April 2025 – Toby Ouvry Meditation

“The only Zen that you find on top of a mountain is the Zen that you bring with you” – Robert M Pirsig

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at how to embody the energy of a mountain, its a fun idea with serious applications!

Lots of great events & courses coming up soon, scroll down below the article to have a look!

In the spirit of the mountain,

Toby

Taking the mountain with you

‘Taking the mountain with you’ is a Zen expression. It means that if you are a meditator, rather than needing to go to a mountain to ground, de-stress and recover your balance, you become like the energy of the mountain. By meditating consistently, as you walk around in the city or wherever you go, you take the energy of ‘mountainous-ness’ with you.
You can also take the image of the mountain as a metaphor for enlightenment, or awakening. When we are stabilized in the art of awakening, wherever we go we take that awakening with us, because we embody that energy.

“The only Zen that you find on top of a mountain is the Zen that you bring with you” – Robert M Pirsig.

When I was a monk, there were always members of the Buddhist group that I was in who were obsessed with the idea of going on retreat. They felt that, once they had done a six-month or one year retreat, somehow that would have attained a special state that would once-and-for-all mean that they never had to be bothered by ordinary states of mind and body again. They were looking for a one knock-out punch! Needless to say I also listened to several stories from these people regarding returning to ordinary life after their long retreat and feeling like they were back to square one after a disappointingly short time!

Bring the mountain you’ve got

One middle-way that I have found useful is to simply commit each day to bringing the ‘mountain that you have got’ with you into your life each day. What this means is that you bring to front and centre that part of you that is calm, balanced and stable like a mountain each day. Simply be that to the greatest degree that you are able.

A mountain poem

The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
– Li Bai

Some meditation positions

Sit or stand like a mountain. At first imagine you are standing or sitting on a mountain. There is you and the mountain. Feel into the calmness, solidity, and presence of the mountain, gradually relax into this until as the poem says, “We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.” Go from being with the mountain to being the mountain. Work with this until there is no self-and-mountain, only ‘mountainous-ness’.

In daily life, try and return to this feeling of mountainous-ness often:

When you walk into a room or a meeting, bring it with you
Coming home from work, bring it on the train with you
Sit down to the family dinner with it
Experience your uncertainty with it
Through the highs and lows of your life, bring the mountain with you

Wherever you go, bring the mountain!

Related reading: The body is in you – How to go into deep meditation quickly
Four Zen Meditations

© 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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

Ongoing on Tues & Weds, 7.30-8.30 pm – Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to non-dual meditation practice

Ongoing on Saturdays, 5.30-6-15pm – Freedom & Fullness deep-dive non-dual meditation sessions

Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th May – The Call of the Wild: Shamanic Meditations for connecting to animal guides in the inner world Masterclass & Mini-retreat

Starts Tuesday 6^th, Wednesday 7^th May, 7.30-8.30pm – Embodied Transformation – An integrative introduction to Tantric meditation

Starts Saturday, 10^th May & then weekly, 5.30-6.15pm – Embodied Transformation – Saturday Tantric deep-dive meditation sessions

Tuesday 13th & Wednesday 14th May, 7.30-8.30pm – Wesak compassion & inner visioning meditation

Saturday 17th May, 3-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day: Heart Opening meditation with singing bowls

Tuesday 17th, Weds 18th June, 7.30-8.30pm – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

“You are not a drop of love in the ocean. You are the entire ocean of Love in a drop.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at combining your basic witnessing practice with a Tantric meditation form. If you enjoy it you would be welcome to join us for the Tuesday & Wednesday sessions this week, where we will be working with this meditation directly.

Tantric practice is also the subject of a new series of classes & sessions that I will be leading in May:
Starts Tuesday 6^th, Wednesday 7^th May, 7.30-8.30pm – Embodied Transformation – An integrative introduction to Tantric meditation
Starts Saturday, 10^th May & then weekly, 5.30-6.15pm – Embodied Transformation – Saturday Tantric deep-dive meditation sessions
If you are motivated to come on this journey with me, you can do so live, online or via recordings.

In the spirit of the Ocean-you-Are,

Toby

Combining your Witnessing with Tantric meditation

Tantric meditation is a tradition of meditation originating primarily, but not solely in the east. It emphasizes the unity of body, sensuality, and spirit. In some of its forms it stops at the awakening of a sense of the Body-as Spirit. In it’s more complete forms it takes this sense of embodied spirituality, merging it with transcendent consciousness to create the path to a fully awakened, non-Dual state. This article outlines a combination of basic witnessing with simple Tantra to supercharge your meditation, and your energy levels.

Deeper into Witnessing – Transcending and including

Basic witness practice is sitting in meditation as the observer self, detaching in a healthy way from the contents of your consciousness. You simply hold this position and practice watching calmly. Deeper witnessing involves developing the capacity to:

Transcend the content of your consciousness by witnessing
Simultaneously include and embrace that content in an unconditionally warm and loving manner

One analogy for this is that you witness like the sun, which shines its light objectively on the world, whilst simultaneously embracing it with its warmth.

Bliss and Love, your basic Tantric ingredients

Love and inclusion

Breathe into your heart and feel the natural, original Love there. Experience it as an embracing warmth and care that builds and grows as you breathe. Let your body soften to this feeling, so that it as you stay centred in Love. A nice object of meditation here is the Rumi line:
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
Altered to focus on Love:
“You are not a drop of love in the ocean. You are the entire ocean of Love in a drop.”

Bliss and transcendence

Breathe into your lower-belly, sacral region and sexual organs. Connect to the basic Bliss of your Life-force in the body. This is the basic bliss that, when activated biologically becomes sexual attraction, and ‘peaks’ in the experience of orgasm. Breathe and let the feeling of bliss build a bit in your loins. Then imagine this Blissful feeling rising as an energy from your sexual organs to the base of the spine, and then up the spine and back of the head to your crown. Feel a ball of light building above your crown, filled with transcendent Bliss and the freedom that comes with it.

Creating a Love-Bliss Witness

Bring the ball of transcendent Bliss down from your crown to your heart, where it merges with the inclusive, all-embracing Love. So, you have a feeling of Love-Bliss-Consciousness at your heart.
Now identify your True Witness Self as being Consciousness composed of these two qualities; Transcendent Bliss and an All-inclusive Love. With this set up you can then either:

Witness the content of your consciousness with this Love-Bliss Witness or
Rest in the ocean or sky-like experience of the Witness itself, enjoying the feeling of blissful ‘Fullness & Emptiness’

A final position here is then to practice viewing the content that you are witnessing as arising from the Ocean of your Bliss-Love Witness, not two things, but one thing arising simultaneously, which gives you an approach to a Non-Dual expereince.
Once you are familiar with the above practice, you can ‘short-cut’ sometimes by generating the Bliss in your sacral region, and then just feeling it rise-up directly to meet the Love in your heart. But going up to the crown and then down again has the initial advantage of mixing the Bliss with the freedom of higher levels of consciousness available at the crown.

Related reading: Sky & sun, freedom & fullness
Re-awakening to your Bliss
All you need is Love – Contemplative Non-Duality

© 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