Category: Inner vision

A Mind of Ease Energy Meditation Inner smile & Earth healing Inner vision Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

Mindfulness, emotions & your MRVA’s (Mass rapid value assessments)

Post author By Toby
Post date April 6, 2026

“If we can allow ourselves to skilfully acknowledge & experience difficult emotions, there is a corresponding release of a range of positive, enjoyable emotions.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article focuses on emotions & how you work with them as a major lynch-pin of your energetic resilience. Its something that we will be exploring in depth in the new Wednesday and Saturday meditation series on building confidence & resilience with the inner-smile practice.

In the spirit of integration,

Toby

Mindfulness, emotions & your MRVA’s (Mass rapid value assessments)

In my upcoming meditation series on building confidence and energetic resilience in life, we will be focusing on developing a range of mindful skills, including:

Healing and regenerating the energy of your physical body and internal organs
Revitalise and transform your emotional vitality
Build a warm, empowered & confident relationship to your life

To really get these skills to work effectively, we need to understand the energy of emotions, their power, and how to get them to flow healthily within us. Emotions are psych-somatic, partaking of both our bodily and mental energy. A good relationship to emotions opens our life-force and joie de vivre tremendously. A blocked or combattative relationship to our emotions tends to constrict our life-force, limiting our energy in life no matter how hard we try. Here is a working definition of emotion from Nathaniel Branden, for the purposes of this article

“An emotion is a value-response. It is an automatic psychological result (involving mental and somatic features) of a super-rapid subconscious appraisal. Emotions are psychosomatic embodiments of value judgments…Since emotions are the product of complex integrations of ideas beliefs and experiences, they cannot be commanded out of existence, neither by and act of will or by repression. It is a disastrous error to imagine that an emotion – merely because it is judged undesirable – can be repressed or dismissed with impunity.” *

Emotions happen very quickly then, as our body-mind engages in many ‘Mass rapid value assessments’ (MRVA’s). Once an emotion has been stimulated, it IS, whether we like it or not. So how should we approach it. To quote Branden again:

“If we acknowledge and permit ourselves to experience our painful or undesired feelings, without self-pity, and without self-condemnation, we facilitate the process of healing integration.” *

If we can allow ourselves to skilfully acknowledge and experience difficult emotions, a corollary benefit will be the release of a whole range of positive, enjoyable emotions.

How to acknowledge and experience emotions

A simple way to begin is to sit down, sense into yourself and simply describe the emotions you are feeling. You can either do this organically with whatever is there in the moment, or with regard to a particular emotion you are struggling with. As you do this you will notice there are both bodily and mental aspects to it. My go-to practice for years now has been something called sentence completion. You create a sentence stem, and then complete it, either writing or verbally around ten times, in whatever way occurs to you, as quickly and non-judgmentally as you can.

Here is an example around depression:
If I allow myself to experience and acknowledge the feeling I am calling depression within me –

I feel like there is a huge weight on my shoulders
My eyes stare from hollow sockets
My mouth hangs open like a zombie
I want to sleep for a thousand years
I feel overwhelmed by all the things I have to do
I resent others for leaving me with all the responsibility
I feel confused about what to do next
The world feels like an insurmountable mountain
I can feel myself more present in my body now, landing and feeling stronger
I feel a release and renewed enthusiasm and I move through it

Here you can see that, by the end of the sentence completion I’m already kind of pulling out of the difficult emotion, and moving toward something better. Better still, I have processed the emotion and an now move on from it into the next part of the day in freedom.
All this can sound a bit too good to be true until you actually try it, but once you get the hang of it all sorts of possibilities start to open up!

* Quote: Nat Branden, from ‘the Disowned Self’, chapter on the undiscovered self (Page 27 & 33)

Related reading: Mindfulness around emotions
Accepting & recycling your difficult emotions
Connecting to higher, deeper emotions (Enjoying emotional resilience)

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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 on Saturdays, 5.30-6.45pm SG time – Saturday Integral meditation deep-dive sessions with Toby

Starts Wednesday 8^th April, 7.30-8.30pm, & then ongoing – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Saturday 11^th April, 5.30-6.15pm SG time, & then ongoing – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

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

A Mind of Ease creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Insight Meditation Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Which type of meditator are you? ( & muddy water article)

Post author By Toby
Post date March 30, 2026

“’Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone’. The tricky thing is that with a busy mind, where there is conflicting or competing energies, this is often the last thing that we feel like doing!”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week I’ll be doing a couple of open talks and meditations on the five types of meditators:

Wednesday 1^st April is online only
Saturday 4^th April is Live in person & online

Details and links are below. If you are not able to make the sessions live, but want to have a listen, let me know & I’ll be happy to send the recordings on…

Beneath the session details you can find this weeks artcle on ‘Muddy water – Meditation as waiting, allowing’.

In the spirit of integral meditation,

Toby

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

Read full details…

This week’s article: Muddy water – Meditation as waiting & allowing

Back when I was teaching meditation classes as a monk, we used to use the analogy of muddy water to explain meditation. It is quite well known, and you may have heard of it yourself. It basically says that a busy mind is like muddy water; if you leave it to stand for long enough, the mud will settle and the water becomes clear. There are a couple of ‘sources’ for this analogy:

1. In chapter 15 of the Tao te ching, Lao Tsu refers to it:
“Clear as a glass of water.
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?”

2. It can also be found in the Buddhist sutras, specifically the Surangama sutra, where it says:
“It (meditation) is like purifying muddy water by placing it in a quiet vessel which is kept completely still and unmoving. The sand and silt settle, and the pure water appears. This is called the initial subduing of the guest-dust affliction.”

3. More recently Alan watts refers to it in his teachings in ‘the way of Zen’, where he says “Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone”

The main thing I want to emphasize here is that clarity is achieved through leaving alone and waiting. It is very difficult for us to try to clear our mind in meditation, but the effort itself prevents us from letting the ‘mud’ of our mind settle, and achieve clarity. The clarity is ‘achieved’ essentially by:

Waiting
Watching
Letting alone
Being patient
Doing precisely nothing, the less the better!

So then, you could consider it a perfectly valid meditation practice just to sit down and wait. The key here would be to do nothing else; just sit, wait, relax. The tricky thing is that with a busy mind, where there is conflicting or competing energies, this is often the last thing that we feel like doing! We want to:

Get rid of the conflict
‘Achieve’ clarity
Escape from, not have to face, what is within us
Get it done quickly

All of this makes it quite difficult to do nothing other than wait, watch and allow.

Mastering, or at least getting better at this waiting process in meditation then starts to bleed into our daily life. Where we start to see that we can achieve several things much more easily by waiting and non-doing, rather than striving and getting busy. We start to access the art of Wu-wei, or doing-by-non-doing. This is a way of getting things done that is complementary, not contradictory to our striving and achieving approach. Indeed, it can make our striving and achieving more skilful and relaxed when we realize we don’t have to try quite as hard as we thought. Rather it is a matter of trying smarter rather than trying harder…

Related article: Effortless effort – Making everything workable
Relaxing into, not fighting with your fatigue

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Ongoing weekly on Wednesday – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

Starts Wednesday 8^th April, 7.30-8.30pm, & then ongoing – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Saturday 11^th April, 5.30-6.15pm SG time, & then ongoing – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

Saturday 11^th April, 5.30-6.15pm SG time, & then ongoing – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

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

Energy Meditation Inner smile & Earth healing Inner vision Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation

Mindful of – colour therapy & facial expression

Post author By Toby
Post date March 23, 2026

“Awareness of colour & facial expression are two ways of using mindful attention to improve your mood and energy with very little effort. You just need to remember them & return to them often”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article focuses on working with colour & facial expression, both powerful, enjoyable methods for enhancing mood & energy.

If you enjoy it, then do have a look at this Saturdays workshop, that looks at this subject in depth:
Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & Earth Healing meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life, as well as the class & deep-dive series following on from it.

In the spirit of living-in-colour,

Toby

Mindful of – colour therapy & facial expression

The two ‘mindful positions’ that we explore in this article are:

The energetics of colour, and tuning into the colour you need right now
The expression on your face, and working with what it is communicating

What colour does my body need?

If you have ever drawn or painted with colours, you might have noticed that concentrating on colour can feel great. After an hour of working with a green, blue and yellow landscape picture, you can really feel how these colours make you feel relaxed, calm and energised, even if you aren’t a great artist.
Similarly, if you go outside and just notice the colours in the landscape around you, you will notice that certain colours feel great to just stare at, absorb the energy of and relax.
On a slightly deeper level, if you ask yourself the question what coulor does my body energy need right now to move toward balance? Quite quickly you will notice your body intelligence will suggest a colour to surround yourself with.

If it needs energy it may move toward oranges or reds
If it needs lifting, it might move towards yellows
If it needs balancing and harmonizing, it might move toward greens
For calmness blues, and so on…

You can then just imagine yourself surrounded by that colour and let your body-mind absorb it, with often rapid effect. You might feel also that the colour has a ‘sound’ or vibration, which you can enjoy too.

Variation: You can imagine a point of energy in your belly, heart, and head. Ask each of these areas of your body what colour it needs. Breathe each of these colours into the particular area of the body, building that colour vibration there. You will get to know what colours work for you powerfully very quickly if you do this.

Your facial expression

The expression on your face communicates how you are feeling, but often we are unaware of it. If you are on a commute, and look at people’s faces, you will see this quite clearly!
If you become aware of your face, and notice tension, stress or a bad mood there, here are three stages you can try:

Notice the expression and the mood it embodies. Accept it, even exaggerate the expression a little to really get a feeling for what is there
Next, relax your face, release the expression, move your face toward a calm, neutral position, enjoy it
Third, raise the corners of your mouth a little, so that your face is in the position of a half-smile. Feel the gentle joy and radiance of this expression, let it spread from your face into your body, and any parts of your body-mind that might need a bit of warmth and support.

There you go, two ways of playing with your attention to improve your mood and energy with very little effort. It’s just something that you need to come back to often and put to use!

Related reading: Mindfulness, beauty & slowing the effects of ageing
Your Emotional Colour Palette
Practical dimensions of chakra meditation
Inner smile meditation
What your body posture communicates to you

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Ongoing weekly on Wednesday – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & Earth Healing meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

Starts Wednesday 8^th April, 7.30-8.30pm, & then ongoing – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Saturday 11^th April, 5.30-6.15pm SG time, & then ongoing – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

Tags inner smile

Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Enlightened service Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Primal Spirituality Qi gong Tree of Life Tree of Yoga Zen Meditation

Healing thru the Earth, & Earth-as-Self

Post author By Toby
Post date March 9, 2026

“Release the weight & burdens of your life downwards into the Earth. She in turn receives it, taking it into her body, where it can be recycled & renewed”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at ways of relating to the Earth that are healing & regenerative, as well as them relating to ourselves AS the Earth, which can lead us to developing unusual inner strength & independence.

If you enjoy the article, we will be doing a related meditation in this week’s Wednesday & Saturday meditations, you would be welcome to join!

Finally, heads up for the Spring Equinox balancing & renewing meditation on the 18th & 21st March!

In the spirit of resilient identity,

Toby

Healing thru the Earth, & Earth-as-Self

Experience yourself sitting or standing on the Earth. Feel her body beneath you. Feel your body as a part of here body, which of course it is. Imagine your body sinking a few centimeters into the floor, so that you feel like your body and the Earth are connecting energetically. Feel her energy supporting you from below.

Releasing the wounds of adulthood

In the state described above, spend some time getting in touch with the emotional wounds, burdens, and trials of your life. Sense how they turn up in your body and your body energy. As you breathe in, feel yourself getting in touch with the weight of these wounds. As you breathe out, feel yourself releasing them downwards into the Earth. She in turn receives this wounded energy, taking it into her body, where it can be recycled and renewed.

Receiving regenerative energy

Now sense downward into the Earth, and feel her energy rising into your body, flowing in particular into the areas of your body that carried the emotional wounds, the fatigue, the world-weariness that you released downwards previously. Feel these areas of your body becoming renewed and strengthened. Spend some time relaxing with this experience.

The Earth-as-Self

Experiencing your connection to the Earth, reflect upon how your body and energy came from her, and is a part of her.

Your body came from your parents bodes, the bodies of all humans come from the Earth
Every time you eat, you take the body of the earth into yourself, her body becomes your body

You are like a leaf, the Earth is the tree. The bigger identity of the leaf is the Tree. You are the Earth!

Imagine your sense of your body expanding outwards, becoming the size of the room that you are in, or the landscape around you. Experience your body as the whole room, and or as the whole landscape around you.
Feel roots growing down from your body into the Earth, filling it. Feel your energy moving down and expanding into the Earth. Feel your massiveness, stability, and solidity. You are the Earth, the Earth is you.

From this position of Earth-as-self, having renewed yourself through the Earth, turn and inwardly face your life, and your life challenges. Feel your strength, equanimity, and compassion. Connect to the new beginning in each moment from this position of calm, resourced Earth-strength-that-you-are. Go and meet your life.

Standing on your own feet

ADULTHOOD, by Anthony De Mello

To a disciple who was always at his prayers the Master said, “When will you stop
leaning on God and stand on your own two feet?”
The disciple was astonished. “But you are the one who taught us to look on God as
Father!”
“When will you learn that a father isn’t someone you can lean on but someone who
rids you of your tendency to lean?”

Related article: Yin stability – Mother Earth meditation
Born from life, not into it
Connecting to your Big Mind

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Date for your diaries:

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

Ongoing weekly on Wednesday – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Wednesday 18th (7.30pm) & Saturday 21st (5.30pm) March – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation

Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & energy balls meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

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

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Energy Meditation Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Primal Spirituality Qi gong Tree of Life

Yin stability – Mother Earth meditation (& new Gaia trance sound-tech track)

Post author By Toby
Post date March 7, 2026

“Experience yourself in an interactive, friendly communion with the Earth, where you feel gratitude and receive sustenance from her, and she in turn enjoys the connection with you”

Dear Integral Meditators,

It has been a fast-moving 2026 so far, both in terms of daily life and in terms of world events! Obviously, meditation and mindfulness are a pillar of how I build capacity to hold space for stress in my life. In my article below I outline a simple meditation for connecting to the Earth that can be done anytime.

Beneath the article is some information on a new track from IAwake technologies called Gaia Trance. I’ve been working with their sound technology since about 2011, and I have found it to be extremely useful. Gaia Trance is a great track collection for attuning to the energies of the Earth, and I’ve been enjoying the effects of listening to it. It is on special offer for the next few days, so if your curious, this could be a good opportunity for you to try it out!

In the spirit of Earth connection,

Toby

Yin stability – Mother Earth meditation (& new Gaia trance sound-tech track)

Looking for stability, calm, coolness? Look no further than below

You can do this exercise either sitting on a chair, or standing in the traditional qi gong horse stance, with knees slightly bent and feet about a shoulders-width apart. Place your hands down, about 10cm from the sides of your hips, palms pulled up so that they are facing the ground.
Breathing nose to belly, start to sense downward with your mind, focusing particularly on the soles for the feet, and the palms of the hands. Move your awareness down into the Earth, sensing her gentle life-force. Imagine your feet sinking down a few centimetres into the floor, so that your body & the body of Mother Earth are connecting more deeply.
Feel the energy of the Earth flowing up into your feet and the palms of your hands.

The energy flowing up from your feet flows into your perineum, lower belly, at the back towards the kidneys, at the front of the belly, to the area just behind the navel
The energy flowing up from your hands flows through the arms into your heart, spreading out from there

You might sense and feel the Earth energy as being golden or blue (or another colour), or you may just feel it as primarily a sensation. Let the Earth energy cool, balance and relax any stressed areas in your body. If you feel the need, you can also send any difficult energy in your body down into the earth, where it can be ‘recycled,’ a bit like compost(!) You can send this energy through your feet or out through the palms and fingers.

Let the energy from the Earth go to wherever it needs to go in your body to effect healing and balancing.

If you like you can imagine yourself growing roots down into the Earth, so that you feel grounded and stable, like a tree (see my article on ‘Standing like a tree’).

Try and experience yourself in an interactive, friendly communion with the Earth, where you feel gratitude and receive sustenance from her, and she in turn enjoys the connection with you.

Towards the end of the practice, feel the Earth qi or energy in your body gathering as a ball of luminous light behind your belly button, a few centimetres behind your navel. If you like you can place the palm of one hand over your belly as you do this.

Related article: Tired of being tired – Relaxing into, not fighting with your fatigue

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

From I-Awake: We wanted to let you know about our upcoming release, Gaia Trance: An Ecstatic Resonance with the Living Earth, developed by iAwake’s remarkable friend and colleague, Nadja Lind.
Here’s the story behind Gaia Trance from Nadja:
“There have been times when I felt completely disconnected—my nervous system fried, my body in pain, my mind heavy from PTSD symptoms. In those moments, these neuro-acoustic tracks became my lifeline. Not just to calm me, but to shift me—instantly. From shutdown to clarity. From overwhelm to relief. From numbness to joy. Real joy. And to this day, it still amazes me how effortlessly these tracks work their magic—every single time.”

Gaia Trance will retail at $37. We will introduce Gaia Trance with a limited time offer of 20% OFF ($29.60) from March 5th – 12th only.
Here is more information about this latest release:
Drift into spaces shaped by water, tropical birds, a golden shimmer, and a gentle tribal didgeridoo beat that pulls you forward in waves—rising, expanding, softening—before easing you into a quieter descent. The embedded frequencies sit underneath this flow, with alpha and theta guiding the journey and delta settling in more gently toward the end.

Enter a hypnotic earth trance carried by primal resonance, subtle rhythm, and flowing natural textures
Elevate your consciousness immersed in a finely layered soundscape of live didgeridoo, water, and tropical birds, gently progressing from alpha to theta to delta frequencies

Feel grounded, expanded, and calmly renewed as the journey settles into a soft, restorative descent

Ongoing weekly on Wednesday – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

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

Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Zen Meditation

The mind waving at itself & the Ocean-ness of consciousness

Post author By Toby
Post date February 9, 2026

“Observing mind-waves helps us to relate to thoughts in a different, free-er way than our normal, or conditioned perception allows”

Dear Integral Meditators,

All day your mind is waving at you, what does this mean? Find out in the article below! If you enjoy it, we will be exploring these methods in both the weekday (Weds eve) and Saturday sessions this week. You are invited!

If you are interested in Qi gong, do check out the Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing that I will be facilitating on the 28th Feb.

In the spirit of mind-waves,

Toby

The mind waving at itself & the Ocean-ness of consciousness

The ocean waves, the mind thinks

In Zen there is an expression; ‘the mind-waves’. Mind-waves is a term that helps us to relate to thoughts in a different way than we usually do. Our normal, or conditioned way of relating to thoughts is something like:

I am having thoughts – the thoughts are inside me; I am the possessor of the thoughts, the thoughts are the possessed object
I am identified with the thoughts – my identity has fused with the thoughts, to the extent that my sense of self has been reduced in the moment to this current train of thought

In meditation we can think of the mind, or consciousness as an ocean. The ocean is a vast body whose nature is water. Our mind is a vast containing space whose nature is awareness. The ocean ‘waves’, the currents and the wind produce waves on the surface of the water. The ocean and the waves are not two separate things; its is the nature of the ocean to ‘wave’ and the waves all have the nature of ‘ocean’.
Similarly, the currents in our mind and consciousness produce ‘thoughts’. It is the nature of the mind to ‘thought’ and the thoughts have the nature of the mind.

Practising: The mind waving to itself

Armed with our image then, we can start to watch our mind where we watch the mind ‘waving’ to itself. We notice that in the ‘ocean-field’ of our consciousness, there are thoughts coming and going. To get an initial feel for it you can use this method from my previous article:

“Use the body and breathing as an anchor for your attention. If you think about your attention as like a boat, and your thoughts and feelings as being like the waves, wind and other moving conditions around the boat. Your body and senses then become like the anchor that keeps the boat in one place. You don’t even need to try too hard still your mind and feelings. Just keep coming back to the anchor of your body, and you’ll find this gives you the basic ‘weight’ and stability for a sense of calm to start to come into your mind”

Once you feel relatively stable using this method, you can then simply practice watching the thoughts arising from your mind, like waves arising from the sea. You watch the mind ‘waving’ to itself, recognising the thoughts are a particular expression of the unlimited, oceanic nature of your own mind, or root-consciousness

Mind-waving and zones of the body

It can be interesting and informative to watch the waves of your mind whilst anchoring your attention at different levels of your physical body:

If you watch centered in your head, you will notice the mind-waves are more cognitive in nature
If you watch centered in your heart-centre, you will notice the mind-waves are more emotive in nature
If you watch centered in your belly, you will notice the mind-waves are more instinctual in nature

Watching from any of these levels, the watching of the waves should then lead to a capacity to relax into the nature of the mind itself; our formless timeless ‘Ocean-of-consciousness’. This is great for relaxation of you are a recreational meditator. If you are a professional, or more serious meditator then wave-watching is a great way to relate and connect to your already-awakened nature, and experience yourself as that.

Related reading:
Effortless wholeness – The ocean & it’s wave; not one, not two
Riding the Waves of the Mind
The sea snakes of the mind
A bag of rats & a big meadow (tactics or strategy?)

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Tues 13^th, Weds 14^th January, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Saturday 28th February, 9am-1pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing

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

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Stress Transformation Zen Meditation

A bag of rats & a big meadow (tactics or strategy?)

Post author By Toby
Post date February 3, 2026

“When you practice the ‘sheep in the meadow’ form of awareness, you can keep your attention on your ‘bigger Why’s,’ accepting the small obstacles that you encounter on the way toward your larger goals”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week I outline two images to help you refine and develop your awareness in a way that can significantly transform your daily experience. If you enjoy it, we will be exploring these methods in both the weekday (Tues&Weds) and Saturday sessions this week. You are invited!

If you are interested in Qi gong, do check out the Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing that I will be facilitating on the 28th Feb.

In the spirit of the meadow mind,

Toby

A bag of rats & a big meadow (tactics or strategy?)

This article explains what is essentially a perspective shift that changes your relationship to your thoughts, and how you experience them. It looks at how we can create an inner space for ourselves that contains a lot more acceptance and allowing. We will then look at some other applications of this principle in daily life.

The bag of rats – Your everyday ‘small’ mind

Imagine you are a rat in a dark sack. There are several other rats inside. It is dark, hot, and claustrophobic. You feel agitated by the rats around you, they in turn feel agitated by you. You have a very limited sense of where you are and what is happening to you, it is all close-up, friction-loaded and conducive to irritation, even paranoia.
In everyday life our mind can feel a bit like this bag of rats. It feels trapped inside our body. Often, we feel trapped in an even smaller space, the one between our ears, inside our skull! There are many thoughts about many things in this small space, bumping into each other, creating friction as they rub-up against the thoughts next to them. A lot of feelings and emotions are created from this rubbing. It is difficult to know which feelings come from which thoughts, and what emotional state came from where. It’s difficult not to get confused, to difficult to see our life clearly.
When your mind is like a bag of rats, life naturally feels a bit tough and contentious. States like acceptance, flow, curiosity come at a premium and are difficult to maintain.

The open meadow – Making your mind bigger

“To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him” – Shunryu Suzuki

The quote from Suzuki above refers both to the method to control one’s mind, but also an approach to working with other people, and with experiences in our life. In terms of mind-training and meditation, this instruction stands in contrast to the ‘rats in the bag’ image from the first section. When sitting with the thoughts in your mind, rather than trying to control them, stop them or ‘fix’ them, you simply make your mind and awareness bigger, like a large open meadow. Rather than having your thoughts ‘in your head’ like rats in a bag, you make your mind big, with the thoughts like sheep in a big, spacious meadow. In such an environment an animal will tend to simply wonder off, find its place in the field and be content. So, when you make your awareness big, you can sit there watching the thoughts without being so bothered by them, and they in turn tend to gradually return to equilibrium, without you having to work that hard to control or fix them.

The movement from tactics, and making room for your ‘Big Why’

When your experience of your mind is of the ‘rats in the bag’ type, it is difficult to keep perspective. Everything that you are doing tends to be tactical, small picture, just dealing with what is right in front of you. When you practice the ‘sheep in the meadow’ form of awareness, you can keep things more in perspective. You can ‘choose your battles’. You can keep your attention on your ‘bigger Why’s’, accepting the small obstacles that you encounter on the way toward your broader goals.

Enjoy the meadow!

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindful resilience, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, Zen

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral meditation training pages meditation and creativity Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Qi gong Zen Meditation

Not two, not one – The unified body-mind & brain illumination

Post author By Toby
Post date January 20, 2026

“The body-mind are not one, not two, & also both one & two. If you just read these words, it can seem either complex or non-sensical. However, when you actually DO it in meditation, it is quite simple!”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article has several aspects to it, including recordings that you can listen to to experience the meditations. If you don’t have time for all the material, just focus on the first section ‘Not one, not two – The integrated, or unified body-mind’, and enjoy digesting that!

If you enjoy the article, we will be exploring these subjects in both the weekday (Tues&Weds) and Saturday sessions this week.

And final call for this Saturday’s Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy!

In the spirit of not one, not two,

Toby

Not two, not one – The unified body-mind & brain illumination

This article looks at creating a combination of Zen and energy meditation techniques, putting them together in a complementary, mutually enhancing way.

Not one, not two – The integrated, or unified body-mind

The first position is a Zen meditation on the unified body-mind. The basis of this meditation is explained very succinctly in this quote from Shunryu Suzuki, from his book Zen mind beginners mind:

“Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong. If you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. We usually think that if something is not one, it is more than one; if it is not singular it is plural. But in actual experience, our life is not only plural, it is singular. Each one of us is both dependent and independent”

Normally in everyday life it feels like our mind and body are separate. Our body is doing one thing whilst our mind is thinking about something else. Often it feels as if our mind is the ‘owner’ and operator of the body. Either way they feel like two things. When we sit in meditation focusing on the body and breath, the temporary cessation of thoughts brings the mind and body together in a unity, or singularity. We experience a unified body-mind, it feels like they are one. In reality, the body mind are not one or two, they are as they are. We can explore this ‘not one-not two’ experience in meditation, using it as a gateway to experiencing our body-mind as they are, in the present moment, not one, not two, and also both one and two.
This meditation by itself is a great way to move beyond conceptual awareness, using the apparent paradox presented. If you just read the words above, it can seem either complex or non-sensical. However, when you actually DO it in meditation, it is really quite simple!

Practice the unified body-mind 10-minute meditation recording

Brain energy activation microcosmic orbit meditation, basic mindful positions

Position 1: Connecting to our light body, or energy body,
Position 2: Visualizing the microcosmic orbit within our energy body, focusing on activating the energy centre within the perineum and coccyx
Position 3: Practicing circulating energy within the M-O, from the perineum and coxyx up to the base of the skull, crown and third eye centers to activate and illuminate the brain.
Position 4: Circulating the energy up the back & down the front of the body. More generally for integration.
Position 4: Pausing the flow of the microcosmic orbit, breathing in and out of our navel/belly area. Letting the energy go to an area of our body that needs healing or energizing.

Practice the microcosmic orbit 12-minute brain activation meditation

If you practice both techniques in combination, the effect is designed to be that:

Your unified body-mind meditation helps you establish a solid based
The brain illumination practice enables you to refine and brighten your consciousness to then go deeper into the unified body-mind state
And so on in a virtuous cycle

Finally, here is a ten-minute combination form that puts them together in a shorter format.

Enjoy!

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Tues 13^th, Weds 14^th January, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Saturday 24th January, 9.00am-12.30pm – Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy

Tags brain illumination, inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, microcosmic orbit, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, Zen meditation

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Foundational beginners mind/energy resilience practice with guided meditation

Post author By Toby
Post date January 12, 2026

Dear Integral Meditators,

The Beginners mind, resilient body integral meditation courses start this week!

The article below outlines the basic practices, and links to two guided meditations that you can have a listen to. I’ve been enjoying my own practice preparing for these sessions, you might find participating is just the thing to get your 2026 going from good to great!

In the spirit of new beginnings,

Toby

Foundational beginners mind/energy resilience practice with guided meditation

This article outlines the basic forms of two meditations:

The beginners mind meditation,
and the microcosmic orbit meditation.

These are the two meditations that we will be exploring in the ‘Beginners mind, resilient body’ meditation programs’. There are then two short, 10minute meditations that you can use to get some experience of both practices.

Here are two quotes that communicate something of the essential meaning and benefit of each meditation style.

Beginners mind: “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki from the book ‘Zen mind, beginner’s mind.’

Microcosmic orbit: “When we do not know how to conserve, recycle and transform our internal force, our energy consumption becomes as inefficient as a car that only goes at 5miles per gallon…. By practicing the M-O meditation, we can get in touch with our energy-flow and locate weak spots in its path, so that we can correct them. This helps us to use our life-force more efficiently and achieve better internal ‘milage’.” – Mantak Chia, from the book ‘Awaken healing light.’

Basic descriptions, & guided meditations

With the both basic descriptions, you can see links to more detailed articles embedded. The recording links are at the end of each description.

Beginners mind basic ‘mindful positions:

Position 1: Establishing stable meditation posture & breath, sitting between the two trees, being present, not lost in thought, not falling asleep.
Position 2: Meditating on the two Soto Zen principles:

Sitting meditation and awakening are not two different things
One must not wait for awakening

Position 3: Recognizing each moment as a new beginning

Practice the 10minute beginners mind meditation with the recording

Microcosmic orbit basic mindful positions

Position 1: Connecting to our light body, or energy body,
Position 2: Visualizing the microcosmic orbit within our energy body
Position 3: Practicing circulating energy within the M-O, up the back & down the front of the body. Noticing areas of the orbit that feel open and areas that feel closed
Position 4: Pausing the flow of the MO, letting the energy go to an area of our body that needs healing or energizing

Practice the 12miute basic microcosmic orbit meditation with the recording.

Initially, you can practice them individually to get a feel for the process. What I like to do, and what I teach in the Beginners mind, resilient body programs, is to then combine them together. So, you can listen to the beginner’s mind first, and then do the microcosmic orbit practice after. You’ll find that:

With a relaxed, open beginners mind, you can open to the energy flow in your body, when you do the microcosmic orbit practice.
When you do the microcosmic orbit practice, this helps to feel alert and balanced which makes your beginners mind more accessible.

You can also put them together in different ways, for example you might do the beginners mind in the morning, and the microcosmic orbit in the evening; not all at once, but doing both in the same day. It’s up to you to find a combination that works for you and your schedule.

An integration recording

Once you have some familiarity with the ten-minute guided meditations above, you can try this:

Beginners mind + Microcosmic orbit 10minute integration form

Enjoy!

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Tues 13^th, Weds 14^th January, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Tags beginners mind, inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, microcosmic orbit meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, resilience meditation

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From ‘life is a problem and…’ to ‘life is good and…’

Post author By Toby
Post date December 8, 2025

“Meditation is developing our capacity to generate happiness within & project it outward, rather than needing outer circumstances to align before we can be happy”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article explains a fundamental paradigm for how meditation works that I use often in my workshops and sessions. Once you ‘get it’ its easy to stay motivated in your meditation practice!

Heads up for this Saturday’s Saturday 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop, & also I have just posted the new class series’ for January:
Tues 13^th, Weds 14^th January, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course
Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

In the spirit of ‘life is good and…’,

Toby

Article: From ‘life is a problem and…’ to ‘life is good and…’

One definition of meditation that I learned from my Tibetan Buddhist days is this one:

“Meditation means to focus our attention on an object (or in a state) that, when we dwell on it, causes our mind to become positive, calm and/or happy.”

The task of a meditator from this point of view is to discover as many ‘positive’ states, ways of thinking, ways of non-thinking, emotions, temperaments, dispositions and so on as they can. A meditator then tries to keep her attention oriented around one or other of these positive objects or states during the day. The net effect of this is that they spend most of their life in a condition of happiness, even in the face of substantial obstacles. To be a meditator is empowering in this sense, because we are developing our capacity to generate happiness within ourselves and project it outward, rather than needing outer circumstances to align before we can be happy.

From life is a problem to life is good

One simple paradigm I often use to illustrate the basic task and practice of a meditator is the one that you can see in the picture. Both oval shapes represent a person’s field of awareness.

Life is a problem and… The upper circle represents the everyday persons awareness field. In it you can see in the center there is a ‘P’ which stands for problem. On the edge of the circle, you can see several small ‘g’s, which represent the good things in our life. Unless we are careful, this is a place where we can spend a lot of our day and life; with our problems front and center of our awareness, and the good things in our life a secondary, background element of experience. With this perceptual dynamic or habit in place we literally experience our life as mostly a problem, as it is our problems that appear front and center of our awareness. This position can feel very defensive; our problems dominate, and the good things lack power due to their peripheral position.

What we are trying to do as meditators is ‘flip’ this so that our perceptual state goes from ‘life is a problem and…’ to:

Life is good and… the lower circle you can see has a ‘G’ for good things in the center, with the ‘p’ for problems pushed out to the periphery. Here you are simply keeping the good things in your life front and center of your awareness as you go through the day. You can understand ‘good things’ to represent a broad category here, that you are then making specific to your particular life experience. Because we keep the good things front and center, the power of our problems to dominate our awareness reduces as they are pushed out to the periphery.
An important thing to note here is that the change is perceptual, nothing external needs to change for us to do this. The difference between someone with the ‘P’ mostly front and center of awareness, and someone with a ‘G’ is the habit and discipline of focusing awareness in a particular way. You could have two people with almost identical life-circumstances, but a completely different experience simply due to their habit of focus. When we push the ‘p’s out to the periphery, we are not denying our problems, or the need to deal with them effectively. We are just placing them in a particular context, the ‘G’s, in a way that puts them in perspective and makes them feel much more manageable

A simple practicum: Set aside a fixed amount of time, say 5-10mins. Watch your awareness. Notice the ‘P’s often taking center-stage. Practice placing your ‘G’s front and center instead, pushing the ‘p’s benevolently to the periphery. Notice how your experience changes, and enjoy.

Related article: Meditation – Life as a positive mindfulness game
© 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 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Tues 13^th, Weds 14^th January, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

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