Tag: uniting mind and feelings

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present Uncategorized

Bringing Congruence to the Mind Through Meditation – Three Ways

Dear Toby,

Congruence – To bring harmony, agreement and compatibility. This mid-week article is about how to bring congruence to the different elements of your mind.

After an enjoyable Greenworld Meditation Workshop last Sunday, there is a chance for anyone who wanted to come but could not to come along this Sunday, 2nd March for the second date!
Also on Sunday is the Introduction to Walking Meditation Workshop, registration for this will close on Thursday evening.
Finally, date for your diary I will be doing the Meditation and Mindfulness For Developing a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention on Saturday April 5th at the Reiki Centre.

Yours in the spirit of inner congruence,

Toby

Bringing Congruence to the Mind Through Meditation – Three Ways

 Imbalanced, fragmented, confused. Does that ever feel like the state of your mind? Here are three meditative methods to bring your mind from fragmentation to a state of relative balance and unity through meditation:

  1. Still your mind
  2. Focus on one thought or image
  3. Allow it all to be there

1. Still your mind – When your mind is still, all of its disparate parts start to come back into balance and settle naturally. If you can still your mind, you may not solve anything externally, but you will bring the different parts of your mind back into congruence with each other, and so when you do go back to your life you will do so with a new experience and perspective. One simple technique to still your mind is simply to sit still and focus your sensory awareness on the physical stillness of your body. By being physically still and focusing on that, you find that after a time your mind starts to become still through its attention to the body. Once your mind becomes still in this way you can then switch your focus from the stillness of your body to the stillness you feel within your mind, which you can now see and feel clearly.

2. Focus on one thought or image – Use one thought, image or even a physical object as your point of focus. By anchoring your attention to it, the other elements of your mind can ‘swirl’ around it, and gradually come back into balance simply as a side product of you placing your attention on one thing and letting everything else ‘even out’.

3. Allow it all to be there – Simply sit with everything in your mind without trying to focus, control or judge it. This technique involves gaining control and congruence within your mind by abandoning all attempts to control it. Simply sit and watch it, be with it without feeding any of it. The by-product of this allowing is that once more the different elements of the mind gradually come back into congruence and balance with each other.

None of these practices ‘solves’ anything, but by bringing congruence to your mind  they enable your natural intelligence to function freely, and encourage you to have confidence in your own natural capacity to bring your personal best to the challenges you face each day.

© 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

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Awareness and insight Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques mind body connection One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation

Mindfully Expanding into Tension, Challenges and Growth

Dear Integral Meditors,

I’m keeping it very practical with this weeks article, it is a way of using your body awareness to enhance the way you approach emotions and situations you find challenging, enjoy!

Quite a lot of meditation and mindfulness courses to enjoy over the next few weeks, starting this Tuesday evening with the Meditation skills class. This is then followed by the 2nd opportunity to attend the Greenworld Meditation workshop on Sunday 2nd of March. On that same day there is a Walking Meditation workshop in the morning.

Finally, date for your diary, the Main March workshop will be Meditations for Integrating your Ego, Soul and Spirit which I should have the full write up for by the next newsletter.

Yours in the spirit of expansion,

Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia 

Tuesday 25th February, 7.30-8.30pm: Monthly Meditation Skills Class and Coaching Session

Sunday 2nd March, 8-10.30am: An Introduction to Walking Meditation Workshop

Sunday 2nd March, 2.30-6pm: Meditations for Connecting to the Greenworld – An Introduction to the Path of Nature Mysticism

Sunday 16th March, 2.30-6pm: Meditations for Integrating your Ego, Soul and Spirit (Full details out shortly)

Mindfully Expanding into Tension, Challenges and Growth

This is a simple but profound somatic mindfulness exercise designed to change our perception and experience of threatening and difficult energies and situations.

Normally when we experience challenging emotions, difficult situations, anxiety and so forth our fundamental reaction is to energetically ‘contract’ away from it. This is experienced as a kind of energetic tightening or contraction within our chest.
The idea is to practice feeling the anxiety and rather than unconsciously contracting away from it, to consciously expand into it.

Step 1: Bring to mind a situation that is causing you anxiety, fear, discomfort etc in your life. Could be a relationship, a financial uncertainty, whatever.

Step 2: Observe the instinct that your body-mind has to contract away from the difficult energy. This is experienced most often as a tightening in the centre of the chest. It is almost like an effort to turn away from or deny the issue. Take a bit of time here to see and experience this as clearly as you can.

Step 3: Now, whilst holding the same situation in mind consciously relax/de-contract the energy in your heart. As you breathe out feel your energy opening and expanding into the circumstance and the feelings surrounding it. By doing this, invite your body-mind to be friendly with the challenge you are facing. Do this for a few breaths or even a few minutes. Observe how this simple expanding into, rather than contracting away from changes the dynamic of your experience. Get comfortable with the discomfort.

Step 4: Now ask yourself the question “What is it that this situation offering me? What opportunities for growth and creativity are there?”

I was a reading Harry Potter to my daughter last night, and Professor Dumbledore said to Harry whilst they were in a dark cave, crossing a still lake filled with dead bodies “It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more”.
If we make a habit of expanding into our own challenges rather than contracting away from them, perhaps we might find the same kind of thing?

© 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

Sample feedback from meditation coaching client:

I was a relative mess when going to see Toby. Talking to someone always helps, but Toby’s easy “beginner’s” meditation sessions were a great way to control the anxiety I was suffering. I also found Toby relating his personal experiences to my own as a great way of telling me that I wasn’t alone. I would recommend this style of coaching to other people. Whilst Toby has had a different background to most of us, he is an “every day” guy which helps one relate to their own issues and makes the “strange new world” of meditation, easier to approach. Toby is a professional operator – BW

Click HERE to find out more about Toby’s 1:1 Coaching Services

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Gods and Goddesses Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Uncategorized

Meditating with the Mirror Self

Dear Integral Meditators,

This mid-week article outlines a creative meditation practice on an aspect of self that I think of as the “mirror self”. One of its main purposes is to stimulate the potential of our imaginative capacity to effect real and dynamic changes in our life.
The meditation is an example of what I have been calling a Greenworld meditation practice, so here is a final reminder of the Greenworld Meditation Workshop I will be running this Sunday 23rd February, and repeating due to demand on Sunday 2nd March.

Below the article you can find full details of the Walking Meditation that I will be running, also on the 2nd March, 8-1030am.

Finally, if the article below looks a little long for you, then you might just enjoy watching the three minute reference to the ‘mirror world’ in the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, in the scene entitled “up is down” ;-)

Yours in the spirit of the creative imagination,

Toby

Meditating with the Mirror Self in the Greenworld

This is a technique for connecting to a primal and dynamic aspect of ourself that is mythic and imaginative in nature. Its purpose is to experience a new dimension of ourself that is unfettered by the habits of our conventional personality and that offers us a new level of creative participation in our world.
To say that the mirror self is mythic and imaginative in nature is not the same as saying that it has no objective reality, but it is to say that it exists within the reality of the creative imagination.

What or where is the Greenworld?
The mirror self resides in Greenworld. The Greenworld is a place that exists within the primal imagination of the planetary being and group consciousness. It is not so much a physical world so much as an energetic one. It is a place that all of us participate in to a greater or lesser degree in our dreams and imagination. However, rather than being merely a by-product of our imagination it is rather an actual  place that we contact and visit through controlled and conscious use of our imagination.
It has various names in the different spiritual traditions of the world. In Celtic Greek and Roman tradition it is sometimes called the Underworld. In the Tibetan Tantric tradition (which I originally trained in extensively) it is called Dakini Land. It is said to be the land of nature spirits and spiritual beings of various sorts, as well as the land where we may find the spirit of our ancestors.
You might also say that it is a world that has been contacted by artists thru-out the ages for for imaginative inspiration.
I call it the Greenworld. I have been engaged in meditations that directly or indirectly involve it for about 15 years now, and it is a practice that I hold very dear to my heart.

What is the mirror self?
The mirror self, simply put is that aspect of ourself that resides in the Greenworld right now. Since the Greenworld does not exist within the confines of conventional time and space, you could say that our mirror self is ever present, simply waiting to be discovered by us.
The Greenworld is almost like a pure inner world that mirrors out outer world. Hence the self that we meet there we call the ‘mirror self’.
Again, you won’t gain a satisfactory experience of your mirror self by looking for rational and linear ways of connecting to it, for it is connected to by means of the creative imagination. In the integral development of consciousness rationality and the creative imagination are not seen as contradictory to each other, rather as complementary capacities that we can develop together within our consciousness.

The meditation 

The meditation is rather simple:

  • Sit quietly. Be aware your body-mind and bring it to a place of relative stillness by focusing on the breathing for a short while. Then focus your intention on the desire to connect to your mirror self within the Greenworld.
  • Now imagine that you look down between your feet, and see there appears to be another, upside-down you beneath you. It is as if you were sitting on a mirror; the soles of your feet touch the soles of his/her feet. As you look down, s/he looks up.
  • See the form of your mirror self. Likely s/he looks like you but different. Her clothes may come from a much earlier time in history. His body is solid and yet also luminous and radiant. You may notice particular colours and energies around and within her body. Notice and currents of energy that you may feel rising from your mirror self through the soles of your feet.
  • Now imagine that your world ‘flips’ upside down, so that you become your mirror self. Experience yourself as your mirror self. What is it like? How does your body feel? What is the mode of thinking and feeling in your mind?
  • What you are ready ‘flip’ back again and return to the outer world. Take the experiences and perspectives that you gained from your mirror self into your daily life. If you like you can keep an awareness of your mirror self by imagining him/her beneath you whenever you look down, the soles of your feet in contact with hers!

© 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

An Introduction to Walking Meditation Workshopkuhonbutsu-feetDate: Sunday 2nd March 2014

Time: 8.00-10.30am

Location: Singapore Botanic Gardens, meet by the steps at the Exit of the Botanic Gardens MRT next to the Nursery Gate of the Botanic Gardens (click on link above for map!)

One line summary: Learn how to practice meditation and mindfulness as a walking practice.

Overview: Increasingly many people are becoming aware of a need to find a sense of inner calm, peace and centeredness in order to cope effectively with the stresses and strains of modern life. However, it seems equally difficult to find the quality time for a practice such as meditation or mindfulness that can actually help us to accomplish this.

A solution to this can be found in walking meditation. All of us do a certain amount of walking in our life. By learning mindful walking we can combine the time that we spend walking with time spent cultivating our inner peace, stability and happiness. It is a win-win situation!

This 2.5 hour workshop will be located in the peaceful surroundings of the Botanic Gardens,

The RESULTS that you can expect to gain from engaging in this workshop are:

  • Confidence in practising the basic fundamentals of walking meditation and how to integrate it into your daily routine
  • Knowledge of the technical theory behind walking meditation practice
  • The ability to connect to positive mind-states as well as greater levels of physical energy whilst walking

The level of this workshop: Suitable for beginners, or more experienced meditators looking to integrate mindful walking into their repertoire.

Basic Workshop Structure:

First hour: Warm up, Introduction to basic walking meditation techniques for awareness of good posture, developing relaxed concentration and inner silence/spaciousness. Time for Q&A.
Second hour: Integrating elements of thinking, feeling and imagination into walking meditation in order to generate and enhance both our physical energy as well as positive mind states. Time for Q&A
Final half-hour: Integrating awareness of nature and the natural landscape into our walking meditation in order to enhance positive energy exchange between ourself and our environment, and receive healing and balancing energy from natural elements of the landscape such as trees and water, sun and sky.

In addition the class itself you will also receive: Backup notes covering the basic meditation techniques covered in the class

Feedback from past walking meditation workshops:

1: ”The outdoor walking helped me easily connect to nature on a holistic scale and feel energized nurtured and a strong sense of belonging (perfect timing) it put things into perspective. I felt incredibly at ease and peace.”

2. ”I was amazed at how simple Toby’s steps are, and how ‘portable’ walking meditation can be as a practical, everyday energy balancer or enhancer. You can literally take it wherever you go, wherever you are …in the park, on the beach, in a busy airport, and even in the confines of your own home. An instant, private oasis of tranquillity at your feet!”

Cost of Workshop: $65 per person

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE WALKING MEDITATION CLASS BY CREDIT CARD

To register or for further enquiries: Email info@integralmeditationasia.com, or call 65-9675027

Categories
creative imagery Energy Meditation Gods and Goddesses Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

Re-awakening to Your Vital, Creative and Spiritual Energy

Dear Integral Meditators,

What are you looking to get from your meditation practice? Different types of meditation practice lead to different results. This weeks article looks at the aims of Greenworld meditation, and outlines a simple technique that you can do to enjoy some of the benefits of this type of practice, most prominently a re-awakening of your vital, creative and spiritual energy.

Yours in the spirit of inner vitality,

Toby

 

Re-awakening to Your Vital, Creative and Spiritual Energy

I was talking to someone who regularly attends my workshops the other day about the upcoming “Meditations for Connecting to the Greenworld” workshop. She had been under the impression from the title that the point of a Greenworld meditation would be something to do with being eco-friendly, recycling and so forth.
Actually the Greenworld meditation practice has nothing directly to do with these types of thing, although practising it will in all probability change quite radically the way in which you see yourself in relation to the Planet and to Nature.

So, what is the main purpose of Greenworld meditation? 
Greenworld meditation functions to connect us with a tradition of spiritual practice that has been practiced by people all over the planet for millennia. It is a perennial form of meditation practice, that is to say that it has been long lasting, recurrent and continuing throughout human history. It is a spiritual practice that does not belong to any religion.
Greenworld meditation puts us in imaginative contact with the forces of life within the Planet, and by relating to these living forces we are able to:

  • Heal and regenerate our own vital (sexual), creative and spiritual  self.
  • Participate in the returning to health of the Planetary being/Mother Earth, and play our part in the healing and regeneration of the vital, creative and spiritual energies within nature.

How does Greenworld meditation do this? It works primarily by using our creative imagination to put us in touch with the living and energies of the planetary being and encouraging us to participate in those energies in a fulfilling and health giving way.
The nice thing about the Greenworld meditations is that they are essentially very simple, but once activated they effect changes and transformations within us that are often profound and, subtly or not so subtly life changing.

A Simple Greenworld Meditation
This meditation aims is to connect our own vital, creative and spiritual energy to the same three energies within the planetary being, so that they flow through us freely, and we in turn are empowered to participate in them fully.

Stage 1: Sit comfortably. Be aware of a direction in front of you and behind you, to your left and to your right, above and below. See and feel yourself in the centre of the six directions and spend a short while stilling your body-mind in this centre point.
Stage 2: Visualize yourself in a landscape within nature that you associate with healing, health and regeneration. Sense the Planetary being beneath you as a living force and energy. See the energy from the planetary being flowing up into your body through the soles of your feet, filling your whole body with living energy and light. In particular see three energy centres being filled and energized:

  • The middle point in your lower abdomen , the centre of your body’s vital, relational and sexual energy
  • The point within the centre of your chest, the centre of your body-minds creative and higher imaginative energy
  • The point in the centre of the brain as the centre of your body-minds higher mental and spiritual energy.

Be aware now of the sky and stars above you. See their light and energy coming down through your crown and energizing your head, heart and abdomen with their energy.
Sit comfortably and allow the vital, creative and spiritual energies of the Planetary being below and the sky and stars above feed, heal and re-awaken your own vital, creative and spiritual energies.
This can be done as a short 5 minute energization exercise, or as a longer more contemplative one where you spend a few minutes focusing on the vitality of each of your three energy centres.

I’ll be writing an article mid-week next week on taking this one stage further by engaging in a practice called Connecting to the Mirror Self in the Greenworld.

© 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

Sample feedback from Meditation coaching client in 2014:

“I found the sessions were easy to follow and at the same time effective. The principle or technique taught was pretty pragmatic/logical, hence easy to understand and practice.
I have seen a good improvement on my approach and handling of day to day ups and downs, since I do the daily meditation at home.
I would definitely recommend other people to attend the sessions.” – DL

Click HERE to find out more about Toby’s 1:1 Coaching Services

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindfulness spiritual intelligence Uncategorized

Six Types of Inner Stillness

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at the topic of stillness and how we can cultivate it, both in general and specifically in meditation. Even when we are busy, there is  a certain stillness present in each moment of our life that we can tap into if we know how!

For those interested in the Meditations for Connecting to the Greenworldworkshop, a quick reminder that the early bird price is still available up until this Thursday 6th February.

Finally, I’ve placed a sample feedback from a 1:1 coaching client beneath the article below, just to give those who may be interested an idea of the sort of experiences and results that come from the sort of coaching work that I do with people.

Yours in the spirit of stillness,

Toby

Classes For February at Integral Meditation Asia:

Thursday 13th February, 7.30-8.30pm: Advanced and Intermediate Integral Meditation Class and Coaching

Sunday 23rd February, 2.30-6pm: Meditations for Connecting to the Green World – An Introduction to the Path of Nature Mysticism

Tuesday 25th February, 7.30-8.30pm: Monthly Meditation Skills Class and Coaching Session

Six Types of Inner Stillness

We talk about meditation as a way of stilling the mind, but how many different types of stillness are there? Like the proverbial cake you can cut stillness up in different ways, but here are six that I find experientially useful.
The first three can be experienced and cultivated by anyone, the second three take a little bit of work in meditation to get a handle on, but they are worth being aware of even if you aren’t quite there yet, so that when you do get there you can recognize them!

  1. Stillness after activity – This is the stillness that we notice when we cease doing a busy activity, or when we pause in between tasks during the day. Normally we experience these stillness’s as incidental and perhaps don’t pay them much attention, just going onto the next activity. However by acknowledging these spaces and relaxing into them when they occur, we can actually increase our daily experience of stillness quite dramatically without any extra effort.
  2. The stillness we find in landscape – When we sit outside with the sky above us and a landscape around us, even if there is activity in that landscape there is a space of stillness that comes from simply becoming aware of an extended horizon around us, the solidity of the earth beneath us, the life of the world around us and the space of the sky above us. Just sitting in the still point within these four aspects of our surroundings.
  3. The stillness between thoughts – You could also call this the stillness that arises from the absence of thoughts. We connect to this mental stillness by simply noticing the spaces in between our thoughts, relaxing into them and extending them. When we become good at this we create a space in our mind where there is an relaxed, open stillness undisturbed by thoughts.
  4. Luminous stillness – This is a stillness that comes from resting in the experience of stillness for a while in meditation. If for example you were to rest in the stillness between thoughts for a time there starts to be a feeling within the body initially, then the mind, of bliss and light. The quality of the stillness becomes an stillness pervaded by a tangible energy of bliss in the body and mind. It is a kind of living stillness. Needless to say this is very relaxing and regenerative.
  5. Primal stillness – This is an experience of stillness that lies beyond luminous stillness. When the physical and mental bliss subsides you are left with a primal experience of stillness where you feel you are in an ‘empty’ place, outside of time and space. (See stage three of the five levels of meditation practice).
  6. Non-dual stillness – This type of stillness simply means that you have gotten to a stage where you can recognize and be partly resting in any one of the six types of stillness above whilst also engaged in some form of activity. So activity and stillness begin to come together to form a single, non-dual experience as you go about your life.

So, why cultivate stillness? I’d like to end this article with a quote from Herman Hesse that I think answers that question: “Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself”.
© 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

Sample feedback from Meditation and Shadow coaching client in 2014:

“The lovely, simple techniques you shared have enabled me to be honest with, and about, myself in such a way that is really liberating. I’ve been surprised at how quickly I’ve experienced the benefits….  I love the honesty and practicality of this process and the fact that it’s leading me towards a better understanding and acceptance of myself and ultimately (I hope) to tapping into my full creative potential – in whatever form that may take.”

Q: Would you recommend coaching with Toby to other people, and for what reason?
“Yes, definitely. You created a safe, supportive environment, were willing to share your own personal experiences, were able to listen and tune into what I was struggling to articulate. I felt like you allowed the sessions to take the form they needed to take rather than sticking to a pre-set formula, which was really helpful because it gave me the opportunity to share and ask questions without feeling that I was scuppering an agenda. The fact that you record the sessions is very helpful.”

Click HERE to find out more about Toby’s 1:1 Coaching Services

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Motivation and scope Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence Uncategorized

The Five Stages of Meditation Practice from Beginners to Advanced

Dear Integral Meditors,

With so many different types of meditation practice around, how do you identify what the stages of meditation training common to all systems really are? This weeks article is an attempt to answer that.

At Integral Meditation Asia I am trying to develop systems of meditation that are easy to follow and practice, and yet include ways of developing these five stages in authentic ways. This article is basically a map that, if you have it in your head as a template you can learn to recognize these stages as your practice develops.

 

Toby

The Five Stages of Meditation Practice from Beginners to Advanced

Meditation and mindfulness practice covers a large and diverse spectrum of activity, from simple stress management to the quest for spiritual enlightenment. What I want to do in this article is outline five stages of meditation practice that covers this whole spectrum of meditative activity in a summarized but hopefully practical format.
These five stages are perennial in nature. That is to say that they are common to all traditions of meditation, eastern or western. In any particular tradition (Buddhist, Kaballistic, Hundu, Christian etc..) the particular form and explanation differs, but these stages exist just the same.

Stage 1: Balancing the gross body-mind
When we begin meditation the first task is to bring our everyday body and mind into a state of balance and focus, so that they can function effectively in daily life to give us greater happiness, enhanced focus in our tasks, greater appreciation of our enjoyments, as well as improve our awareness of emotions and relationships.
Even at this first stage there are many levels, but they are all centered around developing calmness, focus and self-knowledge on an everyday level (for more info on this stage see my article “The First Task of Meditation”)

Stage 2: Balancing and activating the subtle body-mind
After meditating for a while we start to become more and more aware that there exists within us a subtle level of bodily and mental energy that lies behind our physical body and everyday thinking-mind. Working with awareness of this subtle, deeper level of our body-mind leads gradually over time to the  activation of  the abilities of our subtle body-mind, such as greatly enhanced intuition, greater empathy and compassion, psychic sensitivity, capacity for energetic healing and so on…

Stage 3: Recognizing and resting in the formless-timeless dimension of existence
After developing competency at stages 1&2 we start to become increasingly aware of a formless-timeless dimension of awareness that lies behind, around and within our body, mind and world.
Initially we sense this as a kind of witnessing awareness. Then, over time as we move deeper and deeper into this formless-timeless dimension it acts more and more as a state which we identify as our deeper self, or true self; a place where we can go to rest and regenerate our energies at any time, and that is a source of both deep inner peace and almost infinite creativity.

Stage 4: Developing ones inner-world communication skills
The “inner worlds” are the subtle worlds of energy and intelligence that lie beyond the physical, everyday world. Having developed stages 2&3 in our meditation practice we start to develop greater conscious awareness of how we are interacting with this inner world.
In our outer word we have work colleagues, friends, places we visit to relax and so forth. In a similar way at this level of meditation practice we start to build a network of working partners, friends and connections that are the equivalent on the inner world level.

Stage 5: Developing and integrating a non-dual experience of stages 1-4.
Having built our experience of stages 1-4 in our meditation practice eventually when we sit down to meditate we experience all four dimensions of our meditation as an organic and integrated whole. For example as we rest in the formless-timeless dimension (stage 3) we may be aware of how our gross and subtle body-minds are coming into a state of energetic balance and harmony (stages 1&2). Occasionally we may have flashes of insight and creativity that arises in our mind stimulated by some form of inner world communication (stage 4).
At the level of stage 5 we are comfortable with all the preceding stages, and our meditation mostly “does itself”. As the Thai teacher Ajahn Chah said, our mind becomes “Like still water that moves, and like moving water that is still”.

A martial arts analogy:
If you think about progressing to basic mastery of levels 1-4 in meditation as being like becoming a black-belt at Aikido, you become a basic level meditation master.
After you achieve your black-belt in Aikido there are a further seven “dans” or advanced levels that you then start to work on. So if you imagine stage 5 is the meditation training equivalent of working on your “dans”; you are focusing on turning your basic mastery into a fully integrated, fluent functional whole.

© 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
Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present

The First Task (and Achievement) of Meditation

Dear Integral Meditators,

At its best meditation is a practice that leads over time to a personal, direct and stable experience of enlightened awareness that is not defined by any religion, theory or philosophy. This weeks article explores the first step…

Toby

The First Task (and Achievement) of Meditation

The first task and result of a decent meditation practice is to create a unified body-mind. This means to become aware that our mind and body are in continuous relationship with each other. When we have a thought in our mind, this translates into a physical energy and posture in our body. For example when our body feels tired or refreshed this easily and often affects the dialog that we are having in our mind.

For most people this relationship, whilst intellectually understood is not seen and experienced in reality; when we are caught up in our mind we become unaware of the posture and energy of our body. When we are focused on our bodily feelings our mind often gets left out.
So then the first task of meditation is to use awareness and mindfulness to see how our mind and body affect each other and to help them to communicate and work together as a single unit or partnership, rather than working against each other and causing each other friction.
When through awareness and meditation we are able to create a unified body-mind then two positive results come:

  1. Our unified body-mind starts to perform at a level that is far greater than our body and mind could ever do as individual units. As a result our capacity for creative growth in all areas of our life increases. Whether in our work, our relationships, sports or spiritual development the capacity to develop and maintain a unified state of body-mind dramatically increases our potential and performance.
  2. The harmony created between our body-mind creates a space of concentrated stillness.  This stillness and harmony gives us a deeper inner peace and stability within which we can start to access higher, deeper and more subtle levels of consciousness that lie beyond our everyday body-mind. Thus it acts as a doorway to the next level of meditative or consciousness development.

An image of the unified body-mind
In integral literature the unified body-mind is sometimes called the Centauric level of development. A centaur is a mythical creature with a human head and torso with the lower body of a horse, half animal, half human. Thus the centaur symbolizes the unity of our animal body and rational mind, our instincts with logic, our conscious mind with our unconscious mind.

How to work on unifying your body-mind each day.
Take a topic in your life. It could be to do with work, relationships, any area you want to investigate.
Bringing to mind the subject and allow in your mind to explore it with thought and emotion. Observe the principal patterns of thought/emotion that arise.
Now turn your attention to your body. Be aware of the energy that arises in your body whilst you have been generating the thoughts and emotions in your mind together with the posture that your body has adopted. Observe how thought and emotions create a language of feelings and postures within the body.

Finally, observe with awareness the co-arising of thoughts/emotions in the mind together with feelings/posture within the body. See how they are a single, unified, symbiotic experience. Take this awareness of your unified body-mind as your object of awareness for the remainder of the time you have set aside.

Working with this exercise even for a short time each day over a period of time will help you to instinctively start to view the body-mind as a unified entity and to experience the benefits that result.

© 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
Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Art Meditation techniques

The Dance of Being and Becoming

Dear Integral Meditators,

The last official Integral Meditations newsletter for 2013. As I look back on the year one thing emerging for me has been a sense of the ongoing dance of being and becoming in life, and that is what this weeks article is about; how to begin working with this idea through image, contemplation and meditation.

 

Yours in the spirit of being and becoming,

Toby

The Dance of Being and Becoming

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

One simple way of understanding meditation is that it is any practice that enables us to rest, focus within our sense of being-ness and prevent us from being stuck in “doing” mode all the time.
Done well, meditation will not only enhance our sense of being-ness whilst we are sitting, it will also give rise to greater fluency and creativity when we do actually get up and start doing something or becoming someone.
Ideally meditational awareness creates a complementary dance between the experience of stillness and the experience of activity/becoming in our life; stillness enhances and emboldens our becoming, and the activity of becoming enriches and informs our stillness.

Getting stuck in either extreme
To engage in the dance of being and becoming means avoiding two extremes:

  • Becoming over-attached to stillness and tranquility, as some meditators do
  • Becoming over-attached and even addicted to over-activity like much of the rest of the world does!

If the being and becoming in our life is to become a beautiful dance, then our being and becoming need to become like dance partners; each aware of the other, responding to each other’s energy and mood, working together, not against each other.

Dancing into the new year
As a meditation image over the coming days, you might like to see the sense of being and becoming within you as being like two dance partners. Together they create a beautiful sense of movement and energy in your life, but within the centre of the movement there is always a point of stillness, balance and stability.
In your daily life, see your activity as a dance, a perpetual moving across the ever present landscape of stillness and being-ness.

© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

January Workshops (Below are the dates, times and titles, click on the link for full details)

Saturday 11th January, 10am-12pm – Get your meditation practice started now! – A Short Meditation Workshop for Beginners

Sunday 12th January, 9am-1pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing – A Four Hour Workshop

Beginning Sunday 19th January,  – Meditation and Mindfulness for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention – A 5 week online course

Wednesday 22nd 7.30-8.30pm – Meditation training session for advanced/intermediate practitioners with Toby

 

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

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

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

Categories
creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques

Renewal

Christmas comes around the same time as the winter solstice (northern hemisphere the 21st/22nd December). It is the time when the light of the sun, having reached its lowest ebb begins to gradually become stronger once more, eventually taking us into spring. Here is a simple meditation image that I like to contemplate around this time:

  • Imagine you are a seed in the ground in a winter landscape. Up until now you have been dormant, almost as if dead, but now at this time of the year something awakens deep within you; a spark of light, an awakening of life, right within the centre or core of yourself as a seed.
  • As you meditate on the image of the seed, feel a renewal of light and life deep within your heart of hearts; an awakening of the first seeds of your highest potential as you move forward in to a new cycle of life in the new year.
  • You may not know what this new cycle of life will bring, but for now there is no need to worry about that. For now simply sit quietly and acknowledge the first awakening of this new life deep within you and allow it to nurture and renew you.

Merry Christmas!

Toby

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

Boomerang – The Mystical Aspect of Kindness


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

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

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

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

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

© Toby Ouvry 2013, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

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

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

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

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