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Meditating with your ancestors

“Our ‘spiritual’ ancestors, those that we feel related to in terms of shared values, experience and interest. Sometimes we can feel as close of not closer to our spiritual ancestors than our blood ancestors.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Becoming aware of this and working with our ancestors is an important dimension of our spiritual practice that can really enhance the richness of our life. It can also provide important keys to resolving blockages and conflicts, both within ourself and in our relationships. The article below is a reflection on one of my experiences of working with ‘spiritual ancestors’.

If you enjoy the article, this Saturday 15th Jan, I’ll be doing my Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors, which is a consolidated introduction to this field of practice. You are welcome to join live or online!

If you read the article you’ll also see it is related to the upcoming Lunar New Year Meditation 2022: Developing your inner power in the year of the Tiger, which is another fun meditation you might enjoy.

In the spirit of the ancestors,

Toby


Your spiritual ancestors

Two types of ancestors
We live within the energetic field of our ancestors and family, past and present. Becoming aware of this and working with it is an important dimension of our spiritual practice that can really enhance the richness of our life. It can also provide important keys to resolving blockages and conflicts, both within ourself and in our relationships.
There are basically two types of ancestor and ancestral field. One is our blood ancestors, the family, past and present that we are related to biologically. The other group of ancestors you might call our ‘spiritual’ ancestors, those that we feel related to in terms of shared values, experience and interest. Sometimes we can feel as close of not closer to our spiritual ancestors than our blood ancestors. Spiritual ancestors can be people we know in the outer world, past figures from history. Or they can be beings/characters that we meet in dreams or meditation who then subsequently play an important part in our inner life and work. The story below is an example of this later group.

Meeting the Fu Lu Shou & the Earth Store Buddha
One evening around 2008-9 whilst living in Singapore, I was taking a bus home after teaching a meditation class. A short way into the bus ride a clearly drunken older Chinese man walked onto the bus. Looking down the bus he saw me and started walking toward me. I was praying that he wouldn’t sit near me, but sure enough, he plonked down right next to me! It tuned out that he had been the building manger for the first campus of the UWC (an international school in Singapore), so he liked talking to Ang Moh’s (white people). We shared a very pleasant 15 minutes of him storytelling to me about the old days before he got off at his stop and I travelled back home. After this seemingly chance event, for the next month or so in my meditations and before sleep I found myself in the presence of three fierce looking old Chinese men looking at me very intently, as if examining me. I asked who they were and they said they were the Fu Lu Shoh, the Chinese ‘folk gods’ of fortune, prosperity and longevity. I understood that, through my meeting on the bus I had connected with these guardians of the local group soul (Singapore is 70% Chinese, and I was married to a Chinese woman at the time), and that they were welcoming me into a ‘contract’ with them, whereby I could work in some ways on a ‘soul level’ with the local Chinese population, whom they (the Fu Lu Shoh) where the guardians of.
Later in that month I did a Chinese New Year meditation, where I was taken underground (in the meditation) to a cave, where there was a big, fat Buddha, in a coat of many colours, surrounded by gold and other treasure. I understood from our interaction that he was the ‘Earth Store Buddha’, and that, whilst I was in Singapore and Asia, he would provide me with the wealth and resources that I needed to do my work in this part of the world within the local culture and society. After this, I would go down to visit him once a year in mediation over Chinese New Year, just to touch base, affirm ties and commune around what possible projects and inner work lay ahead.
This little sequence of events and happenings is a simple example from my experience of working with spiritual ancestors. In this case it was/is kind of like these inner world beings adopted me, and made me part of their family, even though I was a foreigner, and not related by blood ancestry to them. It was an is a very touching personal interaction that I cherish.

Related articleThe gifts and wounds of our ancestors

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   

Image by Ma Deva Padma. Buddha of Compassion


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

Read full details


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


 

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

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

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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