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‘Linear breathing’ – De-fragmenting your flow of time

Integral Meditators,

Mindfulness could be thought of in some ways as a de-fragmentation process for your mind and attention. the article below explores how, specifically with reference to our sense of time.

In the spirit of de-fragmentation,

Toby

PS: Final call for those in Singapore for Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention – A six week course beginning this Tuesday/Wednesday, and for the afternoon talk this Saturday  ‘How to develop your capacity for inner sight, and seeing inner worlds’


‘Linear breathing’ – De-fragmenting your flow of time

Often we hear of mindfulness in terms of being more present, less in the past and future, as if the present moment is something static or fixed. In reality however the present moment in time is an ever-changing flow, from this moment, to the next to the next. To stay ‘in the present’ from this point of view therefore means to keep with this ever-moving flow, rather than remain stuck statically in one place.

If we were to observe our mind for a period, often if not always we would see that our sense of time is fragmented or broken. Our mind leaps from something happening in the present to something that we are planning, to something that happened in the past, followed by something imagined in a non-linear stream-of-consciousness manner, often accompanied by anxiety, fear or stress. Experiencing time like this is like looking into a broken mirror; our reality appears in ‘bits’ and pieces’, as fragments, all jumbled together. This fragmentation adds to our anxiety and stress, as it makes our reality appear chaotic, unpredictable and uncontrollable.

One of the reasons that the breathing is such a good basic object of mindfulness is that it proceeds in a linear flow from past to present to future in a predictable, rhythmic manner. The breath of this moment was preceded by the breath of the previous moment, which looked quite a lot like it (!) The breath of the next moment will succeed this present one in a predictable manner in a steady stream, or flow.

When we start to practice mindfulness of the breathing, one effect is our sense of time starts to de-fragment, to heal and to come together as a linear flow, from this moment to the next in a steady, sane way. To practice what I call ‘linear breathing’ means to focus on the breathing from moment to moment in order to heal our fragmented sense of time. Using the predictable, linear flow of the breathing flowing from past to present to future, where we are always at the point of ‘this moment’ and ‘this breath’. By doing this our mind starts to settle down into a rhythm of calming linear time that is both relaxing, clarifying and strengthening.

Practicing linear breathing

Stage one: Observing fragmented time – Spend time watching your mind and becoming aware of how your present experience of time is broken up, chaotic and fragmented. Don’t try to fix it, just recognize it and see it. As you watch in this way you might also observe how these fragmented thoughts-in-time are also related to feelings and tensions in your physical body.
Stage two: Watching the linear flow of the breathing – Observe how the breathing progresses in a linear fashion, one after the other, from moment to moment, moving in a predictable, rhythmic flow from past to present to future. Allow your attention to follow the breathing, allowing your fragmented experience of time to start to heal and come together into a linear flow.
You can alternate between stages one and two several times in a single meditation. For example, you could spend five minutes on stage one followed by five minutes on stage two. Then you could return to stage one for five minutes, followed by another five minutes of stage two.
Stage three: Watching the non-linear flow of time from the stable flow of the linear breathing – a final stage involves watching the non-linear movement of your mind using the breathing as a rudder or anchor. Here you allow your mind to move more slowly, mindfully and contemplatively to thoughts of past and future in an organic way, whilst returning regularly to the breathing for stability.

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby
Ongoing on Tuesday evenings , 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Tuesday & Wednesday evenings from April 18th&19th – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention – A six week course

Saturday April 22nd, 2-3pm – ‘How to develop your capacity for inner sight, and seeing inner worlds’

Saturday 29th April, 10am-5pm & Monday 8th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop

Saturday May 6th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindfulness deep dive half day retreat


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Awareness and insight Enlightened Flow Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present The Essential Meditation of the Buddha

Bare attention – developing your inner ‘bird-watcher’

To practice bare attention means to put down our impulsive, ‘doing’ mindset (‘do this, do that’, ‘should, shouldn’t’, ‘must, mustn’t’) and rest in an observational, detached state of awareness.

Dear Integral Meditators,

Some meditation and mindfulness practices get more complex as we become better at them. Others stay simple, but continue to grow in depth. The practice of bare attention explained below is an example of the latter, a simple practice that stays simple, but grows in depth.

In the spirit of mindful observation,
Toby


Bare attention – developing your inner ‘bird-watcher’

Bare attention is a foundational mindfulness practice. Its function is to provide us with a point of stability amidst the constant change and challenges of our daily life. It also provides us with a space within which we can observe what is going on reflectively and non-reactively, which in turn increases our ability to learn from our experiences as they are arise.
To practice bare attention means to put down our impulsive, ‘doing’ mindset (‘do this, do that’, ‘should, shouldn’t’, ‘must, mustn’t’) and rest in an observational, detached state of awareness.
Instead of identifying with what arises, we watch with curiosity in a non-judgmental manner.
When you are practising bare attention you are not so much concerned with whether what is arising is ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, rather you are simply concerned with maintaining your position as the observer.
To practice bare attention means to watch what comes up within the field of your awareness without adding or subtracting from it; without repressing and/or denying it, or indulging it or over identifying with it.

Your inner bird-watcher
When I was young and living in the Philippines, my father used to take my brother and I out into the jungle, up mountains and into swamps with his bird-watching friends to, well, spot birds! Most of the time was spent walking quietly and cautiously thought the landscape looking around intently. When we saw signs of bird life or found a good vantage point we would stop and watch for a while, trying as much as possible not to make noise or disturb the birds we were watching. By staying quiet like this we were able to watch the birds behaving naturally, as if we weren’t there. The key of course was not to move suddenly, or make noise, if we did that the birds flew away!

Practicum
So, practising bare attention is like becoming an ‘inner bird-watcher’. You simply take up your observing position and watch the field of your awareness closely with curiosity, trying not to get involved in what you see or disturb it. Your ‘field of awareness’ consists of your environment and senses, your bodily sensations and emotions, your mind, thoughts and memories. From your position as the ‘inner bird-watcher’ you watch this landscape with detached, non-judgmental attention. That is the essential practice.

If you do this regularly in your formal practice you will start to notice that your ability to maintain this position of bare attention under pressure in your daily life will increase. You will have access to a point of calm and stability even when experiencing strong emotions, physical discomfort, mental anxiety, or challenges from other people or your environment.

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


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Mindfulness, beauty & slowing the effects of ageing

Dear Integral Meditators,
Youthfulness and ‘staying young’ is something that a lot of people are concerned with for many different reasons. The article below explains how mindfulness can help us age slower, more gently and more gracefully.

In the spirit of beauty,

Toby


Mindfulness, beauty & slowing the effects of ageing

If you look at the ageing processes of those around you, people your age, some younger, some older, you will notice that they seem to age at different rates. Some look truly young for their age, whilst others seem literally physically older and worse for wear than they are.

What are you in control of?
As an ex-Buddhist monk I have spent and do spend quite a lot of time recognizing and accepting the inevitability of old age and death, as well as the things that accompany it. But I am also interested in how I can age well, age slower, and bring as much of my youthfulness into my ageing process as I can. One of the ways in which we can start to exert positive control over the way we age and the preservation of our youthfulness is through regular mindfulness. Here are a few reasons why:

Energy preservation – Mindfulness practice invites ergonomic use of our physical, emotional and mental energy. It invites us to be aware of how to not burn our life force up needlessly, and to set a pace of acting, thinking and being that is conducive to ageing slower.
Excess tension in the body leads to lines – what is the effect of that line that you habitually crease your forehead with when you stare at your phone? Extend it over 5, 10, 15, 20,40 years and you have permanent lines. When you practice mindfulness you create a habit of a relaxed face and body, breaking up that line-creating tension in your face!
Excess tension and stress leads to bad habits – If you are mentally and physically stressed this very easily leads to bad habits in our diet, lifestyle, sleep patterns and so on that accelerate our ageing. By practising mindfulness we reduce our negative stress and you’re youth depleting habits that go with it.
Preserving the life force through focus – Whenever we focus our mind, our energy gathers and dwells within our body, enhancing and preserving our life-force, encouraging its strength and resilience.
Not letting your life force seep away through distraction – A distracted mind dissipates our life-force, and accelerates the degenerative process of ageing. Just once allowing your attention to be distracted by your phone habits or compulsive thinking won’t kill you, but habitual and chronic distractions over a period of months and years really affects the way you age.
Attention builds natural positivity – When you are regularly making your attention relaxed, focused and present, you naturally start to feel more positive; its like pressing a ‘reset’ button in your body-mind, you come out feeling good. Do this over months and years, and you’re going to look seriously different as a result!
None of the above costs anything, just your own applied effort to building some mindfulness practice in your life!

Smiling and releasing – An anti-ageing mindfulness practice
Here is a really simple mindfulness practice for reducing the effects of age and preserving your natural beauty, youth, looks and vitality. It focuses on the face, but you can easily apply it to other areas of the body:

  • Gather your attention onto your face, use the breathing if you like
  • Become aware of the parts of your face that are tense or tired, for example around the eyes.
  • Place your attention and awareness gently in the area around the eyes. Raise the corners of your mouth to a half-smile and send that smiling energy to the muscles around the eyes. Use this attention to the area around the eyes to focus your mind at the same time as releasing the muscular tension and encouraging healing life-force to flow to that part of the face. Hold for a while.
  • Repeat with other areas of the face.

Wishing you health, beauty and long life!

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby
Ongoing on Tuesday evenings , 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday April 8th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindfulness deep dive half day retreat

Tuesday & Wednesday evenings from April 18th&19th – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention – A six week course

Saturday April 22nd, 2-3pm – ‘How to develop your capacity for inner sight, and seeing inner worlds’

Saturday 29th April, 10am-5pm & Monday 8th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop


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On boredom, creativity & ‘mindful fishing’

Dear Integral Meditators,

How can being mindful of our boredom make us more creative and enhance the quality of our life? The article below considers the answer to this question in a practical way.

In the spirit of ‘mindful fishing’,
Toby

PS: New schedule of live classes and workshops is out, check out the list below the article!


On boredom, creativity & ‘mindful fishing’

One of the problems of having distractions always available to us at hand which we all do now with handphones, is that we are not forced to encounter and learn to value the state of boredom. Why is boredom valuable? For the purposes of this article I want to suggest that boredom is a valuable state of mind as it often happens when we are transitioning from a functional, non-creative, information-consuming mental state to a creative, imaginative mind-state.
What do I mean by this? Let’s say I am coming home from work on an evening. My work tasks have been completed, and I find myself on the train or bus. My functional mind that I have been using at work now starts to get bored because there is nothing to do; it wants some information to consume, a distraction, it does not want to have to sit still and simply ‘be’ because it finds it uncomfortable.
At this point, what normally happens is we reach for our phone and distract ourselves by reading the online news, texting, playing a video game and so on. This re-engages our functional, doing mind, distracts us from our anxiety, and alleviates our boredom temporarily. It doesn’t necessarily make us happy per-se, it just alleviates the discomfort of the boredom.
But let’s say we are feeling bored on the train and we resist the temptation to distract ourselves, and just sit with the state of boredom, sinking into it patiently. What we find will then starts to happen is our mind will begin to shift from a consuming, non-creative state to a slightly deeper, creative, contemplative state. Put another way, instead of looking to be entertained or distracted, our mind will start coming up with its own creative content and entertainment, it starts to produce rather than consume.
Once this shift happens we naturally transition out of our ‘bored’ mind state, and begin to enjoy the relaxed, contemplative, imaginative state that our mind has now moved into, because of having patiently tolerated and moved through our boredom.
Basically, what I am advocating here is that when we find ourselves getting bored, instead of looking impulsively for distractions, we can mindfully relax into that state of boredom. This in turn will enable us to transition from a non-creative, functional mind state to a creative, contemplative, ‘self-entertaining’ state. In this creative state, we discover the part of us that is ‘the artist and philosopher’ in our life; that part of us that is self-directed and self-entertaining. This part of ourself enjoys thinking for him/herself, enjoys finding her own opinions, enjoys seeing things from new angles and thinking thoughts that have not occurred to us before.

Transitioning boredom though ‘mindful fishing’.
The next time you are in a place where there is nothing to ‘do’ (Eg: a commute home) and you sense your mind getting restless, bored and looking for a distraction, recognize the opportunity at hand to transition to a more creative mode. Relax into your boredom, perhaps imagine yourself fishing by a lake, just looking at the line and the water in front of you; relax into that state of ‘waiting for a bite from the fish’. In this case the ‘bite from the fish’ that you are looking for is the emergence of creative thoughts and ideas as you transition into your creative contemplative state. This happens not by trying hard, but relaxing into the boredom and allowing your mind to ‘change gears’ naturally, by itself, without being in a hurry.
So, the next time you start feeling bored instead of finding something to distract yourself, try a bit of mindful fishing!

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings from November, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday April 1st, 1.30-5pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment – A Three Hour Workshop

Saturday April 8th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindfulness deep dive half day retreat

Saturday 29th April, 10am-5pm & Monday 8th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop


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Five Steps To Creating Your Own Meditation Objects

W

Dear Integral Meditators,
Is it possible to create your own, personal objects of meditation, your own ‘mindful vocabulary’? The article below explores how you can start doing exactly that, today!

In the spirit of creative awareness,

Toby


Five steps to creating your own meditation objects (Building your own mindful vocabulary)

For me meditation is not just about following a formal set of rules and processes like a robot, it is about being creative and building my own mindful language of living ‘meditation objects’ that I experience in a very personal way and that moves me, changing the way in which I experience my world. This article explains a simple method by which you can create your own meditation objects using a simple, five stage process, using compassion as an example:

Stage 1: Select and define your object – If I want to meditate on compassion I need to come up with a working definition. When doing this by yourself, you have full license to define it in your own way, but here is mine for the sake of this example: Compassion is a state of mind that arises when I experience care or love for others or myself, I understand the ways in which they or I suffer, and I develop the wish to alleviate that suffering, or at least express understanding and/or healthy empathy.

Stage 2: Contemplate in a freeform way around your object – Having defined it, now ask key questions about your experience of compassion such as:

  1. When have I personally experienced compassion in the past, what did it feel like?
  2. Which people I know, personally or from the public sphere really embody the energy of compassion for me?
  3. If I practised 10% more compassion today, what might change in my perception and experience?

Contemplate these questions one by one in a freeform way. Explore the ways in which you have experienced compassion, who inspires you in terms of their compassion, and what the benefits of compassion might be in terms of bringing it into your own life.

Stage 3: Focus in – Having contemplated in a general way, now select the most powerful experience of compassion that arises from stage 2; the most powerful memory, the most inspiring person, or the most motivational insight into the benefits of compassion. The defining characteristic of your selection is that it must move you personally, such that the emotional experience/energy of compassion arises in your body, it is not just an intellectual abstraction.

Stage 4: Sink into, absorb – Once you have decided on the particularly powerful object of compassion in stage 3, you then simply focus your attention gently upon your object, allowing the feeling and power of it to sink deeply into your awareness, creating a gentle but powerful impact. It can be nice at this stage to mount the feeling of compassion in the breathing; as you breathe in feel yourself connecting and experiencing the compassion, as you breathe out feel yourself sinking into and absorbing the experience.

Continue to explore in daily life – After the formal meditation, keep looking for ways to explore, feel and express compassion in your life. Flex the ‘compassionate muscle’ that you have started to build in your meditation as you go about your daily activities, looking for ways to integrate it into your way of going and being in the world.

So there you go, a five stage process for building your own meditation objects. What objects of meditation would you like to build into your own practice this week?

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

 


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Goodwill as your object of mindfulness

Dear Integral Meditators,

How much more warmth, benevolence & emotional richness can you bring into your life through simple acts of attention? The answer is a lot, as I explore in the article on goodwill below…

In the spirit of warm attention,

Toby


Goodwill as your object of mindfulness

With all the anxiety and uncertainty that we face today, in conjunction with our minds tendency to exaggerate the problems that we face at the expense of the good things, it can seem that the world and people around us are a little short of goodwill. One of the things that I have been working with over the last week or so is really trying to notice and appreciate the goodwill that comes my way during the day from different people and sources. As I have continued in this practice, it has really struck me how much goodwill there is around me, and how nice it feels to really note it and enjoy it when it happens.

For example, if I look back over the last day or so:

  • I am aware of the goodwill expressed toward me from the students in the two mindfulness classes I have taken
  • I am aware of the goodwill extended to me by the barman who served me a drink this evening, and by the friend I met
  • I am aware of the goodwill extended to me by my neighbours and colleagues, helping me out with some minor menial tasks
  • I notice the almost continual and explicit goodwill coming from my family members
  • I appreciate the time and effort some acquaintances have taken to extend a welcome to my daughter and I and include us in their social circle
  • I appreciated the goodwill a shop assistant extended to me selling me a hard drive for my computer at the sale price, even though technically the sale date had gone past already
  • I noticed the incidental smile and goodwill of the bus driver as he re-opened the door when he saw me running for the bus.
  • I note the professional help and endorsement that I have received from colleagues, helping introduce me to new clients

The abundance of goodwill
When I focus in this way it seems like there is really a huge abundance of goodwill being directed at me by a large number of people. Much of this is easy to miss because it is so regular and everyday; it is just normal. But then if its normal then it means I have a huge amount of goodwill to tap into each day right?

Spreading the goodwill
Having been mindful of the goodwill I am receiving each day, I start to feel like I have something of a surplus of goodwill. So then perhaps I can start spreading it around to other people I meet, give it to them with a smile or a small act, or a bigger act. I can choose to be a source of goodwill almost as an act of gratitude for all the goodwill that I objectively and genuinely receive each day from others.

Does this practice of mindfully noticing, receiving and then giving goodwill sound like fun? Give it a go and find out!

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings from November, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday 4th March, 10am-5pm – Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism Level 2 – Deeper into the Shamanic journey

Saturday 11th March 2-5.30pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing – A 3.5 hour workshop

Tues&Wed, 21st&22nd of March, 7.30-8.30pm – Spring equinox balancing & renewing meditation


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The what, why & how of mindful attention

Dear Integral Meditators,

What happens when you start to pay attention to the way in which you are paying attention? The articles below explores this topic!

In the spirit of mindful attention,

Toby

PS: If you are in Singapore we shall be doing a class on mindful attention & awareness tomorrow, Wednesday evening. And last call for the Shamanic meditation workshop on the 25th, & Monthly mindful meal at One Heart!



The what, why & how of mindful attention 

Mindfulness can be thought of as essentially a form or attention training. By improving the way in which you pay attention to the different elements of your life you can improve the quality of your experience and the intelligence with which you interact with what you meet.
One simple but profound way of being mindful is to ‘pay attention to the way in which you are paying attention’. This can be broken down into three stages; the what, the why and the how.

The what – this first stage involves asking yourself the question ‘What am I paying attention to in this moment?’ It involves taking a step back and watching your mind, observing the movement of your attention, without interfering or trying to alter what you experience. You will observe that your attention focuses on things in a certain way, and often with a certain inner commentary with regard to what you are focused on.

The why – the second stage involves reflecting upon the question ‘Why am I focusing upon this object in this particular way?’ For example:

  • My own body with distaste
  • This future event with anxiety
  • This other person with longing

Try and understand the motivations and habits behind the way in which you are focusing on things at any given time. At this stage you are emphasizing observation, curiosity and the quest to understand, rather than to change anything.

The how – the final stage of being mindful of attention is to as yourself ‘How can I improve my experience in this moment by adjusting the way in which I am paying attention? To continue with the three examples above:

  • Is it possible to pay attention to my body with less judgment and more gentleness?
  • Could the future event be exciting or pleasant to think about if I adjust the way in which I pay attention to it?
  • Is longing an optimal way of focusing on this person, or could I replace it with curiosity, openness and/or liking?

It may be that you are happy with the way in which you are focused upon your object, but quite often if we have done stages one and two, we will naturally become aware of (often quite small) adjustments that we can make in our attention that will improve and optimize our experience.
Quite often stages two and three of the mindfulness of attention practice will start to happen quite organically as a consequence of the first practice of ‘what am I paying attention to in this moment?’.
You can do this as an actual sitting meditation practice, or you can just come back to these questions regularly in your daily life in order to improve both your awareness of attention, and the way in which you apply it.

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings from November, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Tuesday 7th February & Wednesday 8th February – Lunar new year meditation 2017: Tapping into the confidence, motivation & honesty of the Rooster

Friday 24th February, 7.30pm – TGIF meditation & meal: Nourish your body mind & soul at Oneheart!

Saturday 25th February, 10am-5pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism

Saturday 4th March, 10am-5pm – Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism Level 2 – Deeper into the Shamanic journey


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The spectrum of mindful attention

Dear Integral Meditators,

Not all mindful states require the same level or type of focus. If you understand how you can vary the intensity of your mindful state, you can be more effective in applying it to your daily life. The article below explores how…

In the spirit of mindful focus,

Toby


The spectrum of mindful attention 

The state of ‘being mindful’ exists upon a spectrum, from highly intense and focused to very relaxed almost to the point of sleep.
If we understand this, we can cultivate a level of mindfulness that is appropriate to the task at hand, and that serves our needs most effectively. For example:
High focus & intensity – Emailing at speed, playing a competitive sport, or making a business deal (particularly with unknown or unproven partners).
Low intensity – Relaxing and thinking as little as possible when commuting home, when trying to fall asleep, or when we have woken up at night and wish to fall asleep again
Medium intensity (balanced between focus and relaxation) – going for an evening walk or hiking, having dinner with a date, relaxing and watching a movie or documentary.

A useful question you can ask yourself before doing something is: ‘What is the level of mindful focus that is most appropriate for the task or activity I have ahead of me?’ Your answer then enables you to calibrate your level of focus appropriately.

Other useful questions to explore might be:
What are the times when I have experienced intense focus in the past? What did it feel like? 
What are the times when I have felt completely relaxed in the past? Can I bring a part of that relaxation in to my body in this moment?

Experimenting with the spectrum of mindful focus in your own meditation practice. 
The below exercise is based around a twelve minute timeline, but you can adjust it to a length that suits you.

  • Set up a simple mindful flow pattern; 3-5 breaths focusing on the breathing, then relax your body for a few moments, then repeat the pattern alternating between focusing on the breathing and relaxing the body in an ongoing cycle.
  • For the first three minutes of the meditation, really emphasize building clear sharp focus on the breathing and the body, as clear and sharp as possible. Then, for the next three minutes, keeping to the same pattern of 3-5 breaths/relaxing the body, make the process as relaxed as possible, moving toward (but not entering into) a sleep state.
  • For the second half of the meditation, spend the first three minutes moving back towards intense, clear focus, and then for the final three minutes emphasizing relaxation.

The idea here is to develop the skill of moving consciously back and forth along the spectrum of attention, from single pointed focus to less focused relaxation and back again. This in turn will enable you to bring an appropriate, balanced attention your different daily activities according to what is needed.

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings from November, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Tuesday 7th February & Wednesday 8th February – Lunar new year meditation 2017: Tapping into the confidence, motivation & honesty of the Rooster

Saturday 4th February, 2-5.30pm – The six Qi gong healing sounds: Qi gong for self-healing & inner balance workshop

Friday 24th February, 7.30pm – TGIF meditation & meal: Nourish your body mind & soul at Oneheart!

Saturday 25th February, 10am-5pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism

Saturday 4th March, 10am-5pm – Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism Level 2 – Deeper into the Shamanic journey


Integral Meditation Asia

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

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creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present

Mindfully ‘eating’ your thoughts

Dear Integral Meditators,

There are three ways in which we can use our mind in order to ‘digest’ our thoughts and experiences. The article below explores how we can use mindfulness to consciously integrate these three into our daily life, so that they are supporting each other, and helping us to enhance the quality of our life.

In the spirit of eating your thoughts,

Toby


Mindfully ‘eating’ your thoughts

In order to ‘eat and digest’ the information coming into and from our mind, we need to be competent in three modes of processing that information. These three modes are thinking, reflecting and non-thinking.

The first mode, ‘thinking’ involves actively using our cognitive intelligence to problem solve, seek information, stimulate action, strategize, assess risk, and generally actively create thoughts regarding our life. For many people this is the ‘default’ mode that they use their mind for. Many of us are compulsive thinkers to the extent that, even when there is nothing really urgent to think about or solve, we invent a bunch of thinking and problems to solve just so as we don’t have to sit with the discomfort of our relationship to, and feelings about, ourself. This first mode of using our mind, thinking, in the analogy of ‘eating our thoughts’ might be likened to the process of creating and eating food.

The second mode of using our mind is ‘reflecting’. Reflecting involves a much reduced pace of actual thinking and thought creation; it is mainly concerned with observing and dwelling contemplatively upon the experiences we may have had during the day. It principally uses awareness and acceptance to look back upon and ‘digest’ what we are going through. It enables us to process our life constructively in the same way that sitting quietly for a period after a meal enables us to digest our food and obtain nutriment from it.
The third mode of using our mind is ‘non-thinking’ which is where we deliberately cease processing our world mentally and cognitively for a period of time in order to renew and regenerate our energy. In terms of our ‘eating’ analogy, non-thinking corresponds to the ‘emptying’ part of the metabolic process; If you kept eating and digesting food, but never ‘emptied’ your bowels and intestines, then they would very rapidly become a bursting, fetid mess. In a similar way emptying our mind through non-thinking cleanses and empties our mental space, enabling us to receives new experiences and to think and contemplate them in fresh ways. For many people meditation practice is explicitly the way in which they at least try and practice the discipline of non-thinking.

To come back to the eating analogy, it is clear to everyone that in order for our body to remain healthy we need to eat, digest and then empty the waste product of our eating. Similarly, in order to ‘eat’ properly mentally we should have periods each day where we are consciously focused either upon thinking or contemplating or non-thinking, integrating these three processes in a balanced way into our life.
In terms of your mindfulness practice, one basic question to ask yourself is “What is it most appropriate for me to be doing right now; thinking, contemplating or non-thinking?” and then act upon the answer that comes back to you.
We can also structure our day formally into sections where we deliberately think and problem solve, sections when we are reflecting/digesting, and sections when we are simply emptying. This can be done in an organic manner, for example by choosing to emphasize reflection rather than thinking on the bus home, or simply choosing to drink our coffee whilst thinking as little as possible and emphasizing ‘emptying’.
Simply understanding these three modes of using your mindfulness to apply them consciously to your life can be tremendously empowering!

© Toby Ouvry 2017, 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


Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Concentration Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present Uncategorized

Being mindful of the non-present moment

Dear Integral Meditators,

What if, instead of being mindful of the present moment, you decided instead to be mindful of the non-present moment? The article below explores this theme….

In the spirit of studying the non-present,

Toby


Being mindful of the non-present moment

Trying to stop all the different ways in which your mind moves out and away from the present moment can be tricky, effortful and sometimes discouraging for a lot of people. One technique we can try if our mind is active and intractable is simply to study and observe all the different ways in which our mind is not in the present moment. To put it another way we can meditate on the non-present moment!
For example, if I look at my mind in the moment I can see:

  • There are flashbacks from a movie trailer I saw recently
  • There is a discomfort with the absence of distraction, part of me wants to be distracted
  • There is the knowledge that with the click of a button I could be away from this word document and watching the highlights of the squash ‘tournament of champions’ final last night in New York last night
  • There is the part of my mind planning the way in which I am going to spend my time today
  • …and wondering about what sort of excitement might be in my more distant future
  • My mind is assessing how I can avoid the worst of a head cold bug that seems to have latched onto me
  • The physical discomfort I have makes me want to think of things in the non-present moment to take myself away from the unpleasant feeling…

And so I go on like this, studying closely all of the things that are taking my mind away from the present moment.
Some interesting side effects of this way of being mindful can be:

  • By studying the non-present moment more closely our mind quietens down substantially and becomes more present, without effort on our part
  • We have a strong sense of the non-present activity being in the present moment; it is all happening now. By observing the movement of our mind we become aware that all this non-presence is going on in the broader sphere of the present moment. Consequently, without stilling our mind we find ourselves to have contacted the present moment in a strongly experiential way
  • We discover a lot of things about ourself, and why it is we avoid the present moment. Put another way, our self-knowledge increases.

So this week, if you like spend a few minutes each day being mindful of the non-present moment, either in formal meditation or just when you have a gap.

© Toby Ouvry 2017, 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


Special 1:1 Coaching Offer at Integral Meditation Asia in January
The beginning of the year can be a great time to spend quality time on getting your mind, body and heart prepared for the challenges you are facing as the year progresses. With this in mind I will be offering a special 20% discount offer on all 1:1 meditation and mindfulness coaching services for the month of January at Integral Meditation Asia. This is a saving of Sing$120 if you book as set of 3x 60minute sessions, or Sing$44 per single session…click HERE for full details!


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Starts Tuesday and Wednesday January 10th/11th 2017 – Transformation through mindful intention –a three module meditation course

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

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings from November, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Ongoing Mondays & Thursdays – Morning integral meditation classes with Toby

Saturday 4th February, 2-5.30pm – The six Qi gong healing sounds: Qi gong for self-healing & inner balance workshop

Saturday 25th February, 10am-5pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism
Saturday 4th March, 10am-5pm – Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism Level 2 – Deeper into the Shamanic journey


Integral Meditation Asia

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