Category: Inner vision

Connecting to your magical self or inner Magician

Post author By Toby
Post date November 26, 2025

“Magic means being able to change one level of our reality by working on it from the level, or plane above it”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article is the first part of a re-work of an old article of mine on your ‘inner magician’, with part 2 next week.
If you enjoy it, then you might enjoy coming along to the Wednesday and Saturday bright shadow meditations, which are magical in the way described below.

Heads up for the last workshop of the year, Saturday 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop, also very much an ‘evolutionary magical’ focus here.

In the spirit of your inner magician,

Toby

Connecting to your magical self or inner Magician

I have recently been working on re-titling and writing notes for some artworks that I completed back in 2005. The first of these “The Magician” you can see in the image on this page. The image itself is meant as a way of visually connecting to our “Inner Magician”. The inner magician is that part of our inner self that is both creative and magical, and that if we harness it effectively has the power to change our daily life and experience for the better.

Who or what is our inner magician?

Here is a working definition:

“The higher expression of our inner magician is that part of self that is able to work with the higher, evolutionary or developmental expression of magic.”

Magic in this context means the following:

1) Being able to affect or change one level of our reality by working on it from the level, or plane of reality above it.
2) Engaging our creative imagination vividly and consciously to “sculpt” our experience of any given situation for the better.
3) Not being content to let good ideas remain in our head, but actively finding ways of expressing those ideas concretely in our daily life.

Let’s take a closer look at these three aspects of magic:

1) Being able to affect or change one level of our reality by working on it from the level or plane of reality above it.
In its simplest terms this means that you use your mental or thought-based mind to change your physical and emotional reality for the better, and you use your spiritual or intuitive mind (which operates on a level beyond thought) to change your thinking patterns for the better.

A simple example might be this:

If I experience physical pain because of an injury or illness I use my thinking mind to be constructive, telling myself that the pain won’t last forever, and encouraging myself to practice patience. This is using my thoughts to positively affect my physical reality.
If I find myself having repetitive dissonant thoughts about my pain and illness, then I can temporarily suspend my thinking (this is really where meditation comes into the picture) and move into a state of mind beyond thought. Doing this enables me to release the momentum of all the imbalanced thoughts that I was having, so that my mind becomes a “clean slate” so to speak which I can then replace the cycle of ‘negative’ thoughts with more appropriate and affirmative ones.

So, thinking mind works magic on physical world and emotions, spiritual/non-conceptual mind works to affect and control the thinking mind.

Looking at this example, you might think that this is simply working skillfully and creatively with your mind and consciousness to affect your bodily experience, but in terms of the way we are talking about it, that is exactly what a large part of functional magic is!

I’ll be posting a part 2 of this article next week, or if you like you can read the full original article here.

© Toby Ouvry 2025, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 15th November, 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Saturday 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

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Integral Meditation Asia

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Shadow meditation

Re-working the story you tell yourself (about yourself)

Post author By Toby
Post date November 10, 2025

“What of you could re-model the story of your life into one you look forward to engaging with, that energises both your experience of the moment, & your visions for the future?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article is something of a sequel to last week’s on creativity with our self-concept. What they both offer are creative ways of using mindful observation & imagination to live a fuller, more dynamic & vibrant life.
If you enjoy the articles, then do have a look at the Bright shadow weekday & Saturday series, which explore this type of creative mindfulness extensively. They can be participated in in-person, online or via the recordings.

In the spirit of mindful storytelling,

Toby

Re-working the story you tell yourself (about yourself)

Your story

The story you tell yourself about you is one that emerges substantially from your self-concept, or your idea of who you are. Here is a quote from a past article of mine on ‘the story’:

“The heavy bag of our story: For many of us our ‘story’, our past, our history is something that we are carrying around with us all the time. Unless we are careful it can end up like a heavy bag that we never put down, sapping our energy. It can define what we believe we are capable of; filling out mind with what could have been, what we did wrong, what we wish we could change and so on…”

How your story turns up in your daily life

Often our story doesn’t turn up as a literal voice in our head narrating away. Most often it turns up more subtly in our body and daily actions. It turns up as instinctive feelings and emotions arising in response to the events of the day. If you listen to yourself talking to people, you will hear it in the things that you say, perhaps more importantly in the tone of voice that you use, and the body language that you adopt when saying it. So, what I am saying here is that, although our story is active within us all the time, mostly it turns up implicitly and unconsciously, without our being fully aware of it.

Listening to and observing your story

If you can start picking up cues about your story from your feelings, behavioral reactions and so forth, you can then start to find out the ‘narratives’ behind them. For example, if I notice that often avoid or shy away from confrontations, I can be curious about why that is. I can then enquire within myself about why that is. Listening to the responses I might get answers such as:

“I don’t like being disapproved of, it reminds me of being powerless in the face of stern adults when I was a child”
“I already often find life overwhelming, to confront would only make things worse”
“I hate feeling disliked and judged by others, to confront would risk experiencing this”
I’m afraid that I will be violent if I really express how I feel in a confrontational situation

Simply becoming aware of, accepting, and observing this inner narrative, making it into an object, rather than a subject of awareness can be a powerful step in itself toward becoming free from it.

Putting it down

Having recognised it and observed this aspect of our story, we can than practice dropping it for periods of time. We do this simply by entering into the present moment without the burden of our story, experiencing the freedom of becoming a person without a story, a man or woman of no rank.

Re-telling it

Putting your story down also gives you a space where you can introduce a new story, a new narrative that liberates you from the prison or limitations of the old one. It opens doors rather than closes them. For example, in the case of confrontation, you can look for people who are good with confrontation and model them in your approach. You can rework the wording of your narrative

“Disapproval from others isn’t such a big deal, in fact sometimes it can be a good sign…”
“Confrontations in the present are not linked to my past childhood experiences. I can choose a new way of asserting myself as an adult”
“I can use this experience to build confidence around non-violent ways to deal with confronters and bullies”

And so on…

Being it

The final stage then is to practice doing it and embodying your new story in daily life. By doing so you can gradually go about re-modelling the story of your life into one that you look forward to engaging with each day, and that energises both your experience of the moment, and your visions for the future.

Related reading: Change your idea, change yourself – (Five stages to) Working creatively with your self-concept
Mindfully dropping (and picking up) your story
Making Objects of Your Subjects

© Toby Ouvry 2025, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

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

Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Presence and being present Shadow meditation Stress Transformation

Change your idea, change yourself – Working creatively with your self-concept

Post author By Toby
Post date November 5, 2025

“We can learn to relate creatively to our self-concept in a way that opens doors, rather than closes them. The older we get, the more important this creative capacity becomes”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article explores a creative & psycho-dynamic meditation form. The stages of it form the basis of my upcoming weekday & Saturday series on ‘how to work with your bright shadow’. If you enjoy the article, then do consider attending one program, or even both of them!

In the spirit of opening to possibilities,

Toby

Change your idea, change yourself – (Five stages to) Working creatively with your self-concept

By the time you get to adulthood, your dominant sense of self, at least for most people, is an idea. This idea is called your ‘self-concept.’ It is a dynamic collection of conditioned beliefs, assimilated past experiences, habitual emotional states, absorbed philosophies, learned behaviour and so on that you identify as ‘me’.

“I am an extrovert”/introvert
“I am an Asian/European/African and therefore I can/can’t….”
“I’m an optimist/pessimist”
“I am good at/not good at…”

You get the idea. Your self-concept is just an idea of who you are, but it is an idea that you are completely or at least very closely identified with. It defines most of how you turn up, how you behave and what you feel yourself to be capable of.
Furthermore, your self-concept has two parts, conscious and unconscious. The conscious part of yourself concept is your self-image. The unconscious part is the part that is not acceptable to your self-image, and that you repress and reject. Any part of your self-concept that you don’t like or feel threatened by, you can push into your unconscious, where it becomes a part of your shadow, or dis-owned self.

What I outline below is a way of working creatively with your self-concept, to open possibilities, rather than close them. By doing so it becomes possible to relate to our idea of ourself in a way that opens doors, rather than closes them particularly, but not only as we find ourselves getting older.

For this work, it is a good idea to take a specific area of your life and self-concept, bearing it in mind as you work your way though the five stages below…

Step one, observing – noticing the narrative, conceptual and non-conceptual

Firstly, take the position of the observer in your field of awareness, and practice, observing, listening to and accepting this part of your self-concept, and your close identification with it. For example, if you are taking your idea of self-as-parent:

Notice the commentary within you about what a parent should or shouldn’t be, and how you are measuring up
Observe the emotional range coming up within you, and your judgements about those emotions
Accept whatever arises as fully as you can

At this stage I find working on accepting and observing with the qualities of curiosity, courage and care to be particularly useful.

Step two, dis-identifying – dropping the labels, badges, and roles

Secondly, practice putting down, or dis-identifying with all the labels, roles and badges that are involved in this part or aspect of your self-concept. Practice becoming a man or woman. A person of no-rank, no position in life. Practice just being a being, and enjoying the freedom of that space.

Step three, imagining – exploring new ideas of self-in-role

From your position as a person of no-rank, explore new ideas, and possibilities of yourself in the role you are working on (parenting, romantic partner, professional, etc…). Connect to new ideas and possibilities that you might integrate into this area of yourself in this role.

Step four encountering – meeting and communicating with your new self

Visualize the self that you have imagined in step three as a person in front of you. S/he looks very much like you, but embodies the qualities that you have been imagining. As you see this person in front of you, invite a communication. Ask them a question such as:

What are you asking of me right now?
How can I integrate you more fully into my daily life?
What is your perspective on this situation/problem that I am facing right now??

Have a chat and see what transpires!

Step five role-playing – developing yourself in your new role

Imagine the ‘self’ in front of you steps toward you. Imagine you step toward them. Another step and you step into each other, and merge. Experience yourself AS this newly imagined self, BE them.

Once you have finished the meditation, work on role-playing this new self into your daily life. Meet your challenges AS them, particularly with regard to the specific roles you identified in step 2 above.

Related articles: Why we may repress our strengths – six reasons
The bright shadow, the one who can do what you cannot do

© Toby Ouvry 2025, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Ongoing Tuesday & Weds September, 7.30-8.30pm, – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Ongoing Saturdays 5.30-6.15pm – Zen meditation Deep-dive – A 10 session practice series

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, self-concept, shadow meditation

Energy Meditation Inner vision Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Shadow meditation

Why we may repress our strengths – six reasons

Post author By Toby
Post date October 29, 2025

“What are the ways in which I have been underestimating myself? And what is one small thing I can do today to grow into my strengths and true capability?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at different reasons that we repress our strengths, and invites awareness of how we might start to step into these hidden capacities within us.
If you enjoy the article, then do check out the upcoming Tuesday & Wednesday series, as well as the Saturday Deep-dive sessions on bright shadow meditation practice starting mid-November.

Also, I have a Special coaching offer: 15% off of all 1:1 shadow coaching sessions with Toby up until End November 2025. You can click the link for more details.

In the spirit of growing our capacity,

Toby

Why we may repress our strengths – six reasons

In shadow meditation we may hear quite a lot about why we would repress the ‘dark’ side of ourself, parts of us that we are afraid of or that we loathe. Look slightly deeper into shadow work and we start to see that we repress our strengths, good qualities, and talents equally strongly. Why is that? Here are six reasons:

They may cause us pain – for example if we open to the power of our compassion, it may make us ‘vulnerable’ to or overwhelmed by the sufferings of the world.
They are associated with our fears or perceived ‘bad’ qualities – For example we may associate our sense of personal power and leadership capability with being angry or dominating
We are simply unfamiliar with them – For example if we have a creative talent, but come from a non-creative family, it may be beyond our idea of what we think we can or could be
They run counter to our instincts or habits – For example if we are an introvert, but are potentially witty and entertaining, we may admire others with those skills, but not consider it something that we could be
We associate the quality with a negative figure from our past – For example we may repress our potential for emotional care due to having had a smothering mother
If we fully own and express this quality, we will stand out – or be mocked, or thought of as unconventional, or be judged in some way

From these six examples we start to see that it is very easy, and understandable to underestimate ourself and what we are capable. Sometimes it can be as scary or even scarier to open to how ‘big and bright’ we can be as it is to confront the dark monsters within. A further point that shadow work helps us to understand is that sometimes the dark shadows within us hides or conceal bright secrets. As with point 2 above, its easy to label something within us mistakenly, and unwittingly pay the price!

A short mindful question to conclude: What are the ways in which I have been underestimating myself? And what is one small thing I can do today to grow into my strengths and true capability?

Related articles: Id to ego, It to I; The essence of shadow integration
The bright shadow, the one who can do what you cannot do

Upcoming series’ on the shadow & the golden shadow

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

Special coaching offer: 15% off of all 1:1 shadow coaching sessions with Toby up until End November 2025

In a sentence: Shadow coaching shows you how to spot your shadow self. It offers practical and accessible methods for helping to release the energy within you that has been trapped in your shadow self, so that you can live your life at its fullest, deepest potential.

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Ongoing Tuesday & Weds September, 7.30-8.30pm, – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Ongoing Saturdays 5.30-6.15pm – Zen meditation Deep-dive – A 10 session practice series

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

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

Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Insight Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Zen Meditation

Compassion, wisdom & your original face

Post author By Toby
Post date September 29, 2025

“What is your original face before your parents were born?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

The ‘Original face’ mentioned above is a well known Zen koan, or riddle. In the article below I outline some simple awareness exercises to use it to develop your wise compassion, or ‘Karuna’.

If you enjoy it, you’d be welcome to join this week’s Tues/Weds or Saturday Zen meditations, where we will be exploring our original face in the sessions.

In the spirit of originality,

Toby

PS: October & November see the return of my Shadow & Language of the shadow workshops, click the links for full details!

Compassion, wisdom & your original face

This article is really a set of pointing out instructions for developing compassion in the spirit of Zen meditation. There are five ‘positions’, each one can be explored as a practice in its own right, but put together they invite a rich and wholistic growth of our wise compassion over time.

Position 1: Centering in the six directions

Sit comfortably, then become aware of the direction in front of you, behind you, to your left, to your right, above and below. Become aware your vertical center, which you can visualize as a line of light and energy extending from your crown to your perineum. As you breathe in, breathe into your bodily center, as you breathe out let your awareness expand out into the six directions. Us this breathing pattern to become focused, relaxed, and present.

Position 2: Reflecting on your own pain & suffering with self-compassion

In this state of relaxed presence, become self-aware, creating an atmosphere of warmth and care toward yourself. Become aware of any parts of yourself that are in pain or suffering for whatever reason. As you breathe in, feel yourself contacting these parts of self, as you breathe out extend gentle understanding and compassion to them, embracing them with this energy.

Position 3: Meditating on your ‘Original face’

Reflect upon the well-known Zen koan:

“What is your original face before your parents were born?”

Here your ‘original face’ is simply the space of consciousness itself before thoughts are ‘born’, the space and ‘face’ before you think (see the description of the Host in my previous article). Return to position 1, centering in the six directions, but emphasizing moving into stillness and non-thought in the moment. As you breathe in center, as you breathe out let go of your thoughts and relax into the open space of consciousness itself, your ‘original face’.

Position 4: Generating wise compassion for all living beings, recognizing them as ‘Self’

Position 3 invites us to see that, in the space of consciousness itself, ‘self’ and ‘other’ dissolve into a singular identity as consciousness itself. Consciousness itself appears as both ‘self’ and ‘other’. Recognizing this, allow your care and compassion to extend from yourself to all other living beings, knowing that, in the space of your original face, we are all one aspect of the same being. This combination of compassion and the wisdom recognizing your ‘Original face’ is called Karuna in Zen, which means wise compassion.

Position 5: Reflecting on your own opportunities for daily compassionate presence, & small acts of compassion

From the ‘metta’ perspective of position 4, now reflect on your own day and life. Look for ways in which you might be able to direct your compassionate presence towards those around you, and express it to them in small, appropriate ways.

Related article: Host & guest – Zen Witnessing

© 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 Tuesday & Weds September, 7.30-8.30pm, – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Saturdays 5.30-6.15pm – Zen meditation Deep-dive – A 10 session practice series

17 Oct 2025, 8am-12pm & 21 Nov 2025, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

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

A Mind of Ease creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Zen Meditation

Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

Post author By Toby
Post date September 15, 2025

“Sit unself-consciously, like a tree – Birds come to eat and nest. Animals rest in its shade. Yet the tree does not know itself. It follows its own nature. It is as it is.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Cultivating unself-consciousness & living a conscious life may sound like a bit of a contradiction, but bringing them together is a great way to make your meditation & life more effortless & natural!

If you enjoy it, you’d be welcome to join this week’s Tues/Weds or Saturday Zen meditations, where we will be exploring the pre-present moment as a gateway to meditation.

In the spirit of natural-ness,

Toby

PS: This Saturday: The Six Healing sounds: Qi gong for Self-Healing & Inner Balance Workshop

Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

In my previous article on the four types of present moment awareness I define the primal pre-present as:

“Essentially the “present moment” before we had any idea of time. We could also think about it as being the “pre-conceptual present.” Babies are always in the pre-present moment, because their minds have not developed the power of conceptuality, they have no idea of what the past or future is, and so their mind remains placed firmly in the here and now, before time existed! Likewise, animals live in the pre-present because they have non-conceptual minds. Similarly trees and rocks can be thought of as abiding in the pre-present, the time before concepts and before the past and future came into existence”

Meditating on the pre-present enables us to:

relax, returning to a state of innocent awareness
tap into a state of deep regeneration and re-energization

We ourselves can meditate on the pre-present simply by:

deeply observing a (peaceful) baby, or an animal
sitting quietly in a landscape and just dropping our sense of time temporarily, becoming like a tree or a rock or a baby, with a mind that has forgotten all sense of time and abides in the peaceful space of the pre-present, the pre-time

The pre-present, the eternal present & non-duality

Dropping into the pre-present enables us to access the non-dual, or Eternal Present, which is the recognition that everything that is happening is always happening NOW. To quote again from my previous article:

“The eternal present in many ways resembles the primal pre-present, but to be able to really appreciate and value the eternal present we must have gone into conceptual time, understood and lived within it, and then see through its illusion. You could say that the eternal present is the post-transient present.
Meditating on the eternal present gives us maturity of vision, depth of perception, a sense of everything possessing its own natural perfection, and opens us up to our first classical “enlightenment experiences”.
We can meditate on the eternal present by simply recognizing that every aspect of our experience right here right now is contained within the embrace of the eternal present, and learn to relax our awareness into that ever present, eternal space”

Two quotes for meditating unself-consciously

A nice way to approach the above two types of present is to simply meditate unself-consciously, placing yourself in a state that is natural, close to nature and non-conceptual.

A mountain poem

Imagine yourself sitting on the side of a mountain. Imagine your body and the mountain merge, be the mountain. From the Chinese poet Li Bai:

“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.”

The second quote is a favourite of mine from the Forest Monk teacher Ajahn Chah:

“People have asked me about my practice. How do I prepare my mind for meditation? There is nothing special, I just keep it where it always is. They ask “Are you an Arhant?” (Liberated being) Do I know? I am like a tree in the forest, full of leaves, blossoms and fruit. Birds come to eat and nest. Animals rest in its shade. Yet the tree does not know itself. It follows its own nature. It is as it is.”

Sit naturally, forget yourself, follow your own nature, as you are.

Related article: Scratching out your name card, & other gateways to Zen meditation

© 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

Tuesday 2nd & 3rd September, 7.30-8.30pm, & then weekly – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Saturday 6th September, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Zen meditation Deep-dive – A 10 session practice series

Saturday 20th September, 5.30-6.30pm – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday 20th September, 9am 12.30pm – The Six Healing sounds: Qi gong for Self-Healing & Inner Balance Workshop

17 Oct 2025, 8am-12pm & 21 Nov 2025, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, present moment, primal present, Zen meditation

A Mind of Ease Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Zen Meditation

Not thinking about thinking – A Zen approach to non-conceptual awareness

Post author By Toby
Post date August 18, 2025

“Often, we feel like we must escape our thoughts to get into meditation. Not thinking about thinking turns our thoughts into a doorway to meditation, & a space of calm amidst any inner storm”

Dear Integral Meditators,

One of the deep and abiding pleasures of meditation is that of being able to sit in a state of non-conceptual awareness. One of the reasons people don’t achieve this is because in their minds they think it must be really difficult to achieve, it must be a lot of effort. In reality, achieving non-conceptual awareness is more a matter of trying smarter, rather than trying harder! The article below explores how to start relaxing into the pleasure of non-thinking.

If you enjoy the article, there are many sessions on non-cenceptual meditation coming up that you can join live, online of via the recording; The One Heart Zen open day, The upcoming Zen classes & deep dive sessions, and the Finding your inner-center workshop. Further details via the links.

In the spirit of non-conceptuality,

Toby

Not thinking about thinking – A Zen approach to non-conceptual awareness (AKA cultivating Prajnic awareness)

Non-conceptuality – A central practice for awakening

In the Tibetan school of Buddhism I spent my first decade of meditation training in back in the 1990’s, the main meditation was the meditation on emptiness. A central way of understanding emptiness is that it is simply non-conceptual awareness; the ability to see and be with things as they are, rather than as we think they are. Another word for non-conceptual awareness is ‘prajnic-awareness’,

To give a slightly more rounded sense of the word prajna, here is a quote from the Wikipeida page on it: Prajñā is often translated as “wisdom”, but according to Buddhist bioethics scholar Damien Keown, it is closer in meaning to “insight”, “non-discriminating knowledge”, or “intuitive apprehension”

The meditation on non-conceptual wisdom is a central practice all the Mahayana schools of Buddhism, Tibetan, Japanese Zen, Chinese Chan. So, when we cultivate it, we are cultivating a lineage of meditation that has a long and central role in the practice of awakening and enlightenment! Perhaps more importantly, accessing non-conceptual awareness enables us to find a place of reliable peace and wellbeing amid stress, uncertainty, emotional upheaval and all variety of life challenges. If you make it a part of your experience, you can find the ‘calm amidst the storm’ wherever you are and wherever you go.

Cultivating non-conceptual awareness

One simple trick to start cultivating non-conceptual awareness is to deliberately try and be aware of several things at the same time. For example:

The sky above you
The earth beneath you
Your breathing
The overall sensation of your body

Your senses
Your emotional state
Your thoughts
Awareness itself, or the simple experience of being conscious

You can create your own variations.

Spend a bit of time cultivating an awareness of each domain, getting a feeling for each. Then put them all together and try and be aware of all of them simultaneously. To do this, you have to stop thinking and just be aware. You can’t be aware of 3-4 thigs at the same time AND think about them! So, what this does is it ‘traps’ or ‘tricks’ you into just looking, just being aware. This then gives you a gateway to the actual experience of non-conceptual awareness, or prajnic-awareness. If you do this then you are practising ‘seeing without thinking’, ‘awareness without thoughts’.
If you continue to meditate in this way, then you will start to drop deeper and deeper into non-conceptual awareness (aka consciousness-itself, or emptiness), which is the gateway to realizing the awakened or enlightened state in many of the great wisdom schools of the world.

Not thinking about thinking – A Zen approach to non-conceptual meditation

Another fun ‘meditation game’ you can play is with thoughts themselves. Watch your thoughts. Normally you will notice that you will them have thoughts about the thoughts; judgments, assessments, thoughts on other related subjects etc… So here, the practice is to experience any thought that comes up simply as itself, without thinking or reflecting upon it. Here we are practising turning our conceptual awareness into a doorway to non-conceptual awareness. If that sounds quite Zen and paradoxical, it is because it is!
Normally we feel like we have to escape our thoughts to get into meditation. Not thinking about thinking turns our thoughts into a doorway to meditation and prajnic-awareness. You might think of this as a ‘trick for the wise’, try it in your own practice, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Related reading: Prajna – Seeing things from all angles & none
Non-Dual meditation & Organismic reality

© 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

Saturday 23rd August, 3-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day: Sound of Zen meditation with singing bowls

Saturday 30th August, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, non-conceptual awareness, power of mind, prajna, prajnic meditation, Zen meditation

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Inter-connected or over-connected?

Post author By Toby
Post date July 21, 2025

“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.

Observing interdependence – Inter-connected & supported

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!

© 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 Tuesday & Wednesday’s weekly, 7.30-8.30pm – Embodied Transformation – An integrative introduction to Tantric meditation

Ongoing on Saturdays weekly, 5.30-6.15pm – Embodied Transformation – Saturday Tantric deep-dive meditation sessions

Saturday 16th July, 9am-12.30pm – Breathwork Workshop – Improve physical health, wellbeing & inner peace though deep breathing

Saturday 23rd August, 3-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day: Sound of Zen meditation with singing bowls

Tuesday 2nd & 3rd September, 7.30-8.30pm, & then weekly – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Saturday 20th September, 5.30-6.30pm – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, interconnected, interdependence, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness and technology, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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Mindful of: Your masculine & feminine balance

Post author By Toby
Post date June 30, 2025

“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!

If you are interested in Qi gong then do check out my workshop on Saturday 12th July, 9am-1pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing

In the spirit of your feminine/masculine balance,

Toby

Mindful of: Your masculine & feminine balance

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.

Related articles: The middle way
Polarity meditation – Working consciously with tension

© 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

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

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The Cloud of Unknowing, the ocean of…

Post author By Toby
Post date June 21, 2025

“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!

Also, quick shout out for the beginners meditation workshop on Saturday the 28th June…

In the spirit of clouds & oceans,

Toby

The Cloud of Unknowing, the ocean of sadness

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”.

Our own confusion and dullness can help us to start to awaken to deeper levels of consciousness through the Cloud! You will also find that relaxing into the Cloud also often starts to dissipate the fogginess, and help you return to clarity (without ‘trying’ to).

The Ocean of sadness

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.

Related articles: Darkness emerging as light
Messiness, unlabeling, unknowing
Taking the weight off your chest (Transforming sadness)

© 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