Month: January 2025

Snake meditation, & new non-duality mediation course

Post author By Toby
Post date January 27, 2025

“Snake Wisdom – An appreciation of the mystery & the unknown, both in life and within ourselves”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Lunar new year this Wednesday! With this in mind I thought I’d pen a few thoughts on snake meditation in this week’s article.

If you enjoy the article, your welcome to join us on Wednesday for the Lunar New Year Meditation 2025: Developing your wisdom, intuition & renewal in the year of the wood snake.

Quick update regarding new events:
Saturday February 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd, 10-11.40am – Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers – a three module course
Starts Tues 11^th, Weds 12^th February, 7.30-8.30 pm – Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to non-dual meditation practice

In the spirit of snake wisdom,

Toby

Snake meditation

Coming up to the Lunar new year, which is the year of the wood snake, I thought it might be interesting to reflect upon a few of the qualities and capacities of the snake, both in Chinese astrological lore, and as a power animal within indigenous traditions more generally. With some of the qualities I’ve put them in their higher and lower expressions, with the idea that you can reflect upon their presence in your own life, steering your expression of them toward their higher aspect.

Renewal and rebirth – The association of the snake with rebirth comes from its ability to shed its skin, emerging from its old form anew. In its higher expression this is the capacity to let go of our old self that we have ‘outgrown’ and allow the new self that we have been incubating to be ‘birthed’ and emerge. In its lower expression this might be a tendency within us to ‘shape shift’ and change in the face of circumstances when really, we should be holding true to the values and way of being we feel to be authentic.

Wisdom and cunning – “Be ye wise as snakes and innocent as doves” is a phrase from the Bible, Matthew 10:16. The wisdom of the snake in this context is the ability to navigate complex worldly situations appropriately, without loosing our connection to our spiritual simplicity and innocence. This wisdom in its lower expression means becoming cunning in the sense of manipulative, Machiavellian and exploitative of others.

Patience – The ability to bear challenges and difficulties with dignity and level headedness, as well as to see medium to long term goals through to their conclusion. The capacity for waiting for the right time and not rushing.

Creativity – As per the section on wisdom and cunning, but more generally an innovative capacity both around problem solving, but also in terms of artistic activities.

Empathy & diplomacy – The ability to take the perspective of the other person (2^nd person), and see where they are coming from, without loosing your sense of where you are coming from. Diplomacy adds the ability to take a third person, objective perspective to 2^nd person empathy.

Mystery & the unknown – An appreciation of the mysteries and unknowns, both in life and within ourselves. An opening to inner depths. In its lower expression this might be fear of the unknown, of the deep, and sticking to the known out of that fear.

To quote a summary from a page on the snake:

“People born under the sign of the wood snake tend to have balanced, calm, and reflective personalities. They have a great capacity for analysing situations and a deep interest in understanding the mysteries of the world and themselves.”

All in all, it seems like integrating some of like the snake personality into our lives this year could be a good choice for all of us!

As well as reflecting on the qualities of the snake, it can also be a very nice exercise to simply sit with an image of a snake, or a memory of meeting one. Let your intuition and inner guidance lead you in your interaction with the snake energy, and see what emerges for you. What comes may be related to some of the above qualities, or it may be something totally unique and unexpected, which is the nice thing about meditating imaginatively in this way.

Related article: The Sea Snakes of the Mind

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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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Inner transformation – Slippers & carpets

Post author By Toby
Post date January 20, 2025

“Seeing reality isn’t easy, because our mind throws our idea of what we think we are seeing onto what we see”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks a wise way to mindfully work with what you can control in your life. If you like the article, you are invited to come along to this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, where we will be taking this subject as our object of meditation.

Also a heads up for this Saturday’s Deep-dive breathing meditation masterclass where we will focus on developing a multi-faceted breathing meditation practice that helps you grow and learn in the face of life’s challenges, and connect you to deep inner stability.

In the spirit of slippers,

Toby

Inner transformation – Slippers & carpets

TRANSFORMATION – by Anthony De Mello
To a disciple who was forever complaining about others, the Master said, “If it is
peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet
with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.”

This short story is one that I used to use a lot when I was teaching meditation classes as a monk back in the 1990’s. It’s a really good analogy for helping to re-orientate our attention when we are feeling out of balance, and if you think about meditation as a way of ‘protecting your feet with slippers’, then it’s a nice way to encourage regular practice!

Annoyed and overwhelmed – trying to fix the world

It’s easy to get in the trap of being in a situation where you have limited control, trying to control everything, and then feeling frustrated, disappointed and overwhelmed. This goes for smaller scale situations at work or at home, or simply when watching or reading about world events on the news. ‘Carpeting the world’ is a huge ask which, if you think about it rationally is a ridiculous thing to be trying to do. But if we are not mindful, we keep on attempting it and reap the same result time and time again.

In your relationships, are you trying to ‘fix’ your partner instead of working on ways that you can stay inwardly centred yourself?
At work do you often find yourself complaining about how it ‘should’ be, rather than accepting what is and making choices based on that?

Mindful of your locus of control – dancing between acceptance and assertion

“What is it that I am in control of here?” Is always a good question to ask as a way to find out how to work with a situation. One consistent answer that you will notice coming back to you time and time again is “I am (potentially) in charge of my thoughts, attitudes and emotions regarding this situation”.

In other worlds you can control what is going in within you. Working on what you notice happening inside is a way of ‘making slippers’ that will always give a high reward wherever you are. Of course, you can’t control literally every thought and feeling, but you can take responsibility for your inner life, and start to make improvements that begin protecting your feet from stones and other sharp objects.

Maybe there are some things outside of you that you are also in control of, so you can consider asserting yourself and acting around these as well. But asking what you are in control of will also make obvious lots of things that you simply can’t control and have to accept. In this sense acceptance of our limits of control should always be a part of our ‘slipper building’ process. For example, I find it quite a relief thinking about the limits of my control regarding whether people like me or not, or want to work with me. I just do what I can within the limits of conscience, and then relax!

One of the biggest and most useful things to accept is ‘I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO CARPET THE WORLD!’

Three mindful slipper positions

In this situation (of your choice):

Am I trying to carpet the world rather than make slippers?
What do I need to accept in order to make my slippers?
What inwardly and outwardly can I do that will also contribute to my slipper building?

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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 Meditation classes & workshops in with Toby:

Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes

From Tues 7th/Weds 8th January, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series – Meditation for leaping into reality

Saturday, 25th January, 9.30-11.30am – Deep-dive breathing meditation masterclass

Saturday, 25th January, 5-6pm – Engaged mindfulness & meditation class – ‘Honesty, release and redirection – three levels of non-judgment’

Wednesday 29^th January, 7.30-8.30pm – Lunar New Year Meditation 2025: Developing your wisdom, intuition & renewal in the year of the wood snake

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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Paper trees, paper flowers

Post author By Toby
Post date January 14, 2025

“Seeing reality isn’t easy, because our mind throws our idea of what we think we are seeing onto what we see”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at the dance between conceptual reality and reality itself. If you like the article, you are invited to come along to this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, where we will be taking this subject as our object of meditation.

Other upcoming events include the Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop this Saturday the 18th. Scroll beow the article for the full list!

In the spirit of beyond paper,

Toby

Paper trees, paper flowers

DREAMS – by Anthony De Mello
“When will I be enlightened?” “When you see.” the Master said. “See what?”
“Trees and flowers and moon and stars.” “But I see these everyday.”
“No. What you see is paper trees, paper flowers, paper moons and paper stars. For you
live, not in reality, but in your words and thoughts.”
And, for good measure, he added gently, “You live a paper life alas, and will die a paper death.”

Living in your mind

A large part of the quest of meditation is to live in reality, rather than in an illusion. When we are lost in thought then the reality that we are inhabiting is essentially a fantasy reality, or a secondary, mental reality made up of words and thoughts. In the short story above, the master calls this a ‘paper’ reality, or a reality made up of paper and words, like a book.
Of course it is good to develop your mind, your thinking and conceptual capability, but when this mode of experiencing takes over, dominating our daily perception and experience, you can say that we lose contact with actual reality, and become lost in paper reality.

Dualistic appearance – Even when you see things, you don’t see things

So, we can come back to the present moment, and try and experience our immediate reality, and go beyond the paper. If we do this and watch closely however, we will start to notice that it’s not quite so simple, because when we see something or somebody, our mind immediately throws our idea of what we think we are seeing onto what we see.
In Buddhist philosophy, this is called dualistic appearance, or – ‘The appearance of an object to our mind together with our generic, or conceptual image of that object’. If you watch closely, you will start to see your mind doing this. It is difficult to spot at first, because it happens in a fraction of a second, and once done the object, and the idea we have ‘thrown’ onto it merge and appear as one. Dualistic appearance is like having a projector behind you, projecting mental images onto the reality that you see in front of you, like in the cinema.

Conceptual education – A part of the challenge

From a young age, the dominant mode of education for most of us is conceptual and intellectual. This makes living in a paper world doubly difficult, as we have spent A LOT of our time literally living in a paper world as we studied. By the time we finish our education, conceptual perception tends to dominate our other forms of perception, and we literally spend most of our time lost in a world of words and concepts, or ‘paper’.

Three stages to going from paper life to real life:

Notice how much of the time that you get caught up in a paper or mental world, lost in thoughts. Make a conscious effort to come back to the moment and be where you are, with what you have immediately around and within you
Notice that, even when you do this, your mind is projecting it’s idea of what it thinks is there, onto the thing itself. Try and mindfully see that happening in real time
Practice putting down the projection, and just seeing the thing you are focused on itself, as it is, without the ‘paper’ projection

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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

Meditation classes & workshops in January 2025 with Toby:

Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes

From Tues 7th/Weds 8th January, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series – Meditation for leaping into reality

Saturday 18th January 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday, 25th January, 9.30-11.30am – Deep-dive breathing meditation masterclass

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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Awakening, not over-thinking

Post author By Toby
Post date January 6, 2025

“Growth is achieved by degrees. Enlightenment is instantaneous”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at the practice of waking-up, which is something that we can practice ‘leaping’ into anytime, anywhere. If you like the article, you are invited to come along to this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, where we will be taking this subject as our object of meditation.

In the spirit of awakening,

Toby

Awakening, not over-thinking

Enlightenment – Waking up to the freedom of awareness
There is a precept in soto zen that goes something like “One must not wait for awakening.” What this means is that you can touch the freedom of the present moment simply by letting go of your pre-occupations and awakening to exactly where you are. You might think of this enlightenment or awakening as having three levels. You start at level one, which even a beginner can do in a rudimentary way, and as you build confidence you work onto levels two and three.

Level one involves simply being fully present to an experience. It could be physical/sensory, it could be thought, or even the more subtle experience of awareness itself. You might think of it as a non-resistance to what is, an acceptance that facilitates an awakening to life in the moment.

Level two involves noticing that there is an observer within you, a witness that is present to whatever is there. This witness is the ‘I Am’ within you. With a bit of practice, you can not only awaken to objects of awareness in the present, but also that which is aware of the objects in the present, which is the witness, or your enlightened nature itself.

Level three involves insight into the not oneness and not two-ness of the object of awareness (level one) with that which witnesses the object of awareness (level two)’

If the witnessing awareness is like the ocean, the object of awareness is like a wave
If the witnessing awareness is like the sun, the object of awareness is like a light-ray from the sun

This non-one, not-two experience moves us toward a non-dual or unitive awakening in the moment.
The above three practices are methods of awakening, or ‘Waking up’, and you really just have to commit to doing it again and again, awakening to this moment of your life as best you can and ‘improving’ through practice.

Awakening, not over-thinking – a practical reflection

Over the Christmas period I travelled back to see my family, and spent almost the entire time sick with a bad flu. One of the main ways in which I worked with this in terms of enlightenment and awakening was simply practicing the three levels above:

Being present to the experience as it was
Being aware of my witness
Resting the not-one, not-two-ness of positions one and two

This enabled me to:

not over-think about the ‘bad luck’ or difficulty of my situation
simply accept it as I found it.

As a result, I was able to minimize my pain, make the experience into a form of meditation, and endure it with a degree of patience.
Of course, I did spend some time thinking and reflecting on my experience, but (almost)) always in the context of finding mental perspectives that are useful and helpful, rather than ruminating.

I’ll end with a short story from Anthony De Mello entitled “Rebirth” that illustrates nicely some important ideas around awakening related to this article.

REBIRTH
“Make a clean break with your past and you will be enlightened,” said the ‘Master.
“I am doing that by degrees.”
“Growth is achieved by degrees. Enlightenment is instantaneous.”
Later he said, “Take the leap! You cannot cross a chasm in little jumps.”

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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

Meditation classes & workshops in January 2025 with Toby:

Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes

From Tues 7th/Weds 8th January, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series – Meditation for leaping into reality

Saturday 18th January 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday, 25th January, 9.30-11.30am – Deep-dive breathing meditation masterclass

Saturday, 25th January, 5-6pm – Engaged mindfulness & meditation class – ‘Honesty, release and redirection – three levels of non-judgment’

Tags awakening, enlightenment, inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind