“When we practice our beginners mind, we are recognizing the value of maintaining lightness and playfulness in life”
Dear Integral Meditators,
What would be different in your life if you were able to approach each day with fresh eyes, and open to all that may be possible? This weeks article focuses on how to develop your beginners mind, and open this potential within you!
If you enjoy the article, then do consider attending the new course starting this week Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures, a big aspect of this course is really going deeper into our beginners mind.
Also, this Saturday 15th Jan, I’ll be doing my Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors, click on the link to check it out!
In the spirit of every day a new day,,
Toby
The gateway to a new beginning
A beginner’s body-mind is a way of entering the present moment and whatever greets us there as if for the first time, a bit like a young child. It is curious, open, flexible.
The principle of lightness and playfulness
Our beginner’s mind is light and playful. As the years go by and we build up a body of life experience, that experience can become like a weight that we carry around. It can take away our capacity to feel playful and spontaneous. When we practice our beginners mind, we are recognizing the value of maintaining lightness and playfulness in life. We are choosing to value them enough to practice them, to take care of them and, if necessary to rehabilitate them in the face of traumas, disappointments and pain that we may have had to go through. Without them our life becomes heavy, takes on a cynical air, an air or defeatism perhaps. In the light of this danger then, we practice the discipline of our beginner’s mind.
A beginner’s mind is also a great base for a meditation practice. The process of simplification and letting go in meditation helps us to return to a state of beginning. The principal of the beginner’s mind in turn helps us access a state of meditation more easily.
Accepting and releasing the weight of past joy and suffering
Imagine that you are sitting in front of a gateway. Beyond the gateway is a landscape and world that is bright with possibility. The gateway has two pillars on either side:
- The one on the left is dark and scarred, somewhat twisted. This left pillar represents all of your past sufferings, pain, trauma, disappointments and so on. Looking at it you can feel the weight of this past experience, and its hold on you
- The one on the right is beautiful and colourful. It represents your past and joys, happiness’s and success. When you contemplate this pillar, you feel good, but you can also sense the attachment and or clinging to these past joys that may be preventing you from opening to the new joys and opportunities of your present and future.
Observing these two pillars gently move toward a state of acceptance of both the pleasures and the pain of your past. They are what they are and cannot be changed. See yourself sitting between these two pillars, in the centre of the gateway, moving toward acceptance.
When you are ready, over a series of breaths feel yourself putting down the weight of these past experiences, good and bad, letting them go. Feel yourself opening to the possibilities of the present and the future, like a flower opening to the rays of the sun at sunrise. The landscape in front of you is new, bright, filled with potential. You yourself feel light and playful in the face of this new day and new beginning.
Once you have the feeling of your beginner’s mind, simple stay with it in meditation, allow yourself to soak it up. Don’t be discouraged if you get distracted every now and again, just keep the atmosphere light and playful. If your mind moves away, just bring it back to the beginning!
Anytime you want to return to your beginner’s mind during the day, simply see yourself sitting in the gateway, and spend a few moments returning to this state, allowing to feed your wellbeing, your resilience in the face of your challenges, and your sense of what is possible in your life, today.
Related article: Combining your beginners mind with your wise mind
Article & content © 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
Watch Toby’s video on meditation as a path to greater creativity, lightness and joy:
Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures
This series of 10 classes is an introduction to simple, practical Zen and Taoist meditations that can temporarily help us to reduce our stress and thrive joyfully in daily life. They can also, practiced regularly offer us experiential insight into our true nature and help us to answer some of our deepest life-questions and attain a truly stable sense of inner transformation. The sessions can be attended as a complete course in itself, or each class can be taken as a practice in and of itself…read full details
Saturday January 15th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors
This workshop explores relevant and living ways in which we can connect to our own ancestral inheritance in a manner that is appropriate for and empowering to our contemporary lives.
In particular the workshop will offer practical meditations to:
- Engage in a living communion with both our close (recent in time) and ancient (distant in time) ancestors
- Awaken fully to the gifts and potentials (spiritual, psychological and material) that our ancestral karma has to offer us
- Heal damaged or imbalanced ancestral karma that we may have inherited
Saturday Jan 29th, 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
Tues & Weds Feb 1st & 2nd – Lunar New Year Meditation 2022: Developing your inner power in the year of the Tiger
About the class: This is a meditation to welcome in the lunar new year energies, and attune to the astrological animal of the year, the Water Tiger! In particular, we will be mindfully aligning with and developing our inner and outer power as well as other primal characteristics of the Tiger.
Toby will be leading the meditation as a simple and profound way, with plenty of room for our own personal contemplation, inner healing and positivity building! Full details here
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?
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)
Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures
Saturday January 15th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors
Saturday Jan 29th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat
Tues & Weds Feb 1st & 2nd – Lunar New Year Meditation 2022: Developing your inner power in the year of the Tiger
Integral Meditation Asia
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