Category: creative imagery

Categories
creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Stress Transformation

Developmental acceptance – Allowing it to be messy & imperfect

“Skillful acceptance means noticing that you can center yourself in the middle of feelings of chaos, messiness, or dis-orientation, be present to them without panicking”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article looks at how to use mindfulness to work with your reality in a creative way, even and particularly when it seems messy!

If you enjoy the article, it will be the subject of our meditation at this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday Meditation class: 
 The Wisdom of Awakening Series:  Meditations for cultivating your inner guidance & guru.
All welcome to attend. This series is the course for this week and July.

In the spirit of acceptance,

Toby


Developmental acceptance – Allowing things to be messy & imperfect
 
Harmony from chaos – The way of the artist and creative
At a certain stage in my path, I spent time working with the idea of my art (at the time painting & sculpture) as a path of ‘harmony through conflict’. This basically meant that, to create beauty or harmony, you need to reach into chaos, disorder and sometimes ugliness. Then, by working skilfully with it you can draw out the beauty and order. So, the first part of any creative process then, is to learn to ‘be’ with the disorder/chaos, and start working with it from a centred point of view.
 
Chaos, inner and outer is messy
The tricky part about sitting with chaos is that the feeling of it is very ‘messy’ and confusing. It doesn’t feel comfortable to sit with. One reason why many people are not more creative is because they would prefer to sit with a reality that feels ‘tidy’, ordered and ‘safe’, even if that version of reality is someone else’s, even if it is dysfunctional, and even if the ‘order’ isn’t that appealing to us.
 
Accepting & working with chaos
So, to work with the messiness of reality, and start building our capacity to work with it creatively, we first must practice ‘sitting with the messiness’, which is to say sitting and getting comfortable with it, which actually means ‘getting comfortable with the uncomfortable’(!)
To get comfortable with messiness means accepting that it makes us anxious and dis-oriented. Skillful acceptance means noticing that you can center yourself in the middle of those feelings of chaos and messiness, be present to them without panicking. From the centred comfort that acceptance gives you, you can then look for ways to:

  • Notice what’s useful and good about the current messy-ness
  • Make small initial steps towards ordering the situation
  • Let your intuitive, rational and instinctual intelligence work together to see patterns in the chaos that help you start to see what the situation is offering you, and what it can become

 
Practicing developmental acceptance
On a practical level, I find this type of developmental acceptance enables me to work with what is happening in my day much more creatively. For example, today:

  • Sitting down at my desk to write this article, I found that the initial idea I had did not ‘fit’ like I imagined it would
  • This immediately put me in a place of dis-orientation, discomfort. Centering in that dis-orientation and getting comfortable with it, I became curious about how I could start to mold a new order from the messiness. Staying centered also needed a bit of the qualities of care and courage to stay with it; some gentle positive inner self-talk and re-assurance
  • Acceptance itself started to emerge as a theme, relaxing into it, and without trying too hard I let my intuition, rationality, and instinct start to put some structure to the basic theme, to sculpt and form a harmony from the mess
  • Forty minutes or so later I had written the article that you are now reading

 
You will notice from the above description that the first ‘move’ was noticing and accepting the initial ‘messiness’ of my reality. Accepting and centering like this then enabled me to harmonize my reality much more quickly and effectively than if I had been fighting with it.
You will notice also that I use the three C’s, curiosity, courage and care as a central part of the ‘developmental acceptance’ methodology.
 
Related reading: Cultivating your positive imperfectionist
Applying the Three C’s of Engaged Mindfulness

​© 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Concentration creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership

Making your visualization practice integral

“If you observe your mind, you will see that your unconscious imagination is very active, creating scenario’s regarding our past, present and future. What if you made this process conscious, deliberate & directed?”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article focuses on visualization meditation. If you enjoy the article, then do come along for the summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation this Tues or Weds, live or online. In it we do quite a lot of visualization work, particularly around goals for the next quarter of the year.  

You are invited to the Free Wisdom of Awakening meditation webinar this Thursday.
 
In the spirit of conscious visualization,

Toby

 

Article: Making your visualization practice integral
 
In my individual coaching practice, and in my group classes this week we have done quite a lot on visualization with meditation. The essential idea is that you can accelerate your growth in a particular area, develop a skill and/or to a degree ‘attract’ things that you might want into your life using conscious visualization. Below are a few practice points to bear in mind that will improve any visualization you might want to do. It will also make it more ‘whole’ and complete. I will not claim that the list below includes everything about visualization, but it covers some big fundamentals.
 
Practice 1 – you are visualizing all the time: If you observe your mind, you will start to notice that a lot of it is essentially ‘fantasizing’ or imagining scenarios regarding our past, present and future. You will see that your process of visualization is often very active already. This first practice is to

  • Notice your daily, often unconscious, visualization practice. Make it into an object of mindful observation, rather than something that you get mindlessly lost in
  • Choose which fantasies you follow and encourage, and release/let go of fantasies that aren’t serving your higher purpose

 
Practice 2 – contextualization of the past: Whenever you think of the past, you imagine it anew in your inner vision. So be careful to think and imagine the past in a way that invites positivity, appreciation, and good energy, rather than getting stuck in rumination-loops.
 
Practice 3 – Visualizing yourself present: If you are visualizing around a particular situation, imagine the qualities with which you turn up. For example, imagine turning up to your public speaking event, your squash match or your children’s party focused but relaxed, caring toward yourself and others, energised and enthusiastic, giving yourself positive self-talk as you go.
 
Practice 4 – the specifics of the short-term picture: Short term picture might be the next 2-6 weeks say. If you want to grow your business, or improve in your sport, what are the particular focus points you want to improve? Identify then see them in your minds eye, create pathways in your brain and body to doing these specifics better the next time you sit at your desk, meet a client, play your squash game.  
 
Practice 5 – medium and long-term outcomes: A medium-term outcome might be 3-6months. A long-term outcome might be more than a year, 3 to 5 years, or the final endgame you want from any training or activity, such as achieving a certain type of lifestyle, or becoming a master at a sport or art. Here you can really get involved in creating ‘ideal scenes’ of what it looks and feels like. Some of this will be specific images where particular experiences have been manifested. Other parts of the visualization would be more around the ‘mood and the feeling’ that you have now that you have achieved your end goal.
 
It takes a while to gat back your visualization skills. Because we use screens and computers to create images that we then just look at, initially when we start to visualize we may have to accept that our inner image-making skills are quite poor. However, if we practice consistently, you will find that your image-ination starts to regenerate quite naturally and powerfully, so don’t be discouraged. In any domain in your life you want to improve, practicing visualization that includes all five areas outlined above will help it to be a complete and powerful practice.  
 
Related Reading: Envisioning & presence – Climbing the mindful mountain
On mindful visualization
Mindful imagination – from superstition to manifestation
 
Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight creative imagery Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

Integrating reality & symbolic reality

“Much of what we take for our reality are just mental symbols about reality. Reality itself is something different, something that must be experienced directly”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

There are two ways in which you can use the article below. The first is by reading it and using the example as a way of exploring it in meditation. The second is, having understood the basic idea simply ask yourself the question:

“What do I notice about the inter-relationship between my symbolic reality & reality itself?”

Then just watch your experience mindfully for a period of time & see what you start to notice.
 
Between this message and the article is the events list for June, starting with this weekend’s stress transformation workshop.
 
In the spirit of integration,

Toby

 

Meditation sessions & workshops with Toby in June: 


Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule
 

Saturday 8th June, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Workshop

Tues 18th/Weds 19th June – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Mindfulness for emotional intelligence masterclass – Saturday 22nd June, 10am-12noon

Starts Tues /Weds 25th & 26th June, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series:  Meditations for cultivating your inner guidance & guru

Article: Integrating reality & symbolic reality



 
Thinking – the manipulation of symbols
What is thinking really? There are several ways of answering this, I’d like to focus here on thinking as essentially a way of creating and manipulating symbols about our reality. Thinking is not reality itself, but arrangements of symbols representing reality. That’s worth reflecting upon, because when we do, we immediately start to realize that a lot of what we take for our reality is actually just thoughts, or symbols about reality. Reality itself is something different, something that must be experienced directly. This is a main point of meditation, to move beyond our mental symbols, encountering our reality directly, as it is. As the Zen saying goes, “Reality is not what you think!”
 
Integrating symbols & reality

Using symbols to think about reality can either be helpful for us to expand our sense reality, or it can narrow it. One way in which I like to work with mental models or symbols is to take 2-4 mental models of reality, and then cross-reference them. Each model reveals something different and complementary from the other models. When we put them together, you get a richer, more whole and integrated sense of what is be there.
 
A practice involving three models of reality

What I am going to do now is take three models of reality itself from a western religious, Hindu spiritual and Taoist philosophical perspective. Then I will describe how to put them together in a process of mindful enquiry into our experience of reality itself.
 
Model 1: Reality as hierarchical, God at the top, wo/man at the bottom – from a western Christian, (or Hebrew or Islamic) perspective, reality is a hierarchy with God/ Spirit at the top, and humans/earth at the bottom. Our relation to God is that of a servant to a King, and western/middle-eastern religion organizes and expresses itself accordingly. If you think about the Sistine chapel, God is on the roof, man is below (With only hell beneath!). This model can see archaic, but if you look at the way reality organizes itself, it is substantially hierarchical.
 
Model 2: Reality as a drama – in the Hindu & Buddhist model, the world is more like a drama. At the core of every living being is the One Self, or our Buddha Nature. Our outer appearances are like masks in a drama, each personality and aspect playing a role in a drama. Reality is seen as a play of the illusion created by spirit, for the entertainment of spirit.
 
Model 3: Reality as an organism – The Taoist model (the Tao is often described as “the way of nature’) is reality as more organismic in nature; no particular hierarchies, no one thing in charge of creating the rest. Reality is conceived as a network of interrelated parts, moving into and out of balance according to the principle of the Tao (the way) and of yin & yang.
 
So, if you consider each of these three models in turn, you’ll get a sense of the aspects of reality it is trying to describe. Crucially, none of these models are reality itself. Nor are any other approaches, scientific, artistic, sociological, economic etc…Reality I always itself, always a direct experience that we encounter each day.
If you sit quietly with each of these three symbolic representations of reality, cross referencing them with each other, and then with your actual experience of reality, you start to get a rich sense of the wholeness and integration between them, and the relationship between those symbols and reality itself.  If you take a ‘both/and’ rather than an ‘either/or’ approach, the reward is access to an overall sense of wholeness and integration in your life, one that helps us counter the often-pronounced sense of fragmentation and disconnect that characterizes our experience.
 
Related article: Mindfully enhancing your psychological development

 
Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Biographical creative imagery Energy Meditation Enlightened love and loving Enlightened service Inner vision Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Stress Transformation

How did I get through tough times as a Monk?

“Resilient endurance in the face of the ongoing difficulties is more a matter of imaginative compassion than simply ‘getting tougher’”

Dear Toby, 

This week’s article explores how I used a particular meditation technique to work with difficulties when I was a monk. If you enjoy it, we will be focusing upon it as a part of this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class. 


In the spirit of compassionate imagination,

Toby


How did I get through tough times as a Monk?
 
During my time as a Buddhist monk, there were plenty of times when I felt I had my back against the wall.

  • Lack of financial & material resources was always a threat
  • Being an unknown element in a mainstream society mean that not all attention was good attention by any means
  • The organization that I worked for was often understaffed in terms of manpower, and so there was often a sense of having to do several different (unpaid) jobs at the same time
  • The path of meditation itself threw up many things to be processed as I moved from one level to the next.

There was a particular set of meditation instructions called ‘Lojong’, or ‘instructions for training the mind’ which was particularly useful at such times. I would even go as far as to say it was my main practice, in the sense of the one that I derived the most value from. I’ll describe below a simple process that I would follow in meditation that really captures the essence of it. For the sake of an example, let’s imagine that the suffering I am contemplating is the heat and discomfort of being a monk in Singapore, where it is very hot and humid, and I was often living in placed without air-conditioning.
 
A visual tool
These meditations were often done with a jewel of enlightenment visualized at my heart. The jewel would be made of light and have the essence of my enlightened nature.
 
“May all my future sufferings ripen upon me now”
This first position involved contemplating the suffering or confusion that I was going through, and then, in the spirit of compassion say something like:
 
“May all my future suffering of this kind ripen upon me right now”
 
I would then imagine all the future suffering, to use the example all the discomfort and dizziness of living with too much heat, gathering around me as dark light and smoke. It them ‘ripened upon me now’ by dissolving into the ‘jewel of enlightenment’ at my heart, eventually disappearing. I would then strongly think that all my future suffering regarding heat had already been endured, and that I was free from it, relaxing into the joy of that recognition.
So, of course I was still sitting in the heat of Singapore, and would continue to do so. But the effect of the meditation, at least for a while is that my mental and emotional pain around the heat would reduce dramatically, and I could continue on in a state of relative peace and calm.
 
“May the sufferings of others ripen upon me now”
A further development of this was reflecting upon the fact that my suffering was only one persons’, and that there were many other living beings experiencing the same and worse regarding discomfort and pain around heat/temperature. So then reflecting upon this compassionately I would contemplate “May the sufferings of heat of all living beings ripen upon me now!”
I would then imagine this pain & suffering gathering around me like a cloud of dark, hot(!) smoke, and see it then dissolving into the jewel of enlightenment at my heart, eventually disappearing.  I would then meditate strongly on the thought that all those suffering from heat in different ways had been liberated, and were now free and happy. I took this joyful recognition as an object of meditation for a few minutes.
 
The purpose of doing this meditation was not to be masochistic, rather it was, and is to:

  • Develop resilient endurance in the face of the ongoing difficulties
  • Strengthen compassion and reduce unhealthy self-obsession
  • Find joy in the process of releasing ourself and others from pain and sufferings

Reading the sequence through initially may leave you thinking “Eeeuw, no way!” but doing the practice a few times, we start to see how effective it is at reducing our pain and suffering in the moment, and finding ways to get through challenging times relatively unscathed. It certainly was and is a method I’ve found most useful in my own path.
 
Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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


Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Energy Meditation Essential Spirituality Gods and Goddesses Meditation techniques mind body connection spiritual intelligence

Spiritual aspects of healing – The medicine Buddha

“Spiritual healing is the art of bringing a higher, more whole and inclusive dimension of reality to bear upon a lower dimension, in order to bring that greater wholeness, healing and inclusivity to bear upon the lower dimension, thus effecting healing.”

(Link to image source)

Dear Integral Meditators, 

The article below looks at principles of spiritual healing practice in general, and also specifically in terms of Medicine Buddha practice, which is something I picked up in my days as a Buddhist monk, and continue to engage with today. If you enjoy the article & are curious, do join me live or online for the Medicine Buddha Healing meditation this Saturday 11am-12.15pm.

Also, if you know anyone looking to get their meditation practice started, or if you want to get your own practice rebooted, then I recommend this Saturday’s session:Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

 
In the spirit of healing,

Toby

Spiritual aspects of healing – The medicine Buddha

What is spiritual healing? You might think about spiritual healing in terms of this definition:
“Spiritual healing is the art of bringing a higher, more whole and inclusive dimension of reality to bear upon a lower dimension, in order to bring that greater wholeness, healing and inclusivity into the lower dimension, thus effecting healing.”
To practice spiritual healing is then basically learning to meditate (Yes, mediate, or channel) higher, deeper dimensions of energy to people or places where healing is needed. It can be done in different ways:

  • To effect physical or psychological healing for ourself
  • To effect physical or psychological healing for others
  • To direct healing energy to groups of people or places on the planet

What/who is the Medicine Buddha
The Medicine buddha practice is an example of a spiritual healing practice. Sometimes Buddha’s are linked to actual people, but more often these are mythic rather than factual stories, and the Buddha in question is more of an embodiment of a particular enlightened quality, a primal archetype rather than a ‘person’. In the case of the Medicine Buddha, he may be thought of as the healing power of all the Buddhas (and our own enlightened Buddha nature) embodied in a human form, albeit with a blue body (!)
Having been related to in this way for over two thousand years, visualizing the Medicine Buddha and reciting his healing mantra provides a ready-made pathway in the human group consciousness that we can use to access this particular spiritual healing energy from the higher dimensions of reality to bring healing to ourself and others.

Paradigms for understanding disease
In the traditional Medicine Buddha teachings, there are four types of disease/illness:

  1. Illness that we can recover from without medicine (physical or spiritual)
  2. Illnesses that we need medicines to recover properly from
  3. Illnesses that have a ‘soul’ level or karmic cause, and that cannot be healed by physical medicine alone, but can be healed through spiritual healing practice
  4. Illness that is essentially untreatable, spiritually or with traditional medicine, and that we cannot recover from once they manifest.

From this we can see that spiritual healing practices like the Medicine Buddha are primarily helpful for the third class of disease, and as a preventative for helping to avoid the fourth class of disease coming into manifestation. In my own practice of the Medicine Buddha, I primarily focus on:

  1. Daily practice as a future disease prevention. This is a bit like taking supplements to increase immunity(!)
  2. Working to build strength and wholeness in the ‘weak’ spots in my body, again making illness and injury less likely
  3. In relation to symptoms of diseases I get, for example reducing pain and activating healing around a recent gastric flu I had. This was in conjunction with regular TCM type medication.
  4. For others I know who are sick and in need of healing, or who are vulnerable to illness

Healing meditation with the medicine Buddha, 3 ways
The methodology used to do spiritual healing is often deceptively simple, in the case of the Medicine Buddha it can be done in a very simple way by:

  • Generating a compassionate motivation
  • Visualizing him in the space in front of you, setting your specific intention for requesting healing
  • Reciting his mantra
  • Imagining healing light and nectar flowing down from his heart (where the mantra sits), into the person, area of the body or part of the world where you want the healing energy to flow
  • Finishing with a brief period of stillness

The mantra itself is Sanskrit:
TAYATHA OM GATE GATE, PARAGATE, PARASANGATE BODHI SOHA

(Link to image source)

This means quite literally ‘Oh doctor (Gate), doctor, great doctor, doctor of doctors, please grant us the healing attainments!’
The practice may look simple, childish even, but combined with good quality intention and focus, the effects can be felt quite rapidly and easily. It’s a practice I have had for years, if your looking for another dimension to your own healing methodologies, this is one I highly recommend.

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques mindful dreaming Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Mindful imagination – From superstition to manifestation

“Mature imagination combined with consistent action can make you an “unstoppable force for the good” in your life, opening up possibilities that surprise & delight you & those around you”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

Imagination is the power of your mind to create mental images & ideas. About yourself, your life, & what is possible. Its potentially a superpower, but used in the wrong way it can create all sorts of problems. In the article below I talk you through how to start to harness its potential mindfully.
If you enjoy the article, it will be the subject of this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday class. You are welcome, live or online!

Quick heads up, I have just put up the Integral meditation deep-dive mini-retreat for the morning of May 25th
 
In the spirit of mindful images,
 
Toby

Mindful imagination – From superstition to manifestation


Our imagination is one of our superpowers, but it can also be a crippling limitation for some people and a debilitating distraction for others. In this article I’ll tease apart these different types of imagination, and offer a way of ensuring that your imagination is more of a superpower for you than a liability!
 
How and where does our imagination start in life?
Our capacity for imagination (image-creation within our mind) starts around 18 months. At this stage we are only able to think from our own perspective, and our sense of the world is that it revolves entirely around ourselves (!) It consists of, instant gratification & magical/fantasy thinking.

  • I want milk, an image of milk appears in my mind & I cry so that it appears, which it does, because a parent brings it
  • I believe if I think of something it will come true

Of course we grow beyond this type of imagination, but it continues to show up for many adults in different ways, for example:

  • Fantasies of ourself being incredibly special & unique, famous stars, with the world at our feet
  • Superstitions thinking: If I think something it will come true, if I see a black cat I will have bad luck, if I stick a pin in a doll of someone they will be harmed by it (‘vodoo’ type beliefs)
  • Excessive indulgence in things like online shopping, I click it and it comes it me. Other types of easy, instant gratification activities

 
What happens if it stays that way?
Then our image making capacity as adults remains severely limited, and cannot be released for mature acts of creativity, problem solving, goal setting, leadership envisioning and so forth. It makes it very difficult to forge a meaningful path and achieve significant things if our image-making capacity is continually distracted by child-like fantasy. 
 
How we can develop dysfunctional imagination as adults
As adults we can also develop ‘imagination-malfunction’ when we think from excessive fear, limitation, or dystopia.

  • We create images of ourself in our mind as a person who ‘could never do that’
  • We out picture the ‘worst-case’ scenario in our mind, with no ‘best-case’ counterbalance
  • We allow the images we have received whilst growing up to entirely determine our sense of what is possible, and never imagine beyond that

If our imagination is trapped in these patterns then it becomes the thing that is limiting our potential, rather than releasing us into our potential.
 
How can we release the power of our mindful imagination?
If our imagination is released from the infantile ego-fantasy and self-imposed limitation of the above, then we can use it to grow. We can use it for:

  • Mature acts of creativity, and the creation of harmony and beauty
  • For problem solving and goal setting, combining this with steady activity towards those goals imagined
  • Leadership envisioning: leading ourself and others toward heretofore unimagined possibilities

 
A mindful imagination exercise

  • Sitting in meditation, become aware of the current imaginative activity in your mind. Be curious (and non-judgmental) about how much of it is mature powerful imagination, and how much of it is of the infantile & self-limiting type.
  • Try doing the same thing around specific areas of your life, notice the role that your imagination plays.
  • Practice acknowledging and witnessing your dysfunctional imagination, with the eventual aim of letting it go and dis-identifying with it
  • Practice deliberately articulating your mature imagination in the service of your goals, inner creativity and self-leadership.

Notice how realistic imagination combined with consistent action can make you an “unstoppable force for the good” in your life, opening up possibilities that surprise and delight both you and those around you… 
 
 Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Insight Meditation Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Resting under the tree of non-doing & unbeing

“Trees are not trying to be anyone or anything else. They rest within their own natural dignity, their sense of inner sufficiency and completeness. What if you could be like that too?”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article looks at the practice of non-doing as a way of moving into being, & then deeper into non-being. It’s a key to effortless effort in meditation & in life! If you enjoy it, then it will form a central part of this week’s Tuesday & Weds meditation class. So do feel free to pop in, either live or online!

A couple of new events up for February: Saturday 17th, 9am-12pm – Integral love & compassion meditation workshop, &  24th, 9-11.30am – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat.

Last but not least, I’ve posted an integral meditation training page for my Simple, positive, creative & aware practice. Click on the link to watch the video, listen to the guided meditations & read the related article! 
In the spirit of non-doing,
 
Toby

Resting under the tree of non-doing & unbeing
 
This is a simple meditation form to take you from doing, to non-doing/being, to unbeing. The image it uses is that of a tree. Beneath the guided meditation are three stories/quotes from which the meditation is partly inspired. Dropping into a space of non-doing and unbeing is a particular type of silence practice. If you practice it regularly you will find it an invaluable resource to relax, regenerate and come back to your life with new eyes and new inner strength.
 
Meditation: Resting under the tree of non-doing
 
1. Imagine yourself sitting under a tree. It’s a useless tree in the sense that its wood is so knotted it cannot be made into anything by a carpenter. The only thing it is ‘good for’ is sitting under and doing no-thing. When you sit underneath it, it provides shade, calm and peace. It is a wonderful place to be and non-do.
 
2. You can also sense that the tree is entirely happy to be itself. It is not trying to be anyone or anything else. It rests within it’s own natural dignity, it’s sense of inner sufficiency and completeness. As you sit under it, you can feel yourself getting in touch with your inner wholeness and natural dignity. You are just fine as you are. You are a complete being.
 
3. Resting whole and complete like the useless tree, when a thought arises, ask yourself the question ‘Who is it that is thinking the thought?’ Turn your attention inward toward the consciousness that produced the thought. Let your attention return to simply being aware rather than thinking, like a person returning to the shade of a tree after being in the hot sun. Go deeper into being, non-doing and non-thinking.
 
4. From being, now reach into the deeper stillness of Un-being, the Void out of which all Being comes.
 
Return to your outer awareness and close the meditation.
 
Reference 1: The Useless Tree by Chuang Tzu
 
Hui Tzu said to Chuang: I have a big tree, The kind they call a “stinktree.”
The trunk is so distorted, so full of knots,
No one can get a straight plank out of it. The branches are so crooked
You cannot cut them up in any way that makes sense.
There it stands beside the road. No carpenter will even look at it.
Such is your teaching– big and useless.
 
Chuang Tzu replied: So, for your big tree. No use? Then plant it in the wasteland
In emptiness. Walk idly around, rest under the shadow; No axe or bill prepares its end.
No one will ever cut it down. Useless? You should worry!
(Here is the full Thomas Merton version)
 
The Cedar Tree by Thich Nhat Hanh

“A cedar tree doesn’t have any desire to be a pine or a cypress or even a bird. It’s a wonderful manifestation of the Cosmos just as it is. You are a manifestation of the Cosmos. You are wonderful just like that.”
 
Resting under the tree of non-thinking – Quote from Ramana Maharshi ‘Who Am I?’

“The mind moves without rest, alternately going out of the Self and returning to it. Under the tree the shade is pleasant; out in the open the heat is scorching. A person who has been out in the sun feels cool when he reaches the shade. Someone who keeps on going from the shade into the sun and then back into the shade is a fool. Similarly, the mind of one who knows the truth does not leave Brahman (Self-as-consciousness)
 
Related article: What Does it Mean to Meditate on Non-Doing? (And why We should be interested in doing It)

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2024. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com 
 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Energy Meditation Gods and Goddesses Inner vision Integral Meditation mindful dreaming Presence and being present Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence Uncategorized

Shamanic meditation – Psychopomping & other non-ordinary adventures

“Shamanic meditation, often described as ‘Shamanic journeying’ occurs mainly in the dream state, which is to say the psychic and subtle levels of mind. You might think of shamanic meditation as a type of ‘conscious dreaming’ done whilst meditating”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article focuses upon Shamanic meditation. The first section is a ‘learning piece’, with the second part being a personal reflection of my experience in the field. If you are interested in this form of meditation then do consider coming along on the weekend of the 25th/26th for the Shamanic meditation workshop retreat. 

Finally, a reminder of the seasonal class this coming Tuesday & Wednesday, Deepavali -connecting to your inner light.

In the spirit of journeying,
 
Toby

Shamanic meditation – Psychopomping & other non-ordinary adventures
 
Three levels of reality, three levels of meditation
 
The great wisdom traditions often divide reality into three basic domains, or levels of consciousness:
The waking state, characterised by the senses and our gross (as in dense) physical environment.
The dream state, characterised by images thoughts and subtle worlds on the level of mind. The lower level of the dream state might be described as the ‘psychic’ realm, the higher and more refined level as the ‘subtle’ realm. The dream world and the world of mind of course also occur in the waking state, but the waking state is characterised by the occurrence of sensory awareness, and the dreamworld is characterised by the temporary cessation of sensory awareness, in the dream-world we inhabit exclusively the worlds of mind.
The dreamless, deep sleep state, characterised by the cessation of both mental and physical forms, and the appearance of a very subtle, almost infinite formless state of consciousness.
Each of these three levels of reality is has its own world and worlds.
 
Shamanic meditation: Working in the ‘dream-world’
Shamanic meditation, often described as ‘Shamanic journeying’ occurs mainly in the dream state, which is to say the psychic and subtle levels of mind. You might think of shamanic meditation as a type of ‘conscious dreaming’ done whilst meditating.
Initially we can practice shamanic meditation to acclimatise to the domain of reality reality that it focuses on. However, part of the point of practising is that we then start to be able to access these states of ‘non-ordinary/dreaming’ reality consciously and at will, even when not in formal meditation. This basically means that we integrate shamanic practice informally into our daily waking life.
 
Foundational elements of shamanic journeying, its purpose and function
Traditionally, Shamanic meditation has five main elements
1. The Underworld Journey – Connecting with Ancestral and Underworld guides
2. The Overworld Journey – Connecting with Spiritual and Overworld guides
3. Soul Retrieval – Recovery from soul loss
4. Meeting and connecting with one’s guardian spirit, or performing guardian spirit retrieval.
5. Non-benevolent spirit extraction or removal
6. To act as a Psychopomp, or guide for the dead and/or lost souls.
 
To practice Shamanic meditation would then mean that each of the above capabilities gradually becomes a part of what you ‘do’ in everyday reality, informally, in the same way that you would go to work, do the shopping, put the kids to bed and so forth…
 
Everyday Psycho-pomping – The Spanish soldier
This story is a simple example of what I mean. As mentioned above, one of the activities of a Shaman traditionally is acting as a Psychopomp, or guide for the dead and/or lost souls. I had some awareness of this before I started doing shamanic meditation, as I had already been a meditator for a while. But once I started Shamanic meditation as a discipline I noticed that increasingly often I would be contacted by deceased or lost souls who needed a bit of a hand transitioning to the next world, they were ‘stuck’ so to speak. Generally, before bed they will let me know that they are around and seeking assistance, and then when I go to bed, I will then expect them to come to me sometime in the night, and we can do what needs to be done. This happens quite regularly, and it is just a part of my daily life activity.
One time when on holiday a village in the mountains of Asturias, Spain, my family and I walked down from our Air B&B to a quiet restaurant with some older villagers inside. We sat outside on a bench that clearly was not used very much, and where there was an old cat to keep us company. After a pleasant meal we walked back to our accommodation, and went to bed fairly soon after.
I couldn’t sleep in the bed I was in with my partner, so I went into a spare bedroom at the top of the stairs. Lying down there I then went into a light reverie, where I saw what looked like an old soldier walking up the street to our house. Understanding what was about to follow, I prepared myself to meet him, and he duly came in the house and walked up the stairs. It was a little comedic, because I didn’t speak Spanish, and he didn’t speak English! But suffice to say he had been killed in the Spanish civil war, and had been in the village since (his favorite bench being the one we had sat on for dinner), and having seen me he saw (and felt ready) for the opportunity to move on. I then helped guide him ‘into the light’ so to speak, and then went to sleep.
That is an example of one of many, it was interesting because it was one that my partner and daughter also ‘felt’ something around, and so for me it was a little bit of a shared experience that we could talk about, rather than one I just do and keep to myself.
 
Related article: Mindfulness, Meditation & Non-Ordinary Reality
 
Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2023. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Categories
Awareness and insight Concentration creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

The conscious-self – Your inner CEO

“Your Conscious-self is: The captain of your inner ship directing the crew, The CEO of your consciousness, setting the direction of your inner organization, & the conductor of your inner orchestra, co-ordinating all the different sub-elements of the self into a coherent unity”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article explores the theme of the Conscious-self, and it’s importance in the health and wellbeing of our self-sense and personality. If you enjoy it, then do consider coming along to the Mindful Presence Masterclass & group coaching: The Inquisitive Sumo Wrestler – Turning up to life calm & curious , where we will be looking at mindfulness practices to create a high-functioning Conscious self. 

If you like you can combine the Masterclass with the Qi gong class as an  Integral Life Practice Session. It’s a morning you will come out of feeling at the top of your game!

In the spirit of your inner CEO,
 
Toby

The Conscious-self – Captain of your ship & CEO of your body-mind
 
The Conscious-self is that part of you that is aware in the present, and of what it finds in the present moment. This includes:

  • Sensory orientation in your environment
  • Co-ordinating what is going in within the body
  • Content of mind; thoughts, emotions, patterns of mental activity
  • The activity of your subconscious mind
  • Awareness of awareness itself, and where we are directing it through attention in any given moment

 
The Conscious-self is responsible for the wellbeing of our body, mind, and emotions. It oversees our choices and decision-making process. It is in charge of how we deploy our energy and resources. It is in charge of our life-plan and self-discipline. All the different sub-personalities that exist within ourself should be marshalled by and taken care of by the conscious-self. Think of your Conscious-self as being like:

  • The Captain of your Ship directing the crew
  • The CEO of your consciousness, setting the direction of your inner organization
  • The conductor of your orchestra, co-ordinating all the different sub-elements of the self into a coherent unity

 
The Conscious-self (C-S) is supported by your higher mind (your soul-level or philosophical/principled self), and your Overmind, or spiritual being. These appear mainly as aspects of our values, imagination & intuition that the C-S can access and refer to for guidance. The C-S is in charge of co-ordinating our ego and personality in everyday life, directing it towards a sense of effectiveness in the face of challenges, and happiness in its various forms. The Higher and Over-mind’s are like a wise inner ‘Board of directors’ that the C-S can refer to for advice and wisdom.
 
Leading yourself through life
The Conscious-self is, in essence the leader of your consciousness. As the leader, its main functions are:

  • Creating a compelling vision for the rest of the personality to follow, that can take us boldly and enthusiastically into our future from where we stand in the present
  • Getting the ‘buy in’ from the rest of the personality. For example, if a part of us is feeling doubtful about the vision, the C-S needs to listen and help the doubter to come along for the ride.

This leadership function is very much like the CEO of a company; The main job is envisioning the future creatively, getting the buy-in from the team, and then delegating tasks to the team members. The C-S delegates to the other parts of self, tells them what to do and why they are doing it!
 
Contemplation
 
Being present as your conscious mind – In meditation, get used to sitting and centring yourself in your conscious-self. Practice being present to the content of your consciousness, observing the movement of the different elements. Get used to distinguishing the C-S as the Captain and CEO in charge, and the other activities of your consciousness, which are what your C-S oversees.
 
Observing your relationship to choices – Notice how comfortable your C-S is with making choices and taking responsibility. Notice when you want to ‘duck’ choices, feel anxious and confused, want to give away responsibility for what you need to decide on. Work on getting more comfortable, confident, and responsible in this space.
 
Inspiring and supporting – From your position as the C-S, the CEO of consciousness, the captain of your ship, set an inspiring direction:

  • For the next 3-5 years,
  • For the next year, 6 months, 3 months
  • The next month, week, day,
  • For the next activity today!

Create a vision for your life that the rest of your body, mind and personality can follow. Then delegate tasks, and support your sub-selves, getting them on board and up for the program.
 
In conclusion, a high-functioning Conscious-self is the key to effective self-leadership, and to organizing your life effectively. The proposition would also be that the better at self-leadership you become, the better you will tend to be at outer leadership…
 
Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2023. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Categories
creative imagery Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques Presence and being present Zen Meditation

The body is in you – How to go into deep meditation quickly

Dear Integral Meditators,

This mid-week article explores a simple way of dropping into deep meditation states more quickly than you would using most conventional meditation methodologies.
If you enjoy it, then it is one of the meditation techniques we shall be using a the Integral Meditation Two Day Retreat on October 28th & 29th. You are invited to join!

Latest 45 second mindfulness video: Going beyond your self-concept

In the spirit of depth,

Toby

The body is in you – How to go into deep meditation quickly
 
The deepest level of meditation is what is known as Non-Dual meditation. It is the state of meditation where, essentially the subject-object divide within consciousness collapses into ‘One Taste’ or the simple, essential unity of being.
One way to achieve this is what you might call ‘progressive witnessing’, where you realize that you are not any of the objects in your consciousness, rather you are the witness of them. You do this until you realize the Essential I, the I-I, the pure consciousness that is the witness. It would go something like this:
I experience my body, but I am not my body
I experience my feelings and emotions, but I am not my feelings and emotions
I experience my thoughts, but I realize I am the watched of the thoughts, rather than the thoughts themselves.
I am the formless consciousness that witnesses the mind, body and emotions.
 
This then gives you the essential realization of your Self-as-Pure-Consciousness. If you then let go of the Witness-Self, and let Consciousness (the witness), merge with the objects of consciousness (in this case the mind, feelings, and body), then you are left with ‘just this’, the experience of each moment as itself, which is Non-Duality, or One Taste. As the Zen poem goes:
 
“We sit together, the mountain & me, until only the mountain remains”
 
So then, normally this takes years and years of meditation to get to. What I am going to explain now is a meditation you can do to start getting a feeling for the above, using a perceptual ‘flipping’ technique. It goes like this:
Sit comfortably, notice how it naturally feels as if you are sitting ‘inside’ your body.
Then recognize the Witness-Self, observing the body.
Then think to yourself:
“I am not in my body, my body is in me.”
Expand your witnessing consciousness to surround the body, so that your You (you as Witness Consciousness) surrounds and encloses the body. Stay with this feeling a while.
Then do the same thing in a progressively larger and larger manner in this order:
“I am not sitting in this room; the room is sitting in me.” (As the formless witness-consciousness)
“I am not sitting in this building (house/apartment etc….); this building is sitting within me.”
 
Let your awareness move out to the horizon enclosing the landscape around you:
“I am not sitting within the landscape; the landscape is sitting within me.”
 
Expand your awareness to include the sky and stars above, and the Earth beneath you:
“I am not sitting upon the Earth under the sky & stars, they are sitting within me”
 
You can play with this technique to get a sense of the radical way in which it starts to alter your perception of self, noticing how it gives you an expanded sense of self-as consciousness, within which the whole world sits!
Once you have a sense of this, you can then practice dropping the Witness, and dropping into the experience of the union of observer and observed into a non-dual state:
Observe the body, then drop the observer until “Only the body remains.”
Observe the room, then drop the observer until “Only the room remains.”
Observe the house, then drop the observer until “Only the house remains.”
Observe the landscape, then drop the observer until “Only the landscape remains.”
Observe the earth, sky and stars, then drop the observer until “Only the earth, sky and stars remain.”
 
The above are some simple pointing-out instructions to start playing with in meditation, they are designed to help you drop into a deeper witnessing, and then a non-dual state quickly and rapidly. More quickly, perhaps much more quickly than you would be able to do with a more conventional meditation methodology.  
 
Related articles: Watching & then dropping the watcher
 
Related video: Subjects to objects – How meditation helps you grow to greater degrees of freedom