To be a product of the times is simply to be a product of the prevailing cultural, social, biological, economic and other environmental forces that happen to be dominant during the era when you are alive. It basically implies that you as an individual are less powerful than the forces that surround you, and hence the surrounding forces that mold you as a person, and not your sense of own inner direction…read full article
Sometimes we can find ourselves feeling insecure about a particular issue in our life. It might be our age, our looks, giving a speech or talk in public, what somebody may have said about us, finding a relationship, or not losing it if we have one. Our children, or work, the list goes on endlessly.
One of the keys to dealing with our insecurity is to realize that, even if we were to find a relief from the particular insecurity that we are feeling at the moment, often as not, rather than experiencing an absence of insecurity, our insecure mind simply seeks out something else to feel insecure and frightened about…read full article
“I am not the center of the universe; but I am the center of my universe”
Dear <<First Name>>,
This week’s article explores the relationship between mindful self-responsibility & receiving help from others. Another way of thinking about this is the interface between your intra-personal dynamic (relation to self), & your inter-personal dynamic (relation to others & the world). I hope you enjoy it!
In the spirit of self-determination,
Toby
Being self-determining vs receiving help
You are not the center of the Universe, but you are the center of your life
I’ve written quite a lot in the past about becoming a self-determining entity. Self-determination means recognizing that you are the most powerful force in your life (not in the universe, just your life!), and to take ownership of that power. This then enables you to direct your life creatively toward the good. It means recognizing two positions that help to balance each other:
I am the centre of my universe, so what I chose and do is of vital and central importance to my life. It’s not anyone else’s job to ‘save’ me, I need to be the master of my own ship!
Becoming self-directed
‘No one is coming to save me’ is one of my ‘quotes to live by’. I find that in difficult situations, stopping looking outside of myself for help and just focusing on what I can control, and what I can do for myself is both calming and empowering. It is not a shutting off from outside help, it is just a clear recognition that it’s really my job to look after my life and its direction. It’s not:
Not my Mum’s job
Not my partners
Not my business-partners
Not my children
Not my friends
Not my boss’s
Not my employees
It’s my job and responsibility to work through and work out the challenges in my life to the best of my ability, and I do in fact have some ability!
Although no one is coming to save me, many people may like to help!
Becoming self-directed means that we are not looking for someone outside of ourself to save us, and we are doing what we can to move forward in our life challenges. The paradox of this is that, when other people see us being like this, it is an attractive quality. People tend to like and even feel inspired by others that they see being pro-active, intentional, and taking responsibility for themselves. Consequently, even though we may not be asking for help, quite often we find friends, family and colleagues offering help and assistance freely and happily. So, there is a virtuous cycle that gets established between being self-determining and receiving help.
Abandoning your power, cutting yourself off from assistance?
There are two ‘extreme’ positions that we are trying to avoid here:
Being a victim, not trying to help ourselves effectively, and over-asking, or expecting others to solve our challenges
Becoming so narrow in our sense of self-determination that we cut ourself off from the assistance of others, even if it is freely offered, and would be of help to us
Being self-determining doesn’t exclude ever asking for help, or accepting it when offered. It just means that we are taking solid responsibility for ourself, and being personally pro-active. Becoming self-determining even includes getting good at asking for help when appropriate.
In conclusion then, being a self-determining person, and receiving / asking for help can be seen as complementary capacities that when put together make our life both easier and fuller of creative potential!
“Reduce your device time & increase time spent enquiring into interdependence to go from feeling ‘over-connected & lonely’ to ‘Inter-connected & supported’”
Dear Integral Meditators,
I’ve recently facilitated some corporate workshops on ‘Digital Detox for Corporate Professionals: Reclaiming Focus and Productivity’. Creating this workshop & seeing people’s response to it has really opened my eye’s to how chronic the problems around overuse of devices are for us these days. In the article below I explore a simple flip to go from ‘over-connected, overwhelmed & lonely’ to ‘inter-connected & supported’. I hope you enjoy it!
I’m almost completed with the new meditation programs starting in August/September, you can see the full line up in the Whats On section beneath the article.
In the spirit of connected,
Toby
Inter-connected or over-connected?
What is my relationship to the world? Is a question is one worth asking yourself and seeing what sort of answers and perceptions come back to you. Your sense of your relationship to the world is fundamental, it forms the basis of most of your other perceptions, choices and experiences in life. For many people, the temptation is to experience ourself as someone coming into life from the outside, an outsider who dies not belong, and has to ‘fight’ to earn their place. Life is a battle to belong, rather than an enjoyment of your sense of already belonging. A ’flip’ that I continue to enjoy is that of being born from life, rather than into it. To quote from a previous article on the subject:
“Our relationship to it is like that of an apple or a leaf to an apple tree. The apple emerges from the Life of the tree itself, not as something separate from the tree. The life of the tree gives rise to the apple. The apple arises from the tree itself, in the same way that the tree came from the life in the apple that it grew from. You are like the apple being born from the apple tree. The life in you is a part of Life, you are an expression of Life, and Life is you.”
Being ‘born from life’ gives us a sense of effortless belonging, which is a great and un-lonely place to begin feeling into our connection of self-to-world.
We can strengthen our sense of feeling connected to the world by seeing, through contemplation, the way in which we are all interconnected. There are innumerable ways in which we can do this, to give three short examples:
I am writing this article on my parents dining table. To be able to use this table I rely on the carpenters that made it, the wood supplier, the trees it came from (and by implication the forest, not to mention my parents’ hospitality!
I can do the same thing with the computer that I am writing on; so many people involved in the supply chains that put the machine together, created the software and so forth, for me to then buy and use relatively effortlessly
I’ve just finished a coffee whilst writing. Again, to get the coffee to me relies upon the water from the tap, the coffee supply chain, the supermarket, the coffee plant, the land that the coffee plant grew on…
In any aspect of my life, if I start to look at the interdependence that doing what I am doing relies upon, my wisdom-eyes open, and I start to see how intimately and fully I am connected to everything else in the world. From this comes gratitude of course, but also a fundamental reduction in my loneliness. I am always inter-connected, and in this way never alone in a lonely way!
Over-connected & lonely
The above two states of being and feeling interconnected contrast sharply with the experience of many people who are what you might call ‘over-connected’ through their phones and being online all the time. Our devices enable us to be ‘connected’ and ‘in-touch’ all the time, however this experience paradoxically leads many to feel lonely, left-out (and afraid of being left out), isolated and yet compulsively over-connected.
A few practice points:
Reduce, and manage wisely the amount of time you stay connected to the world through your devices
Use the amount of time you save from reduced device time to develop the wisdom of interconnectedness and belonging outlined in sections one and two of this article. This wisdom does not need to be hard work, it’s really just about grounding yourself in the recognition of it. Your inter-connection is fed easily and gently by the recognition!
“If our masculine and feminine energies are harmonized, it is a huge plus for our inner resilience and sense of wellbeing.”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article looks at working with your masculine & feminine balance. If you enjoy the article, you’d be welcome to join us for the Wednesday class & Saturday class where we will be working with this topic!
In this article I want to explore a few mindful positions around your sense of the masculine and feminine energy within you, and how to bring them together into a harmonic, or mutually supportive partnership. If our masculine and feminine energies are imbalanced, or fighting each other, then this can be a source of conflict and dissonance. If they are working together, it is a huge plus for our inner resilience and sense of wellbeing.
Male & female, masculine & feminine
One thing to distinguish initially is the difference between your male and female energy on the physical and biological level, and our masculine and feminine. It is possible to be physically male and very feminine in terms of energy balance, or female biologically and quite masculine in energy balance. Obviously, we are either a man or a woman, and we will have a sense of how we experience that. We will also, as a man or woman have both masculine and feminine energy flowing through us. It is worth reflecting upon this, making the distinction, and then starting to get an intuitive sense of your own point of balance in terms of masculine and feminine polarities.
A balancing chart
Here is a list of masculine and feminine qualities, roughly arranged in complementary polarities:
It is not the only list, or a ‘complete’ list, but by looking over it you can start to give name and form to some of the natural polarities in terms of masculine and feminine, yin and yang energies. The idea with each of them is to build BOTH qualities within yourself, in a way that they are complementary, mutually supporting and ‘aware’ of each other. For example, if you take the first one, Loving and powerful, which is a fundamental one. Tune into the part of you that is loving in various ways. Then tune into the part that is powerful and expresses power. Working with them consciously, you can practise becoming both powerful and loving in your expression of your thoughts, words, relationships, and actions.
Merging your masculine & feminine self
Sitting quietly, imagine that on either side of you, you have a man and woman. Recognize these as being embodiments of your masculine and feminine selves. Feel into their energy on both sides of you to get a sense of both. When you are ready, as you breathe in, feel both figures moving inwards toward you, so that eventually their bodies merge with yours. Experience yourself as being one masculine and feminine being, balanced, harmonized and strong. If you like you can do this exercise with one of the polarities in the above list. For example experiencing the ‘willful’ part of your masculine energy in the man, and the ‘nurturing’ aspect of your feminine energy in the woman. Then proceed with the merger as described.
“Relaxing mindfully into your confusion often starts to dissipate the fogginess & return you to clarity without you ‘trying’ to”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article looks at working with states of mind and emotion that we often consider to be in the way of our wellbeing, transforming them into the path of awakening. If you enjoy the article, you’d be welcome to join us for the Tuesday & Wednesday class where we will be working with this topic!
On aspect of tantric meditation is the transformation of difficult emotions, passions or feelings into the path to awakening. It requires a degree of skill and a willingness to experiment a bit, but if you are willing to try, it can bring some decent results quite quickly. In this article I want to focus on ignorance/confusion and sadness.
From confusion to the Cloud of Unknowing
This method can work with a range of feelings such as confusion, overwhelm, dullness, anxiety. Take the feeling of confusion that you might have about what to do in a particular situation. Imagine also that you’re feeling a little tired, and that your brain has been a little overworked, so you have that ‘foggy’ sensation behind your forehead and above your eyes. Most often these feelings are ones that we fight with to overcome and get rid of. In this method however, you simply relax into the feelings and sensations of the confusion. You sense the brain fog behind your eyes and relax into it, letting your mind become foggy and cloudy. You allow your confusion to make you dull. By doing this you relax into a ‘Cloud of Unknowing’, a non-conceptual space of relaxed spaciousness. The dullness becomes your friend in aiding you to let go of your thoughts and into a state where the unknowing-ness leads you into a state of open empty space that is ‘Just this’.
The term ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ is a contemplative expression: “The Cloud of Unknowing (Middle English: The Cloude of Unknowyng) is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer. The underlying message of this work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon consideration of God’s particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender one’s mind and ego to the realm of “unknowing”, at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God”.
When working with confusion, I often use the feelings in my head as the focus point. With sadness the focus changes to the heart and stomach areas, where we often feel sadness most keenly. Here you take a feeling of sadness and relax into it. If you imagine the sadness is like an ocean, and you let yourself gently sink beneath the surface and into the deep depths. I also follow the feeling in my body down into my stomach, it’s like a sinking feeling from your stomach down into the abdomem. As you sink down you start to let go of the specifics of the sadness, and just relax into the deep, non-conceptual, oceanic space that the sadness opens up within you. It’s like you are drifting in the depths of an immense ocean. This technique transforms the specific sadness into a deep non-conceptual space that you can then use to meditate on consciousness itself. In this way you transform an obstacle to meditation into the gateway to meditation. Like the confusion, you may also find yourself emerging from the sadness quite naturally and without effort as a side effect of this practice.
“If I am well connected to my inner teenager, then I can draw upon his innate curiosity, ambition and appetite for life in a way that other middle-aged folk who lack a vital connection to their inner teenager cannot!”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article explores the inner teenage-self, and how to work with him/her therapeutically in mindfulness. If you enjoy it then come along to this Tuesday & Wednesday’s Summer solstice meditation, where in a part of it we will be exploring our connection to this part of our self.
The teenage, or young-adult self is a part of our psychological being that has received less attention than the ‘inner child’, but nevertheless represents an equally important part of our ‘inner family’ that we can be rewarded for greatly by paying a little attention to. What I’d like to do in this article is to share a story about my own process around this from earlier in the year that illustrates in practical terms this type of work. Before I tell the story, it is going to be useful I think to give working definition of our inner teenager, so here is one from Nathaniel Branden:
The teenage-self; is the component of the psyche containing the “personality” of the adolescent one once was, with that teenager’s range of values, emotions, needs, and responses; not a generic teenager or universal archetype, but a specific, historical one, unique to an individual’s history and development.
A general observation about our teenage-self, ideally it is good to have expressed our teenager in our teens, and gotten a lot of her/his behaviour out of our system when we were actual teenagers. However, if we didn’t, and we still sense a part of ourself that is ‘stuck’ at that level, then it is good to be able to draw her/him out consciously, and find ways that they can rebalance themselves in our current, later stage of life.
So here is my story. In January I spent a little bit of time just being present to my inner teenager, checking in and seeing how he was. One of the things that came out of this was an awareness of how scared of failure he had been at various times. This is natural; teenagers are often self-conscious, and care about what others think. Consequently, if they try something and are rejected, or fail in front of others, then this can feel like a big deal! So, you can imagine I find myself engaging with memories of my teenage years involving that fear of failure, of embarrassing moments when I tried something and failed, or when said something that, shortly after I judged as ‘stupid’. I am sure that you will have similar moments from your teenage years that you can related to this!
After having this experience, I practiced simply being with my teenage-self, and re-assuring him that it’s ok to fail, that it was good that he tried things even when it didn’t work out, and that it’s not the big deal that he experienced it to be at the time. I did a little bit of journalling, a little bit of sentence completion as well as visualization. I felt that he seemed to receive this well, and appeared brighter and lighter when I saw him with me in my inner vision. The curious thing about this process was that, whilst going through it I felt myself to be conducting myself in daily activities in a lighter, less worried manner. Unconscious tension that I may have still had in my system from my teenage years felt much reduced, daily life became easier and more carefree. It literally became more fun and less stressful to be me!
So, this is a good example of how using therapeutic mindfulness to work through previous stages of one’s life, in this case my teenage years and my present inner-teenager, can have a tangible and positive effect on the present and our experiences of it.
“When you meditate, you start to learn to move or ‘travel’ between different states of consciousness, which opens up creative possibilities”
Dear Toby,
This week’s article takes at the chakras as a way of navigating between states of consciousness in meditation. If you enjoy it, it will be the subject of this week’s Tuesday, Wednesday class, or the Saturday dee-dive session. You would be welcome to join, either live-in-person, or online!
In the spirit of inner traveling,
Toby
Practical dimensions of chakra meditation
The subtle energy body and levels of consciousness
When you meditate, you start to learn to move or ‘travel’ between different states of consciousness, which opens up creative possibilities. The simplest model of consciousness states is a set of three and looks something like this:
Gross level – Physical body and biological life force (The domains of physics, chemistry & biology) The subtle level – The level of mind, ranging from the everyday mind and attendant emotions to more subtle, refined, higher levels (The domains of psychology, philosophy & metaphysics). The causal, or very subtle level of consciousness – The level of consciousness itself, formless, timeless (a ‘living, primal emptiness’) and unitive in nature.
Some correspondences – Chakras as a map of states of consciousness
Chakras are subtle energy centres, or ‘wheels’. They are most often described as being located along a central channel, or energy meridian that runs from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, and then down to the third eye, or point between the eyebrows. different schools and systems use different colours, but the ‘rainbow’ version described below is a good version to start with. The three levels of consciousness are split into the seven levels as follows.
Gross levels of consciousness (Physics, chemistry biology)
Base chakra – Located at the base of the spine, red in colour, related to the world of physical form, and our surviving/ thriving in that domain.
Sacral chakra – Located at along the spine at the level of the sacrum, orange in colour, related to the biological world of sexuality, reproduction, relationships, and the attendant feeling/emotional states
The subtle levels of consciousness
Solar plexus chakra – Located at the solar-plexus level of the spine, yellow in colour, related to the psychological world of everyday thinking, healthy or dysfunctional ego formation, our sense of power or agency, and/or lack of it. Heart chakra – Located at the heart-level of the spine, green in colour, related to our love energy, both in relation to ourself, others and the world around us. Throat chakra – Located at the throat-level of the spine, blue in colour, related to our communication energy (speech), both in relation to ourself, others and the world around us. You could also add ‘truth’ to this chakra, as in “speaking one’s truth.” Third eye chakra – Located between the eyebrows (If you imagine the chakra column of meridian rising from the base of the skull, up to the crown of the head and then down between the eyebrows), indigo in colour, related to our wisdom facility, and depth of perception.
The very subtle, or causal level of consciousness
Crown Chakra – Located at the crown of the head, violet/white in colour, related to our capacity to rest in an expanded state of causal or formless consciousness.
A simple meditation
Sitting in meditation, sense into your subtle body, same shape, and size as your physical body, interpenetrating it
See the chakra column with the attendant chakras extending from the base of your spine to the crown of your head, and then down to the third eye zone between your eyebrows
In meditation feel and see light and energy being activated within your base chakra. Feel it rising progressively through each of the chakras, with their attendant colours and capacities.
See the light rising into your crown chakra, where your personal consciousness dissolves and merges with the timeless emptiness of consciousness itself
See the light from your crown chakra descending to the third-eye chakra between your eyebrows, rest in stillness. After a while imagine seeing the world around you, and yourself being inseparable from the formless timeless emptiness you contacted in your crown charka. The world is a dream-like manifestation of consciousness itself, that you are. They co-exist singularly, like the two sides of one coin…
“It is a wonderful thing to be able to grow old with a vibrant, healthy, and energised child-self accompanying us. The body may grow older, but the spirit stays young!”
Dear Integral Meditators,
Who is your child-self, and how can you start to relate to her/him min a mindful and fulfilling way? The article below looks at these questions!
In a sentence: Learn how you can use mindfulness to discover & relate to the child-self that lies within you for the purposes of both therapeutic healing & personal thriving….read full details
Article: Relating to the child-self within you holistically
In my twenties and early thirties, after a decade of Buddhist meditating, I had enjoyed many experiences, and got several significant results. However, I also noticed that there was a part of me that had remained untouched by all the practice. Periodically he seemed to suffer from anxiety, fear, discombobulation, and a sense of ‘lost-ness’. After leaving my life as a monk, one of the avenues that I explored related to this inner anxiety, was my relationship to the child-self within me. All of us have a child-self within us. It is the part of us that relates to our experience as a child, and that lives as a psychic reality within us now. Building a relationship to that part of myself, and helping him to heal, feel secure and build confidence was a large part of the experiential solution to the mysterious anxiety that I felt but could not resolve through conventional meditation. I have written about this in past articles, what I want to do here is to describe some simple mindfulness exercises that can help to build a relationship to your child-self in a way that is healing, confidence-building and strengthening.
Step 1 – Find a picture of yourself as a child, if you have a few available, look through them and pick one that resonates for you. Set aside a period of time, and simply look at the picture. Allow yourself to free-associate memories and feelings around your child-hood. Be curious about what comes up for you, being mindful that you are not trying to ‘solve’ anything at this stage. Sense into the image and your memories in three ways:
From your head awareness – Images, memories, thoughts, narratives, inner voices
From your heart and chest awareness – The range of emotions, feelings of closeness and distance, open-ness and closed-ness
From your belly and ‘gut’ awareness – Body sensations, instincts, non-verbal impulses, sensations of safety or danger, subtle changes in your body posture and facial expression
Step 2 – Imagine your child-self present in front of you. Smile at her/him gently, invite connection. If s/he wants to talk to you, let them talk. Let them ask questions, respond to those questions, enjoy relating to them.
Step 3 – With their permission and when ready, hold them, give them a hug. Holding them in your arms, allow an exchange of love. Extend that love to them and allow yourself to receive it from them. Let this connection of love start to work on the healing of any traumas that your child-self may have, and allow her/him to start to build trust and confidence in you as a ‘parental’ figure.
A further step is to then engage in activities each day where you are consciously doing them together with your child-self, and where there is room for play, interaction, and expression of a range of emotional states relating to your child-self. And of course, when you are with actual children, see this as a wonderful opportunity to explore your child-self with them in the outer world!
This type of mindfulness is a rich area to explore that has much to offer anyone who is willing to take the time to engage with it. It is a wonderful thing to be able to grow old with a vibrant, healthy, and energised child-self accompanying us. The body may grow older, but the spirit stays young!
“Work in the inner garden of your mind a little bit every day, like you would work on an outer garden to give it a sense of order & beauty”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article takes a look at inner and outer gardening. If you enjoy it, it will be the subject of this week’s Tuesday, Wednesday class. You would be welcome to join, either live-in-person, or online!
Yesterday, Sunday, I spent about an hour in the front and back garden, bringing a bit of order to the gentle chaos that it was becoming. I dug out the root of a Banyan tree at the back that had gone rogue, and I trimmed the jasmine bushes at the front, putting some eggshells and fertilizer in their pots. The great thing about doing any kind of gardening work is that, by the end of it your mind often feels wonderfully clear and peaceful. As well as the peaceful feeling, there is the sense of having brought order and harmony to the physical space, a sense of benevolent control. This in turn changes (for me at least) the overall sense of having some control and order in my life. When I walk through my front gate now, I have the feeling of satisfaction of having nurtured the garden, and I see the plants I have worked with.
In one sense of course this can also be taken as a metaphor for the ‘inner garden’ of our mind. Mindful attention is very much about noticing and nurturing focus on the things in life you can appreciate and feel good about. Yes, parts of your life may feel in chaos or dis-order, but don’t forget to notice the parts that aren’t (the inner equivalent of jasmine bushes in the above example), and feel good about the work you’ve done today to bring order to the chaos (the Banyan tree root above).
Your energy body and your environment
Gardening work and indeed any time in contact with nature can open up some interesting meditation capacities. Here are a few simple ways in which I work with the energy of the environment and nature regularly:
Feet on the ground, in meditation or walking, feel the light and energy from the Earth rising up into your body, activating its vitality. Feel like you have a body of energy interpenetrating your physical body. With your light body, sense into the mineral, plant, and elemental (earth, water, air, fire) energies around you. Let this contact feed and balance you inwardly.
Feel your belly area to be a focus point for your biological energy. Breathe in and out of your belly, feeling the natural bliss of your life-force and vitality building in that space.
Feel your heart-centre to be connected to the sun and its energy. See a beautiful sun at your heart. Breathing in and out of it, making the heart-zone of your body bright, loving & strong
Feel your head to be connected to the energy of the sky and stars. See a bright star-light in the centre of your brain, connecting you to the natural Freedom and spaciousness of the sky and stars all around us.
The above are all very simple focus points that, when you take the time to dwell upon them can lead you into quite deep meditation states relatively easily and quickly, it is not hard work!
“Daily intention, attention, and awareness can be experienced as expressions of our essential Freedom, Love & Bliss”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article takes a creative look at how to bridge basic mindfulness & deeper states of Awakening. If you enjoy it, it will be the subject of this week’s Tuesday, Wednesday class. You would be welcome to join, either live-in-person, or online!
In the spirit of our essential Freedom,
Toby
Essential Freedom – On the mindful ‘big three’ & Awakening
This article weaves together the fundamentals of mindfulness practice with some essential ‘Tantric’ elements. By ‘fundamentals of mindfulness’ I mean working with our basic intention, attention, and awareness. By Tantric, I mean seeing and experiencing these three in qualities their essential, purified, or awakened form. What it offers is a space where we can explore the space between simple mindfulness and higher/deeper states of meditation presence in a way that is creative and playful.
The mindful big three
As I mentioned, your ‘mindful big three’ are intention, attention, and awareness. They are three what you might call ‘all accompanying characteristics of our everyday consciousness, meaning they are there and functioning pretty much all the time whilst we are awake and sleeping.
Intention is what moves us to step into action. With mindfulness we are trying to be more conscious and less automatic about our intentions, so that they become more caring, constructive, and high quality.
Attention is directed by our intention. If our intention is mindful, our attention will then be focused towards to where our intention channels it. We marshal our attention with our intention. High quality attention then helps us to be more effective in life, and to enjoy it more.
Awareness is our potential to be conscious; it is consciousness itself. Our awareness follows our attention. The energy of our consciousness awareness follows where we place our attention.
Awakened mindfulness – Freedom, love & bliss
So, each moment of our consciousness has these three dimensions, intention, attention, and awareness. What I want to do now is describe a visualization that enables us to relate to these three in their pure or essential form:
Freedom of intention – Imagine your intention as a star sitting in the center of your head/brain. It sits in the freedom of an open sky, and when you focus on it you can feel that open, spacious freedom. Its light is the light of your conscious intention that you can use to navigate your life successfully and wisely.
The Heart of loving attention – See your attention as a diamond at your heart, the facets of the diamond reflecting and radiating rainbow lights around it. The rainbow diamond represents all the different ways that your attention can be directed to yourself and the world in a loving, skillful, benevolent, and compassionate manner.
The bliss of your Ocean of consciousness – See in your lower abdomen there is a drop of water that contains the entire ocean. This is your Blissful Ocean of consciousness, the source from which awareness comes from. If you relax into this Ocean in your belly, you can feel your consciousness becoming open, blissful & calm, like the depths of an Ocean.
Putting it together:
You can meditate on the star in your head as your essential, awakened Freedom of intention. In daily life you can use the star-image to create and stay with mindful, conscious intentions
You can meditate on the diamond at your heart as your essential, awakened Love. During the day you can use the diamond image to be creative with the different ways you can make your attention loving, constructive and benevolent.
You can meditate on the drop of water in your belly as an Ocean of Bliss-Consciousness. During the day you can be dropping into this simple, blissful state of awareness to recharge, relax and recover, before moving back into more active states of intention and attention.
