order a beer and sit for a while sipping and contemplating the universe (you know the dodgy middle aged white blokes you see sitting alone at these places? Yup, like that).
I get up to go and as I do so a fight breaks out between two of the fifty-plus year old group of ‘serious drinkers’ near the exit. I have to walk towards them to get out, so I try and do it quietly and unobtrusively. As I’m going past I see that one of the guys is punching the other very slowly and consistently on the nose, gradually the nose breaks and blood starts to go everywhere, but it is all like watching a SLOW motion movie because they are so drunk and uncoordinated. So I put down my bag and make to break it up. I’m immediately accosted by the rest of the drunk old men who forbid me to do so. I’m not going to get into a fight with them, so feeling sad about the state of the universe (at least in this coffee shop) but clear that this is not my problem.
I’m crossing the road right next to the exit, and I see a white car with big blue letters coming towards me. Not only that, it has lights on the top, it is a police car! Joyfully I wave stop and wave my hands at it, as it slows down I point to the old men fighting. Two appropriately big and cheerful looking policemen get out, smile at me, say thanks and walk over to deal with it. I smile all the way home, safe in the knowledge that two drunk old men are now no longer punching each other in slow motion.

Who knows, perhaps the universe really is a big friendly giant? Or maybe it just has a lower tolerance level to sheer ridiculousness than other forms of human suffering.

© 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 

Categories
A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight Enlightened Flow Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness

Non-Striving

Dear Integral Meditators,

June and the summer sees a change in the pace and  of my working routine, and as a way of making the adjustment to that new routine I’ve been working this week with the practice of non-striving. Details of what it is and how to practice it are in this weeks article!

Yours in the spirit of non-striving,

Toby


Non-Striving

Non-striving is 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.

For example, if I am over-tired non-striving is not simply the practice of stopping what I am doing and having a rest (although I may do that), it is the practice if not getting in conflict with myself about the reality of my fatigue, and thus even if I have to work on for a while, my mental approach is not being hampered by the friction of me fighting the reality of my fatigue.

If I have a business deal that I am anxious should happen, and then it seems as if the other party will not close on it, then I can recognize my attachment to making it happen, and my disappointment at the fact that it has not happened, and then make a point of not fighting that disappointment; rather I accept it and flow with it even whilst I see if there is any way that the deal may still go forward.

If I have a social commitment that I am not looking forward to, then if I can accept and practice non-striving with the reality that I have to go (assuming that there is no choice), then my chances of actually enjoying that social engagement even though I may not find it ideal is much greater

The thing about non-striving is that when we are in a state of non-conflict with ourself, then our natural intelligence functions far better and so our chances of actually finding solutions, enjoying ourselves, transforming difficulties to our advantage and so forth actually increases.

So often our instinctive idea of how to get what we want in our life is based around striving, battling, being effortful and fighting and there is no doubt that on occasion this approach may have its place. However if we can develop our competency at non-striving then we discover that it is possible to get what we want or at least what we need with much less effort than we deemed necessary.

To practice non-striving means acknowledging honestly what is there and going with the flow of that reality, even as we may work to change it. It is a pleasant and energy efficient way of re-connecting to our sanity and intelligence as well as creating a space where our mind body and spirit can rest and regenerate their energies even whilst we are in the midst of our daily activities.

© 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 

Categories
Enlightened Flow Integral Awareness

Finding Your Spiritual Flow

Dear Toby,

This is an article on how to find your spiritual flow. In this article there is what I consider to be a really great and useful definition of the word ‘spiritual’. We often use ‘spiritual’ conversationally as if we have a clear idea what it means, but when we check our understanding is often a lot more nebulous. This article on spiritual flow is once again on the topic of flow states in meditation which I will be addressing in great practical depth in my upcoming Enlightened Flow Workshop on the 29th June, with the free introductory talk on Tuesday 17th June . For those of you not in Singapore, don’t worry, the online version will follow 😉

Yours in the spirit of spiritual flow,

Toby

 


Finding Your Spiritual Flow

This is an article about how to find your spiritual or enlightened flow. So, firstly, what do we mean by spiritual. Oftentimes people use the word like we all know what it means, but actually a sound working definition of what it means to be spiritual can be elusive; so here is one that I find very practical and useful from Nathaniel Branden: “Spiritual means pertaining (or referring to) to consciousness and the development of consciousness”.
From this we can see that to be a spiritual person means being interested in developing your inner or non-material self.
Quite often the spiritual is set up in contrast to materialism. A materialist is someone for whom the material world is of primary importance, in contrast a spiritual person is someone for whom the non-material or inner world of consciousness is of primary importance. This is not to say that a single person cannot have an integrated balance of materialism and spirituality in their life, indeed perhaps this would be the ideal.

So to be a spiritual person means to be interested in developing the inner world of your consciousness, and you yourself can assess how ‘spiritual’ you are by measuring how much effort each day you spend on the development of your consciousness.

Now that we have a definition of spiritual, we can look at what spiritual flow means. To be‘in the spiritual flow’ means to be centered in your consciousness, and allowing your life to unfold around that central inner identity of yourself as a non-physical self within a physical body and experiencing a physical world
Deep spiritual flow or enlightened means to be centred on the experience of consciousness itself, so that as well as distinguishing yourself from your physical body and self, you have also distinguished yourself from the contents of your consciousness as well. You are the centre of pure living awareness and/or consciousness that is the possessor and expereincer of your thoughts, feelings and body.

Four images for spiritual or enlightened flow:
So what might that actually look or feel like? Here are four images for getting a feel for what it is like to be in the spiritual or enlightened flow.

1. Think of your actual or spiritual self as being the parent of the contents of your consciousness – You are dis-identified** with the contents of your consciousness, but holding them with care and love
2. To be the ocean of your consciousness but not the waves or ripples – Your consciousness is like the ocean, your mental experience of thoughts and sensory information are like the waves – be the ocean, not the waves!
3. To be the sky and not the clouds – Experience your consciousness itself as being like a clear open sky, and your senses and thoughts as being like the clouds. Be the open sky, not the clouds!
4. Being the tree and not the leaves – The tree cares for and feeds the leaves but is not destroyed when they fall of in the winter, it lets them fall, stands silent through winter and then re-grows them the next spring. Your consciousness itself is like the tree, your thoughts and senses are like the leaves. Be the tree and not the leaves!

If you want some homework from this article, over the next week or so simply take one of these images each day and use your contemplation of them as a way of starting to experience your own spiritual or enlightened flow.

**Please note the difference between dis-identified and dis-associated from . We aim to be in touch with and aware of our thoughts, emotions and senses whilst being dis-identified with them. To be dis-associated from them would be to be completely out of touch with them, which would invariably lead to psychological issues!

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

A Free Meditation to Discover Your Mindful Self-Leadership

What does the experience of leading yourself mindfully look and feel like? This is a 20 minute guided meditation that I did in May 2014 in Singapore at a CLIA event that will give you a chance to really investigate this topic within yourself :

Mindful Self-Leadership Meditation at CLIA (Click to listen online, right click to download)

If you enjoy it and are in Singapore this weekend, on the 7th June I will be doing the Mindful Self-Leadershp 3 Hour Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia  also has an Online course on Mindful Self-Leadership that you can participate in anytime.

You can watch me talking on the topic of “Leaping Like a Tiger – Mindful Self Leadership” on youtube.

Finally, do check out the Mindful Self-Leadership section of this Blog!

Yours in the spirit of mindful self-leadership,

Toby

Categories
creative imagery Enlightened Flow Essential Spirituality Inner vision Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality

An Enlightenment Visualization

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article uses a series of six simple images to try and communicate the basic enlightenment experience. In June I’ll be doing a workshop on meditation for cultivating the enlightenment experience, this article is one way of exploring this space.

I’ll be facilitating the three hour Mindful Self-Leadership workshop again on the 7th June for those interested. It will be at the CLIA workshop space on Khoon Seng Road.

Finally, I-Awake technologies are having a 50% Sale on until Monday evening US time, I’ve placed the details at the bottom of this newsletter, do check it out!

Yours in the spirit of enlightenment,

Toby


Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia in June:

Mindful Self-Leadership: Taking Control of Your Life Through the Practice of Mindful Self-Leadership – A Five Week Online Course (This is ongoing and can be entered into at any time)

Saturday 7th June, 2.30-5.30pm – Mindful Self-Leadership Course at CLIA(Creative Leadership in Asia)

Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release from Stress – A Practical Three Hour Meditation Workshop

Free Preview Talk: Tuesday , 17th June, 7.30-8.30pm at the Reiki Centre

The Three Hour Workshop:  Sunday 29th June, 9.30am-12.30pm

Click title link for details of both Enlightened Flow events.
 


Enlightenment Visualization

The following is a visualization process for connecting experientially to the experience of spiritual enlightenment. By Spiritual Enlightenment here I mean connecting to the formless, timeless, unified dimension or reality that underlies both the outer world of our body and senses, and the inner world of our mind.
The best artists use their pictures/creations to connect the viewer to a deeper dimension of their being. Very often a picture or image speaks louder, more clearly and more practically to us than abstract concepts (not always, but often). The point of this visualization exercise therefore is to describe in a series of 6 key images how to connect to the enlightenment experience without giving too much philosophy; the images connect you to the meaning.

Stage 1: Sit quietly for a while, bringing your attention to your body and the breathing. Use your exhalation to release tension from your mind and body and enter as deep and relaxed a state of awareness as you can.

Stage 2: Now imagine that the world around the room or space in which you are seated gradually dissolves in to light, space and emptiness. It is just you and the room surrounded by an infinity of light and empty space.

Stage 3: Now imagine that the room where you are seated dissolves into light, space and emptiness; it is just you, and your body sitting in this living, empty infinity.

Stage 4: Now imagine that your body itself dissolves away into light, space and emptiness so that all you are experiencing is a huge unified space of light and emptiness with no beginning and no end. For the main section of the meditation, rest in this space of formless timeless spaciousness as deeply as you can. This is the initial focus of the experience of spiritual enlightenment as we are describing it in this exercise.

Stage 5: When you are ready, from this unified space of formless timeless emptiness see the barest trace of your body outlined in that space, in lines and points of light. Gradually your room and the whole world around it also appear in this ghostly white framework of lines and points of light. The main experience is still one of spacious light, emptiness and unity, but traced within that timeless space is now your entire world of time and space, with your body in the centre.

Stage 6: Gradually see your body and the world around you becoming more solid and real, filled with colour, texture, weight, sound and so on. See this solid ‘real’ world emerging or arising from the vast infinity of formless, timeless infinity that you have been resting in during stage 4.
The formless timeless unity of enlightenment and the diverse solid and sometimes chaotic world of time and space exist as one, as a mutually supporting unity.

When you are ready you can bring your meditation to a close. When you are out of meditation the practice them becomes to recognize that the real, solid world around you is arising and one with the timeless domain of enlightenment. They are not two different objects, but the same reality appearing in two different ways.

As I mention below, the I-Awake sale is on, with 50% off all tracks until Monday 26th May. The tracks that best support the meditation I have described in this article would be Audio SerenityHarmonic Resonance Meditation and Meditative Ocean.

© 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



Our friends at I-Awake technologies are offering a 50% discount on all digital downloads of ALL their products in their 5 day memorial day sale!
Its a great opportunity to get some amazing products and technologies to support your meditation practice and peace of mind at a great price.
Check out the link for full details!

Categories
Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Uncategorized

A Free Audio Meditation on Self Trust

Dear Integral Meditators,

Goethe said “If you trust yourself you will know how to live”. More than  that, our trust and confidence in ourself directly affects the way in which we experience our relationship to the world at large, as Emerson said “If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.”

This is a short five minute guided meditation on how to develop and sustain deep trust in yourself. Enjoy!

Meditation on Self-Trust
(click to play, right click download)

A quick reminder that the Mindful Self-Leadership Online Course will be beginning tomorrow, beneath this message I have placed some of the feedback from those who attended the live workshop last Sunday, just to give you a feel of what sort of benefits you are likely to experience if you participate in the more in-depth online course!

Yours in the spirit of self leadership and self-trust,

Toby



Audio Serenity

Last couple of days to get 25% off Audio Serenity!

Go on 61minutes of pure and deep relaxation. Enjoy a drug free vacation from stress and anxiety”.

Click on the link, to listen to a free sample.  Just type in NEWSMAY25OFF into the coupon code section of the purchase section to get the discount.

 


Mindful Self-Leadership 3 hour WS 18.05.14 Participant Feedback

I found this workshop excellent. It gives me a nice set of simple tools. Your talk did open my eyes to various issues and concepts, going beyond just the workshop.
Keep up the good work including your weekly blogs!

Good pacing with the right amount of content. Very useful practical mindfulness exercises to complement the content shared. Great handout and online links (to the workshop recordings). Nice venue and small group. Sentence completion exercises very useful, Thankyou!

I felt a connection with Toby straight away.
I feel more hopeful in how my life will proceed.
His (Toby’s) experience, way of speaking, knowledge and methods resonate with me.
Thankyou Toby.

The workshop was excellent! I really enjoyed not only the content, but also the process. I found the explanation and insights to be truly insightful and informative. Thanks so much!

Really enjoyed the whole workshop – The focus that the sentence completion allowed me to have about my views & thoughts and feelings , plus the really helpful practical experience of the meditation exercises.

It has been really useful for me to understand the stages of thought and mindfulness that lead to actual action. Thankyou!


 

Categories
Concentration Energy Meditation Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence Zen Meditation

Locating Your Deep Centre

Dear Integral Meditators,

If you are in the centre of the energy of your life, then you are general going to be and feel in control. If you are on the edge of the energy in your life, being pushed around and buffeted by its currents, then things can really feel like a struggle. This weeks article explores a practical exercise in how to find your centre and stay there!

Yours in the spirit of deep centring,
Toby


Locating Your Deep Centre

The following is an exercise that you can do at the beginning of a meditation, or anytime you want to balance and centre your body-mind. It can also be done over a slightly longer period of time as a meditation in and of itself.
It can be done when you feel upset or out of balance, or as a method for finding deep stillness.
In general the energy that occupies your bodies centre or core is the energy that will be running your life. This exercise helps you to bring conscious awareness and balanced energy into the core of your being, thus giving you greater autonomy, choice and control over your body, mind and life.

Step 1: Aligning your body – Sit comfortably with your hips, abdomen, chest/shoulders, neck and head stacked one on top of the other like a pile of bricks. This allows the weight of your upper body to travel comfortably down your torso into the hips with minimal effort needed to sustain a vertical sitting posture.

Step 2: Finding your vertical core – Visualize a line of light and energy coming down from the sky through the dead centre of your crown, brain, neck, chest, abdomen and hips, exiting through the perineum (mid-point between the legs) and continuing down into the centre of the earth. This line of energy is your body’s vertical core.

Step 3: Balancing the front and back of your body – Now with small movements of only a centimetre or two, rock your body backwards and forwards. As you do so feel the front and back halves of your body coming into alignment with each other around the vertical line of light in the centre of your body.

Step 4: Balancing the left and right halves of the body- Now rock your body sideways with small movements. As you do so, feel the left and right halves of your torso and body coming into alignment with each other. With the completion of steps 3&4 you now feel that the front and back halves and the left and right halves of your body in a state of balance and harmony with each other around your bodies vertical core.

Step 5: Finding the deep centre of your body – Now look for the deep centre of your torso and body. This will be along the vertical core of your body, somewhere between the chest and solar plexus level. Note you are not trying to find a chakra or anything like that, you are trying to find the literal ‘dead-centre’ or bulls-eye of your body – its middle point.
Once you have found it, visualize it as a ball of light about the size of a golf ball. As you breathe in breathe your awareness into the deep centre of your body, as you breathe out feel light and energy from your deep centre expanding out into your body-mind, bringing stability, poise, balance and harmony to it.

Optional Step 6: Going cosmic – If you want to prod the enlightenment experience a little with this exercise (and why not?) as you breathe into your deep centre feel yourself connecting to the centre of your spiritual self, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. As you breathe out feel your awareness expanding out from your deep centre into a space of eternity and infinity.

Rest in the awareness of your deep centre for a while, when you feel ready you can return to your daily life aligned and re-centred!

© 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


Audio Serenity

Special 1 week offer, get 25% off!

Go on 61minutes of pure and deep relaxation. Enjoy a drug free vacation from stress and anxiety”.

Click on the link, to listen to a free sample.  Just type in NEWSMAY25OFF into the coupon code section of the purchase section to get the discount.

Categories
Biographical Enlightened Flow Enlightened service Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Mindful Self-Leadership

Enlightenment and the Call to Awakened Creativity

Dear Toby,

Those of you in Asia I hope you had a nice holiday yesterday as Wesak, or Buddhas birthday was celebrated. The article below is the result of my own reflections on the creative process of enlightenment, thinking about the Buddha in particular.

Final call for those who may be interested in the 3 hour Mindful Self Leadership Workshop in Singapore this Sunday 18th May, 9.30am-12.30. Click on the link for details!

Yours mindfully and creatively,

Toby

PS: Click on the picture to find out about Buddha shaped pears!


Enlightenment and the Call to Awakened Creativity

I’m writing this article on Wesak day, or Buddha’s birthday, and the occasion has led me to have a go at expressing something that has been on my mind for a little while which is basically this; The great enlightened leaders of different eras for example Buddha, the Christ, Krishna responded to their experience of spiritual enlightenment with courageous creative acts of worldly innovation.

For example one of the things that the Buddha did was to create whole new class of citizen. Back in India 600BC as a man you had three options; either you were of the class of nobleman, or the warrior class or the servant/slave class. If you were in the tiny minority of noblemen, then life would have been good, but if you were a warrior or a slave you really were not operating with much freedom. If you were a woman the choices were correspondingly limited.
So what the Buddha did was to create a new class of citizen – the ordained Sangha – or community of monks and nuns who were essentially able to side step the three class options and live peacefully, supported by laypeople and focus on getting enlightened themselves and being of service to the community at large. It is difficult for us to appreciate fully today what an amazing act of social innovation this was on the part of the Buddha, as today we live in a very different society where, relatively speaking we have very different freedoms and limitations. At the time of the Buddha many, many men and women were socially liberated in the way through the creative this creative act of Buddha.

So then, the interesting thing to me is that while the truly great enlightened people and leaders innovate and act with dynamic creativity, the people that follow them mainly seem just to seek to follow the rules that got set down after their death – they do not seem to feel the imperative to act creatively, to take chances, to innovate, to respond to the genuine organic needs of their life and times.

To become spiritually enlightened means basically this; to be interested in developing your consciousness and to be focused on the process of seeing and integrating your inner and outer reality as clearly and courageously as you can. Spiritual enlightenment is a process with many levels of unfolding. I’m at a certain level of spiritual development; you are at a certain level of development. At each level I believe we have a responsibility not just to gain insight into our reality, but also to respond to that insight with action and creativity. This means to be taking active responsibility for expressing your own enlightenment (on whatever level you are at) in your life. Very often that will mean taking a chance, engaging in something a little experimental.

The main thing is that you get in the habit of expressing your enlightened creativity now, today, at least a little.

Happy Wesak day!

Categories
Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

The Benefits of Simplicity

Dear Integral Meditators,

Every now and again I write an article that I like right from the moment of completion. The one on simplicity below is one of them. The practice of mindful simplicity is one that helps us to become more effective at dealing with the ever increasing complexity of our daily lives; by becoming simpler we gain the strength to approach complexity with enthusiasm and resilience.

How to find regeneration through simplicity is the first of the practices that I will be teaching in the  Mindful Self-leadership workshop on Sunday the 18th of May, you can click on the link to read more about that, and to listen to a 45 minute free preview talk and meditation on mindful self-leadership.

Yours in the spirit of simplicity,
Toby


Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia:

Mindful Self-Leadership: Taking Control of Your Life Direction and Wellbeing Through Awareness, Curiosity, Courage and Care

Sunday  May 18th – Mindful Self-Leadership Three Hour Workshop
Thursday 22nd May – Five Module Online Mindful Self-Leadership Course Begins

Click on the link for full details!
 


The Benefits of Simplicity

One definition of meditation is an activity that tends towards singularity and away from diversity.
Another way of putting this is that meditation can be any activity, accompanied by solid states of mindfulness and awareness, that moves towards simplicity and away from complexity.
So what are the benefits of abiding in a state of mindful simplicity? Here are a few:

  • Your body-mind moves from a state of energy expenditure to a state of energy regeneration and renewal
  • By making your mind and activity regularly simpler, you actually enhance your capacity to deal with the complexity of your daily life more adequately and competently
  • With the clarity that comes from simplicity your natural intelligence is able to function better, both in terms of rational and intuitive problem solving
  • It is easier to access positive states of mind such as appreciation and enjoyment
  • You gain greater wisdom and perspective on your life as you step back from it and temporarily disengage
  • You have the opportunity to become aware of deeper levels of motivation and desire within yourself that are revealed only when your everyday business is reduced
  • You gain the strength and presence of mind to do what you need to do in the longhaul of your life (not just the short term) to lead yourself to the fulfilment of your deepest desires.

Creating a state of mindful simplicity
The great thing about simplicity is that it can be cultivated any time you have a gap in your life. It just means creating a space where you are cutting down on the amount of activity and busyness. For example:

You could go for a walk where the aim is to go slowly and mindfully, to not think about the future, simply to enjoy the moment
You could choose to sit on you office chair for five minutes and simply not engage in any tasks, just come back to your body and breathing
You could choose not to fill an afternoon on your weekend with activities, but rather just allow that time to be focused on keeping things as simple and reflective as possible.

Mindful simplicity is available to you every day if you want it to be. If you know the benefits, then what are you waiting for? Create some space for mindful simplicity each day.

Want some more tangible ideas for mindful simplicity?
Check out these previous articles:
Four Zen Meditations
Dropping Your Conceptual Leaves
Small Focused Mind, Big, Open Mind
Fundamental Zen Sitting Meditation Forms

© 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


Looking for some help to create a space of simplicity in your life? Try these bio-field  tracks from I-Awake:Audio Serenity
Beginners Mind
Harmonic Resonance Meditation
Meditative Ocean

Healing Light