Tag: mindful living

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creative imagery Energy Meditation Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Art meditation and creativity Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience

The spectrum of mindful freedom and limitation

“If I understand freedom of awareness then gives freedom of choice, then I understand that I myself and am the creative agent that lies between the freedom of my awareness, and the current limitation of my life”

Dear Integral Meditators,

One of the great pleasures of meditation is the discovery that, wherever you are and whatever else is going on in your life, by sitting in a state of relaxed awareness you can be free, absolutely free, even if it is only for a few  seconds. This weeks article explores how to enjoy your freedom creatively, even amidst the apparently ‘fixed’ limitations of your life….

In the spirit of  inspiration while working,

Toby

The spectrum of mindful freedom and limitation

The freedom and joy of awareness
One of the great pleasures of meditation is the discovery that, wherever you are and whatever else is going on in your life, by sitting in a state of relaxed awareness you can be free, absolutely free, even if it is only for ten seconds. Of course, when you build your competency, you can drop into this space of freedom for much longer than 10 seconds. It can be extended into minutes and even hours. In the longer term it leads to the realization that, on the level of awareness itself we are absolutely free, even (and especially) when we are surrounded by limitations in our life.

The freedom of choice
The freedom of awareness then gives rise to a second freedom, the knowledge and capability to choose our attitude to life, as per the famous Viktor Frankl quote:
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
By developing stable freedom of awareness, we can then remain free, even under pressure, to choose our attitude to what is happening to and around us. By taking responsibility for our choices we then generate the power to create our experience, by choosing our attitude to what is, and proceeding from there.

The daily path of necessary and appropriate limitation
So of course, in daily life we operate within the context of limitation and non-freedom. By choosing one career I sacrifice many other career paths. By choosing a partner I forgoe an indefinite number of other possible relationships. I operate within a finite body that is ageing. Initially this can look almost antagonistic toward the freedom of awareness, but if we understand freedom of awareness then gives freedom of choice, then I understand that I myself and am the creative agent that lies between the freedom of my awareness, and the limitation of my life.

The birth of creativity between these two
We can then start to see ourselves as artists whose life is a creative act; Our inherent freedom of awareness dancing with the inherent limitation of our life. From these two we sculpt our own work of art; the limitation giving shape and form to the absolute freedom of awareness itself. Our lives are always a combination of different fortunes and misfortunes, sufferings and joys. Whatever that combination, if we are willing to experience the freedom of our awareness each day, and then own our choices, we can create our own work of art from whatever limitations we have to operate in.

Meditating on the freedom of awareness
You can begin practising the dance of freedom and limitation in your own life by:

  1. Sitting and acclimatizing to the freedom of awareness in meditation. As the quote from the Warriors Creed goes: “I have no freedom : I make awareness my freedom”.
  2. Build a healthy acceptance and if possible, appreciation of the limitations that exist in your life.
  3. With a sense of your freedom of your awareness, and reflecting on the power of your freedom to choose your attitude to a challenge in your life, ask yourself “What is the most creative use of my freedom to create something beautiful from my current limitation?”
© Toby Ouvry 2022, 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

Saturday September 24th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

In a sentence: Experience unique Qi gong and Taoist breathing techniques to improve your immune system, energy level, psychological wellness and enhance your meditation…read full details

Sat & Sun 22nd/23rd October – Shamanic meditation workshop retreatLearn how to practice the fundamentals of the most ancient meditation tradition on the planet in a clear, practical and concise manner, and understand its relevance and value to you and the challenges that you face in your life.

The workshop will give an overview and introduce some simple but profound shamanic practices on day one, with a deeper dive into Shamanic meditation practices on day two…read full details


Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

Saturday September 24th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday October  8th, 9.30-12noon –  Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Sat & Sun 22nd/23rd October – Shamanic meditation workshop retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Presence and being present

Why am I doing this? Mindfully self-regulating your energy

“Mindful self-regulation. When you are about to engage in an activity or a meditation, it’s good to be clear about which mode you are going to be in, and what the objective is. Are you trying to achieve something but expend energy, or trying to restore energy, or something that is a bit of both?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Too much output of energy without enough input leads to a burnout. This weeks article explores how to start regulating your energy levels and manage them better by being more mindful.
The subject of the article is also the subject of  this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, if you enjoy the article, then do feel free to join us either online or live!

In the spirit of  self-regulation,

Toby

 

Why am I doing this? Mindfully self-regulating your energy

There are three types of activity essentially:

  1. Energy expending – Where you are doing an activity that involves expending energy in order to achieve something
  2. Restorative – When you are doing something relaxing in order to regenerate and build your energy
  3. Net neutral – When you are doing something that is both taking a moderate amount of effort, but also giving back some energy to you in some way, so maybe you might say it is a ‘net neutral’ activity

In any given day, you want to be monitoring these so that, overall you are doing enough restorative activities to not run out of energy. Too many days (running into weeks, months and years) of energy expending without recharging essentially leads to burnout.
This is also true for your meditation

  • You can do meditations that involve visualization, emotion and thought that are actually quite hard work, but that lead to an achievement or capability. This type of meditation takes effort and energy
  • There are some meditations that are relaxing, but require some focus and work
  • There are others that really emphasize relaxation, regeneration and minimum effort/energy expenditure and creating energy for recovery

So, when you are about to engage in an activity, or a meditation, it’s good to be clear about which mode you are going to be in, and what the objective is, are you trying to achieve something but expend energy, or trying to restore energy, or something that is a bit of both?

To conclude, here are three sample meditation techniques. The first is a net neutral one, the second energy expending, the third restorative. If you were feeling you had energy on any given day, you could do mainly one and two. But if you were feeling really exhausted at the end of a hard day, you could do mainly or exclusively the last (links to further details of each technique are included).

  • Free form breathing
  • Visualizing yourself as an adventurer in life
  • Relaxing into safety & brain relaxation

Free form breathing means to just allow your body to breathe as it wants to breathe in order to release stress and move towards balance. All you need to do is allow your body to do what it needs to do, and keep your mental attention on the breathing as the body goes through its process.
Visualize yourself as an adventurer in life, meaning confident in the face of your challenges, feeling enthusiastic, energetic, strong, courageous. Visualize yourself for a few minutes like this, viewing from the first person (in your body as the adventurer) and third person (as an observer). Build the feelings and visuals clearly and specifically! This should feel good, but it takes some effort
Relaxing into safety and brain relaxation. For the final section, recognize that you are safe in the moment (no immanent threats to your wellbeing), and relax your physical brain. Imagine it goes into sleep mode, like a computer – Still switched on but functions minimized! Try and make yourself as relaxed as possible, almost asleep but still a degree of awareness. Less effort more ease and regeneration…

So, there you go, that’s an example of the three types of meditation that you can try.
One final point here is that you can also do one meditation in three different ways. For example, you can do the free form breathing in a way that is really emphasizing focus and clarity, or you can do it in a more relaxed way, not worrying so much about effort, just emphasizing release and flowing into restfulness.

© Toby Ouvry 2022, 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
Ongoing – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details

 


Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

Saturday September 24th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday September 10th, 9.30-12noon – Full Moon Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Pre-disposing yourself for enjoyment (& being battle ready)

“To take hold of our enjoyment we need to be conscious enough to direct attention toward our opportunities for enjoyment, and be ready to work our way patiently through the obstacles to that”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Is your happiness and wellbeing an accident, or is it on purpose? The article below looks at how you can pre-dispose yourself to good experiences using meditation, and why you might consider it a worthwhile investment.

If you enjoy the article, the subject is covered in my latest class series, An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice that starts on 16/17th August, and can be participated in live, online or using the recordings.

Also, this Saturday I will be facilitating the monthly Zen deep-dive mini-retreat where we will be focusing on deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart.

In the spirit of  being battle-ready!

Toby

Pre-disposing yourself for enjoyment (& being battle ready)

Consolidating your inner strengths
One way of thinking about meditation is as an activity where we train our mind systematically to focus on positive-objects. By a ‘positive object’ I mean an object that when we focus upon it causes our awareness to become calm, strong, balanced, warm or otherwise positive and healthy in some way.
A meditator is a person who is committed to systematically developing their inner strengths and wellbeing by growing these strengths daily, perhaps a little bit like an inner gym-rat!

Train when things are going well! The need to be ‘Battle-ready’
One of the key insights a meditator has is that its best to train your mind to be inwardly strong before you start to suffer to much or encounter an emergency. This way when you do hit an emergency or encounter pain, you are ready for it.
When I was in the UK recently, I met an old friend and colleague from my Buddhist monk days. Although both our lives were going well in many ways, we could both enumerate a number of critical challenges that we and our family members were going though. The challenges were laced with various forms of pain and suffering. These sufferings were really in the nature of life itself and were unavoidable; old age, sickness, loneliness, economic challenges. The existence of the challenges was not within our ability to control. All we could could/can control is our mindset and way of being present to them. This in turn relies upon our inner strength, our capacity for things like acceptance, confidence, letting go, perseverance, love and so forth.
So, to be ‘Battle-ready’ for the sufferings that present themselves in our life, we can use meditation as a way of building and consolidating our inner strengths. Challenges in our life can always be opportunities, but if we are not inwardly robust and confident enough when we face them, the pain often shuts that opportunity down. So, we need to arrive prepared.

Pre-disposing ourself for enjoyment
Using meditation as a way of building our inner strengths also pre-disposes us to recognize and take our opportunities for enjoyment. Amidst the difficulty and tribulation of life there are many opportunities each day for fun, pleasure, happiness and fulfilment. If we are pre-occupied with our pain or feeling overwhelmed by life however, we will often not even recognize these opportunities.
So, for example, opportunities for enjoyment for me today include:

  1. Taking pleasure in the presence of my daughters
  2. Enjoying the familiarity of my home after a holiday away
  3. Appreciating that I have enough work set up this month not to have to worry
  4. Taking pleasure in giving (my older daughter’s birthday present)
  5. Appreciating the memories of the trip that I have just returned from
  6. Simple enjoyments in the form of food, coffee and so on
  7. Working on setting up the new projects for the second half of the year
  8. Being grateful for the presence of some childcare in the form of our helper to take the load off my shoulders
  9. The opportunity to exercise and meditate

These are all in my grasp, but I’m also feeling jet-lagged, sleep deprived and, as a result somewhat dis-oriented. To take hold of my enjoyment I need to be conscious enough to direct my attention toward my opportunities for enjoyment, and be ready to work my way patiently through the obstacles to that. My ability to do that relies to a large degree on the capacities that I have previously built up to focus on the positives, and not get thrown off balance by the obstacles. This, in essence is what this dimension of meditation practice is about.

In case you missed my previous article: Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)

© Toby Ouvry 2022, 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

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Session overview: These 2.5hour Zen ‘mini-retreats’ are a chance to go into much deeper meditation states than you would be able to in your own personal daily practice, or even if you came to a one-hour class. Using sitting meditation methods in combination with breathing techniques and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…read full details

 


Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

Saturday August 27th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Energy Meditation Inner vision Life-fullness Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Meditation & inner healing

“Sometimes simply to sit with the intention to look within and heal can be a powerful practice in itself. The journey to wholeness begins with mindful orientation around this”

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

To be a meditator can be considered in a number of different ways, in my second article on the subject below we look at a meditator as someone committed to self-healing on a deeper level.

If you enjoy the article, the subject is covered in my latest class series, An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice that starts on 16/17th August, and can be participated in live, online or using the recordings.

In the spirit of  healing,

Toby

Meditation & inner healing (What is a meditator? Article 2)

In my previous article I outlined two definitions of what it means to be a meditator:

  1. To be an Adventurer in consciousness
  2. A practitioner of the primary life-skills of awareness & attention

In this article I’m going to outline a another; a meditator as someone deeply committed to self-healing. I’ll outline a bit of what I mean by this, and then I’ll suggest come ways to start practicing.

Definition 3: Someone committed to self-healing – A meditator is someone who is committed to looking inward in order to see, take care of and heal the parts of themselves that are injured, wounded or broken and returning them to health. I’m talking primarily about the psychological parts of self here rather than physical self, although meditation can and does have a substantial effect on physical healing.
I’m suggest three practices for self-healing below. The practices can be done as sitting exercises, or taken as principles to be mindfully integrated into your overall approach to your life.

Practices for self-healing

1. Letting old wounds heal – If you keep picking at a scab on your knee, it will keep re-opening the wound, and prevent it from healing. It can be a great approach to inner healing just to acknowledge a particular wound (Eg: A bad relationship from the past that scarred us emotionally), and then leave it alone, let time pass and gently heal the damage that has been done, a little bit like vegetation and grass reclaims land that has been dug up or overused. ‘I choose to relax and let old wounds heal naturally, and in their own time’.

2. Revisiting difficult emotions therapeutically – This second practice involves deliberately invoking the memories and experiences of wounds and burdens, specifically in order to acknowledge, accept and then release them. Unlike the previous method here we are engaging the wound in order to use the knowing and experiencing of the wound as a healing agent. A key to understanding this technique is to know that awareness heals. By mindfully revisiting past blocks and breakages, we can begin a process of tangible movement towards wholeness.

3. Expanding beyond and transcending your wounds – In this section I’m just going to place a Jung quote that explains the principle very well. Essentially to expand and grow broader is, in many ways to heal:
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble…They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This outgrowing as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose in the person’s horizon, and through this widening of view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically on its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency.”

A final comment here, sometimes simply to sit with the intention to look within and heal can be a powerful practice in itself. The journey to wholeness begins with mindful orientation around this intention.

In case you missed my previous article: Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)

© Toby Ouvry 2022, 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

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Session overview: These 2.5hour Zen ‘mini-retreats’ are a chance to go into much deeper meditation states than you would be able to in your own personal daily practice, or even if you came to a one-hour class. Using sitting meditation methods in combination with breathing techniques and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…read full details

 


Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

Saturday August 27th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Concentration Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Uncategorized

The way to silence

“The way to silence ….is to meditate. And what is the way to meditate? To be silent!”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Silence is a skill that you could build basic competence at if you devoted 5mins a day for the next month to it. Are you up for the challenge? Read the article below to get started!

In the spirit of silence,

Toby

 

 

The way to silence

….is to meditate. And what is the way to meditate? To be silent!
This is a fun little paradox, and it is worth exploring a little more.

Silence is at a premium
These days our heads are very full of noise, and there is the incessant information coming at us from our environment, the internet and our phones. Because of this, and also because of our identification and addiction to thoughts and information, many people find it impossible to silence their mind to the extent that they don’t even want to try as the results are so discouraging. Because of this accessing silence well is a premium skill that has particular value for us.

How to meditate
To meditate in the simplest terms is to be present to your immediate experience, and be aware of that experience. This means to gather your attention away from ideas and concepts of past and future, and let your attention rest in the present. Then what you need to do is avoid falling asleep, or dozing off! So, meditation is the space between thinking/concepts and sleep/inertia; holding that space, and being alert and aware in that space. If you start practicing this you will discover that this space is also a silent one, or that there is silence present in that space.

Brain relaxation
It’s helpful for thought reduction to relax your brain. Our brain is our organ of thought, so if you relax, the number of thoughts that you have is correspondingly reduced. If you focus attention on your physical brain, breathe in be aware of any tension in it, breathe out release that tension, after a short while you will notice the difference.

Regenerative silence
So, if you sit in meditation like this, you’ll start to notice little patches of silence. Maybe they are only a few seconds long before you get distracted, but as long as you keep practicing, the patches of silence will grow. You will also notice that you don’t ‘create’ silence, its already there underneath the noise. When you relax and become present, the silence reveals itself right there, without you ‘doing’ anything. Whenever you enter into silence (or even just a little bit more silent than before), you will notice that it is relaxing, regenerative and helps you find a sense of basic sanity.

Creative silence
Silence is a space of no-thing, the point is there is nothing there. Moving deeper into silence, we discover that it also creates spaces that help us to imagine our life and our way of going and being in a new way. It is generative, from silence and being, our process of becoming starts to evolve.

Singular silence
Silence also creates singularity, focus. All our energy gathers into the silence, we become integrated, powerful. The side effect of this during the day is that it becomes easier to focus on tasks, there is less inner interference and we become more effective in life.

Silence amidst the noise
After a while you will notice that the silence is always there. You can ‘hear’ it even when your surrounded by noise and are thinking actively. It becomes something that you can dip into at will, which is a pleasure that also gives rise to confidence and, (in my experience) a sense of humour and playfulness.
I’ll leave you with a short story from Anthony De Mello’s ‘One minute wisdom’, Enjoy the silence!

‘RELIGION’
The Governor on his travels stepped in to pay homage to the Master.
“Affairs of State leave me no time for lengthy dissertations,” he said. “Could you put
the essence of religion into a paragraph or two for a busy man like me?”
“I shall put it into a single word for the benefit of Your Highness.”
“Incredible! What is that unusual word?”
“Silence.”
“And what is the way to Silence?”
“Meditation.”
“And what, may I ask, is meditation?”
“Silence.”

Related article: Meditating on the sound of silence

© Toby Ouvry 2022, 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
Ongoing– The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilanceIn a sentence: Learn the art of ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom through integrative meditation
Overview: The Wisdom of Awakening series is an ongoing series that looks at different ways to ‘wake up’ and live your life fully and playfully through meditation. The premise of the sessions is that inner wholeness and wisdom are not something that are far away, rather they are something that we can awaken to ‘instantly’ through certain types of mindful attention…. Read full details
Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts Tuesday /Wednesday 14/15th June – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilance

Saturday August 27th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques Presence and being present

Polarity meditation – Working consciously with tension

“When opposing forces in our life start to complement and strengthen each other, then we start to become capable of levels of both personal performance and enjoyment that are well beyond the reach of most people”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Polarity meditation is a practice that I’ve been working with for many years. It’s principles are one of the bases of my Life-fullness- life coaching practice. Starting next week, I’ll be offering a brand new polarity meditation course. I’ve written an article on some of the basic concepts below, and you can also see a video intro that I have created here: A video intro to polarity meditation
I’ll be doing a special introductory session, live and online next Tuesday & Wednesday 14th/15th September.

In the spirit of harmony in polarity,

Toby

Polarity meditation – Working consciously with tension

Natural tension
Our lives are full of tension, naturally. Without this tension life would lack vitality and challenge. The tension in our life arises from the polarisation of opposite forces and energies. These forces demand that we find and hold a point of balance or tension between them. For example:

  • Our work life and family life
  • Our thinking and feeling
  • Between alone time and social time
  • Between who we are and who we want to be become
  • Between resting and exerting ourselves
  • Between what we want and what others want from us
  • Between being assertive and being patient

Tension leads to stress, but of what type?
All of this tension from polarity leads to stress in our life. However, stress can either be constructive or destabilizing:

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

One of the main points of polarity meditation is to enable us to become aware of the tension arising from polarity in such a way that we are able to make what is currently negative stress in our life into positive, constructive stress. It aims to give us the confidence to feel that, whatever life throws at us we have the capability to put it to use in order to grow and thrive. Increasingly we find fewer and fewer situations that we find intimidating or negatively stressful

Working consciously with polarity leads to superpowers
If we can start to get the opposing forces in our life working together, then we discover that we create ‘inner super-powers’. These are the result of two polarities harmonizing and mutually strengthening each other, creating a result that could not happen with just one of these forces in isolation, for example:

  • By harmonizing the forces of our thinking and feeling together we create unusual psychological strength
  • By harmonizing our doing and being we create supernormal resilience and stamina
  • By harmonizing what we want and what others want from us, we develop great relationship skills

When opposing forces in our life start to complement and strengthen each other, then we start to become capable of levels of both personal performance and enjoyment that are well beyond the reach of most people.

Starting your practice
To get a sense of what polarity meditation and mindfulness look like, here are three points to consider to start working with the polarity of your thinking and feeling:

  1. Observe way in which your current thinking and feeling interact.
  2. Notice whether they are working like a team in harmony, or whether they seem to be in conflict much of the time
  3. Experiment mindfully with one simple way that you can improve the balance between your thinking and feeling. For example, practice generating an enjoyable feeling or emotion that you are familiar with, and then looking at and thinking about your life on the basis of that good feeling.

Notice how in simple ways like this you can start to make the polarity of your thinking and feeling into a team that works together for you, rather than against you. Notice how you can create complementary tension and positive stress. Welcome to the world of polarity meditation!

Related article: The middle way

Watch Toby talking about Integral Polarity Meditation:

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

 

 

 

 

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

In a sentence: Learn how to integrate different aspects of yourself and your world into complementary polarities in order to increase your internal harmony, strength and wellbeing

Overview: Polarity meditation is a tradition of meditation that has its precedent in both eastern and western forms of meditation. In the east it is found in Taoist meditation with yin & yang, and in the west within the Tree of Life & Qabalah. In this series we will be focusing on polarities
Read full details…

Tues & Weds 21st & 22nd September – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation (Live & online)
The Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere marks the mid-point between the warmer, lighter seasons of the year and the cooler, darker ones. The forces of day and night, light and dark are of equal strength. As such it is a great time to emphasize balance and harmony, both in our life and meditation practice….read full details

 

 

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat
One sentence summary: Learn how to understand, re-direct and make use of stress, anxiety and difficult emotions through mindfulness and meditation
Overview: Stress, anxiety, fear, anger, attachment – Ordinarily we see these states of mind and emotion as negative; things that get in the way of our happiness and wellbeing, and prevent us from achieving the goals and quality of life that we would like.
But what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy?…Read full details

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts 6th&7th July – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Starts Wednesday September 8th – The Integral Mindfulness & Meditation Online Program with Toby September ’21-March ’22

Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Introduction to Integral Polarity Meditation – The Path of the Middle Way

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

Tues & Weds 21st & 22nd September – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation (Live & online)

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat

Tues & Weds 26&27th October – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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What is Mindfulness? – Remembrance, Penetration, Assimilation +1

Dear Integral Meditators,

This mid-week article attempts to give a really practical working definition of mindfulness that will enable you to see how it might be applied to multiple circumstances in your own life.

 

Yours mindfully,

Toby

What is Mindfulness? – Remembrance, Penetration, Assimilation +1 

What is mindfulness?

To be more present is the most common generic answer that you might receive when you ask such a question. What I want to do in this article is to give a clear working definition of mindfulness and its process, and talk a little about its applications. This working definition has four parts.

Part 1: Remembrance
First of all to be mindful of something means to keep it in mind. Therefore if you want to practice mindfulness you need to be able to develop the skill of being able to remember, or keep in mind that which you wish to be mindful of over an extended period of time, without forgetting it. To take the simple example of the breathing, if you wish to practice mindfulness of the breath you need to be able to focus on the breathing without forgetting it!

Part 2: Penetration
So, why bother being mindful of the breathing (to stay with this example). The purpose of being mindful of the breathing is to gain an intimate knowledge of it, to understand it truly, or to put it another way, to penetrate it. If you are mindful of the breathing for a while you start to discover its nuances; how it reflects and describes your emotional state, how it relates to how you feel about your body, how it reacts to the different thoughts as they pass through your mind. Previously the breathing seemed like an uninteresting object. Now as a result of being mindful of it, it begins to reveal its secrets and wisdom to us. The penetration of our object is the second part and goal of mindfulness practice.

Part 3: Assimilation
Stage three of mindfulness practice is to assimilate the knowledge and wisdom that your remembrance and penetration have given to you, and to make them a part of your life. When we discover the wealth of information and knowledge that our breathing is giving us about our emotions, thoughts and body, we can then start to use that knowledge to do things like:

  • Treat our emotions with more compassion and positive control
  • Help us to deal with stress and anxiety more wisely and detect it earlier
  • Help us carry our body in a more relaxed and confident way
  • To open our mind out to our reality even when we may feel like closing it.

This third stage of assimilation is the process of learning to apply your mindful insights in a way that has real, tangible effects on your daily life.

Stage 4: Expression 
The fourth stage of mindfulness practice is to then demonstrate and communicate the essential energy and wisdom that you have gained into your daily life. To demonstrate to others what it means to be mindful of your breathing and the benefits that come. You can do this just by example, or there may be some form of formal way in which you teach it.

So, there you go, Mindfulness = the process of remembrance, penetration, assimilation and expression. The nice thing about this definition is that you can use it to develop mindful penetration of any number of different objects. For example there are 33 different objects that I outline in the “One minute mindfulness” section of my meditation blog. Once you know what mindfulness consists of you can even create your own mindfulness practices to help you accomplish the goals that you have in your own life.

© 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