Category: Inner vision

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Biographical Enlightened Flow Enlightened service Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Mindful Self-Leadership

Enlightenment and the Call to Awakened Creativity

Dear Integral Meditators,

Those of you in Asia I hope you had a nice holiday yesterday as Wesak, or Buddhas birthday was celebrated. The article below is the result of my own reflections on the creative process of enlightenment, thinking about the Buddha in particular.

Yours mindfully and creatively,

Toby

Enlightenment and the Call to Awakened Creativity

I’m writing this article on Wesak day, or Buddha’s birthday, and the occasion has helped me to have a go at expressing something that has been on my mind for a little while which is basically this; The great enlightened leaders of different eras for example Buddha, the Christ, Krishna responded to their experience of spiritual enlightenment with courageous creative acts of worldly innovation.

For example one of the things that the Buddha did was to create whole new class of citizen. Back in India 600BC as a man you had three options; either you were of the class of nobleman, or the warrior class or the servant/slave class. If you were in the tiny minority of noblemen, then life would have been good, but if you were a warrior or a slave you really were not operating with much freedom. If you were a woman the choices were correspondingly limited.
So what the Buddha did was to create a new class of citizen – the ordained Sangha – or community of monks and nuns who were essentially able to side step the three class options and live peacefully, supported by laypeople and focus on getting enlightened themselves and being of service to the community at large. It is difficult for us to appreciate fully today what an amazing act of social innovation this was on the part of the Buddha, as today we live in a very different society where, relatively speaking we have very different freedoms and limitations. At the time of the Buddha many, many men and women were socially liberated in the way through the creative this creative act of Buddha.

So then, the interesting thing to me is that while the truly great enlightened people and leaders innovate and act with dynamic creativity, the people that follow them mainly seem just to seek to follow the rules that got set down after their death – they do not seem to feel the imperative to act creatively, to take chances, to innovate, to respond to the genuine organic needs of their life and times.

To become spiritually enlightened means basically this; to be interested in developing your consciousness and to be focused on the process of seeing and integrating your inner and outer reality as clearly and courageously as you can. Spiritual enlightenment is a process with many levels of unfolding. I’m at a certain level of spiritual development; you are at a certain level of development. At each level I believe we have a responsibility not just to gain insight into our reality, but also to respond to that insight with action and creativity. This means to be taking active responsibility for expressing your own enlightenment (on whatever level you are at) in your life. Very often that will mean taking a chance, engaging in something a little experimental.

The main thing is that you get in the habit of expressing your enlightened creativity now, today, at least a little.

Happy Wesak day!

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Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

The Benefits of Simplicity

Dear Integral Meditators,

Every now and again I write an article that I like right from the moment of completion. The one on simplicity below is one of them. The practice of mindful simplicity is one that helps us to become more effective at dealing with the ever increasing complexity of our daily lives; by becoming simpler we gain the strength to approach complexity with enthusiasm and resilience.

How to find regeneration through simplicity is the first of the practices that I will be teaching in the  Mindful Self-leadership workshop on Sunday the 18th of May, you can click on the link to read more about that, and to listen to a 45 minute free preview talk and meditation on mindful self-leadership.

Yours in the spirit of simplicity,
Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia:

Mindful Self-Leadership: Taking Control of Your Life Direction and Wellbeing Through Awareness, Curiosity, Courage and Care

Sunday  May 18th – Mindful Self-Leadership Three Hour Workshop
Thursday 22nd May – Five Module Online Mindful Self-Leadership Course Begins

Click on the link for full details!
 

The Benefits of Simplicity

One definition of meditation is an activity that tends towards singularity and away from diversity.
Another way of putting this is that meditation can be any activity, accompanied by solid states of mindfulness and awareness, that moves towards simplicity and away from complexity.
So what are the benefits of abiding in a state of mindful simplicity? Here are a few:

  • Your body-mind moves from a state of energy expenditure to a state of energy regeneration and renewal
  • By making your mind and activity regularly simpler, you actually enhance your capacity to deal with the complexity of your daily life more adequately and competently
  • With the clarity that comes from simplicity your natural intelligence is able to function better, both in terms of rational and intuitive problem solving
  • It is easier to access positive states of mind such as appreciation and enjoyment
  • You gain greater wisdom and perspective on your life as you step back from it and temporarily disengage
  • You have the opportunity to become aware of deeper levels of motivation and desire within yourself that are revealed only when your everyday business is reduced
  • You gain the strength and presence of mind to do what you need to do in the longhaul of your life (not just the short term) to lead yourself to the fulfilment of your deepest desires.

Creating a state of mindful simplicity
The great thing about simplicity is that it can be cultivated any time you have a gap in your life. It just means creating a space where you are cutting down on the amount of activity and busyness. For example:

You could go for a walk where the aim is to go slowly and mindfully, to not think about the future, simply to enjoy the moment
You could choose to sit on you office chair for five minutes and simply not engage in any tasks, just come back to your body and breathing
You could choose not to fill an afternoon on your weekend with activities, but rather just allow that time to be focused on keeping things as simple and reflective as possible.

Mindful simplicity is available to you every day if you want it to be. If you know the benefits, then what are you waiting for? Create some space for mindful simplicity each day.

Want some more tangible ideas for mindful simplicity?
Check out these previous articles:
Four Zen Meditations
Dropping Your Conceptual Leaves
Small Focused Mind, Big, Open Mind
Fundamental Zen Sitting Meditation Forms

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

Looking for some help to create a space of simplicity in your life? Try these bio-field  tracks from I-Awake:Audio Serenity
Beginners Mind
Harmonic Resonance Meditation
Meditative Ocean

Healing Light
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Enlightened Flow Essential Spirituality Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership

Enlightened Imperfection

Dear Integral Meditators,

Are you on a quest for enlightened perfection? This weeks Integral Meditations article explores what enlightened perfection looks like (or doesn’t look like) and how we can start to use it to embrace our own imperfection and the imperfection of the world.
It is kind of a complementary take to the midweek article on “That Which Solves All Your Problems and None“.

Yours in the spirit of the perfectly imperfect,

Toby
 

Enlightened Imperfection

There is a lot of confusion around the idea of perfection and enlightenment. Many people seem to think that, when you attain a ‘spiritual’ enlightenment you become in some way perfect. Actually, what the realization of enlightenment points out is that there is a part of ourself that is already perfect, they always have been and always will be.

When we realize enlightenment we also realize that all things including ourself are totally imperfect and not just that, they always will be.

Let me explain what I mean, starting with what spiritual enlightenment is. There are three domains or aspects of our moment to moment experience:

  1. Our outer physical and sensory experience
  2. Our inner mental experience based around thoughts and images
  3. The experience of awareness itself which is the formless timeless ‘ground’ upon which the rest of our outer and inner experience is based.

To become spiritually enlightened means to gain practical experience of this third domain of formless timeless awareness, and base our core identity around this experience. Thus, enlightenment has nothing to do with what one believes or philosophizes about, and everything to do with what one discovers through meditation and other related practical methods of investigating our moment to moment experience.

In the state of formless timeless awareness (that is number 3 of the above list) there is perfection and only perfection. This is because in such a state of no-form and no-time there is no-thing that could possibly be imperfect. It is the dimension of each moment of our experience that is perfect, pristine, and flawless. You could be blind drunk, be in the middle of nuclear war or have just married to the person of our dreams, it doesn’t matter; the part of that moment that is simply formless timeless awareness is perfect and always will be.

Classical spiritual enlightenment is a discovery you make about this pristine, formless, timeless state that is already there. You don’t create it, you discover it, and it is absolutely perfect.

As for the rest of you, your life, and the rest of the world, it is completely imperfect. Not just that, it always will be. In the physical world and in the world of our everyday mind there is always imperfection, there will always be difficulties, there is no point of final perfection; there is just a changeable present and future extending to the end of our life, to future generations and to infinity.

To be enlightened is to stop looking for perfection in your life, because you understand that it is already there.

To be enlightened is also to commit to responding to the dance of imperfection in your life in the best way you can with curiosity, courage and care. It means not being afraid to make mistakes, to be vulnerable, and to occasionally and when necessary be seen as a bit of a fool.

Enlightened perfection is not something that you can achieve, it is something that you come to know and recognize. From this space of ‘already perfect’ the challenge is then to launch yourself into the imperfection that will always be there, and commit to making it better.

Over the next week or so if you want to start working with this idea, you can try this:
Simply focus on the statement ‘Everything is already perfect’. Allow your mind to rest in this recognition for as long as you wish. Just relax, let go and feel your way into a space of timeless awareness where everything is always perfect, immutable, pristine. Allow yourself to regenerate your energies in that space.
Now bring your attention back to yourself, back to your world, back to the endless beautiful and tragic imperfection. Now smile to yourself, open to your imperfect reality and commit to participating in the most enlightened way you can.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

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creative imagery Enlightened Flow Enlightened love and loving Enlightened service Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

That Which Solves All Your Problems and None

Dear Integral Meditators,

All of us crave a final solution to all our problems, a place where we can go and find true peace. The good news is that such a solution it always available to us in each moment.  The challenge is that after we have solved all our problems in this way, we still have to solve all our problems. You’ll see what I mean below.

I’ll be doing a free talk on Mindful Self-Leadership on the 4th May, full information can be found HERE.

Yours in the spirit of problem solving,

Toby

That Which Solves All Your Problems and None

One of the fundamental insights from the enlightenment experience induced by meditation is that, behind every tangible experience that we have there is an experience of formless, timeless awareness which embraces, enables and transcends that experience.

The interesting thing is that, whereas the experience itself may give rise to pleasure and pain, dilemmas, anxiety, elation, depression etc, this formless timeless dimension that lies behind the experience is simply and continuously present to what is arising, witnessing what is going on with both benevolent intimacy and (to our perception), terrifying indifference.

Whereas I, Toby as a body-mind am a distinct person on a personal (hopefully developmental) journey through life, the part of me that is simply formless timeless awareness is already at the destination to that journey, and at the same time has never begun that journey in the first place.

Whilst the Toby in this world works to develop a business, become a better, kinder person, work off the weight that the Easter eggs have put on his waist line, sets goals, suffers, and has successes, the formless timeless Toby has no ambition to develop or to achieve because from its perspective everything has been achieved already, and ultimately there was no-thing to achieve in the first place.

While the Toby in time and space craves resolution to his problems, anxieties and dilemmas, as well as the fulfillment of his deepest wishes, the transcendent Toby has no problems, and even if he did (which he doesn’t) they would be solved instantly in the experience of the timeless present.

So, as I think you can start to see spiritual enlightenment, that is a living connection to the formless, timeless, ever present dimension of reality solves all of our problems ultimately, but in the mean time it solves none of them at all! We are still challenged to face off with our challenges in time and space each day with curiosity, courage and care, and do the best we can.

There is no doubt that many people come to meditation and spirituality as a means of escaping from a seemingly intractable, chaotic and painful world, and it is an easy trap to fall into. I however like to think of the peaceful, problemless space of the timeless present as an invitation to get our hands dirty in the world of time and space, to participate fully, to play the game.

As an exercise for this week if you choose, simply sit quietly and think to yourself “Ultimately all of my problems are solved”. Enter, sit with and breathe in this space where everything is well, and all problems never existed. Recognize this space, let yourself go into it.
As you reach the end of the exercise, let your mind full up again with the intractable messiness, imperfection and vulnerability of your life.

Now, go and solve your problems.

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Uncategorized

Curiosity, Courage and Care – Cornerstones of the Mindful Encounter

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is an exploration of the mindful encounter – what it takes to stay truly alive and curious to our own life path each day. I hope you enjoy it! The article also explores three of the core components of Mindful Self-Leadership.

Wishing you all the very best for the Easter weekend,

Toby

Curiosity, Courage and Care – Cornerstones the Mindful Self-Leadership Encounter

What qualities are going to enable you to successfully encounter and lead yourself through the challenges of your life with success in the terms that you (not somebody else) define it?

What qualities will encourage a living (rather than mechanical) experience of encountering your life, and encourage you to live your own life story in a meaningful and engaged way?

The cornerstones of this type of ‘mindful-encountering’ are three; curiosity, courage and care:

Curiosity – To practice mindful curiosity means to be committed to being deeply interested and thoughtful about what is arises in your life. This applies not only to the things that are pleasant and desirable, but also the things that make you feel vulnerable, uncomfortable and afraid. Curiosity means a full blooded commitment to being aware of everything that comes into the field of your awareness in each moment and to stay with that awareness throughout the day.

Courage – To sustain a commitment to conscious awareness in your life, to be ‘naked’ to what is arising without editing, armouring or avoiding takes courage; it takes courage to be curious and to be courageous means to engage in our life with constant, unwavering curiosity.

Care – Many of the realities of our mind, of our feeling and of the world around us can encourage us to anesthetize, insulate or armour ourself from our reality, to cut ourself off from it, to not feel it, to look away from it. So the third quality of the MS-L encounter is care; to commit to caring, to not cut ourself of from, to not turn away from that which comes into the field of our awareness.

What are the consequences of not engaging in the mindful encounter?

If you are not prepared to be deeply interested and curious about your life, your wants, your needs, your direction, your meaning, then why or where would you expect to find someone else who is?

If you are not prepared to have the courage to face what needs to be faced in your life, why would you expect someone else to do it for you?

If you don’t deeply care about your life, yourself and the people you share it with, no one can create that experience of caring for you; it comes from committing to it.

Conversely:
If you care, have courage and are deeply curious in your life, significant people around you will tend to see that and respond by giving their own curiosity, courage and care to your endeavors. And even if they don’t, you will have found something that no one can take away from you.

A Meditation Image for the Mindful
Self-Leadership Encounter

I found the image for this image on pinterest.  It is of a baby being held by a rescue worker during the London blitz.
Your life is like the baby, it is vulnerable and needs someone to be curious, care for it and have the courage to do what needs to be done to keep it safe and take it in the direction it needs to go. You are the rescue worker holding the baby; it is your job to save the baby and take it to where it needs to go to grow up safe, happy and fulfilled.
There are no other rescue workers; you are the rescue worker of your own life. Other people; parents, coaches, friends, partners can assist but cannot do it for you.
You are in charge of your own mindful self-leadership encounter.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

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Biographical creative imagery Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership

Enlightenment, Persistence and Knowing What You Really Want

Dear Integral Meditators,

Do you really know what you really want? This weeks article offers a few points for contemplation on this subject.
In case you missed the midweek article, you can click here to read about:  Meditating with the Tree of Yoga – A Twelve Module Online Course for just Sing$39! (Limited time offer) The offer is valid up until this Thursday, 17th April.

I’ve also created a page on the IMA website devoted to Meditation technology to support your practice. I’ve recently affiliate Integral Meditation Asia with I-Awake technologies, and this page explains a little bit about why and what the benefits are.

Yours in the spirit of wants and desires,

Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia 

Coming soon: Mindful Self-Leadership
 

Enlightenment, Persistence and Knowing What You Really Want

Meditating each day on the question “what do I really want” is a really important practice. If you don’t know what you want, then what you think you want will almost certainly be determined by factors such as:

  • What your society and culture thinks you should want
  • What lifestyle advertisements and marketers think you should want
  • What other people around you want
  • What you think your parents would approve of you wanting to want
  • What it is good to want in order to get the approval of significant others in your life’
  • What is easy
  • What will not piss others off
  • Ect…

The list goes on, and so you can see it is actually not a neutral space, if you don’t know what you really want then it is going to be decided for you. So what do you really want??

One way (not the only) way of carving up our wants and desires is into three:

  • Ego or personality level desires that wish to find fulfillment in relationships, work and tangible achievements in our life
  • Soul level wants and desires that tend to centre around the expression of deeper meaning, goodness, beauty and truth in our life
  • Spiritual happiness which here I am going to say centres around a connection to a state of being where all wants and desires are released and simultaneously fulfilled at the same time. That’s enlightenment baby.

All of the above types of wants and desires are valid on their own level, and each of them has their place in our life.

What you want has consequences
When you know what you want, following that will have consequences and sacrifices associated with it. But, life has consequences and sacrifices that will happen anyway, whether they are happening on your terms or not. At least if you know what you want and you go for it, then when the challenging consequences come you can say without conflict or bitterness “I chose this, this is what I want, I accept the consequences”.

When I left University I chose to spend a decade training in meditation and with no regard for conventional career, finances or fitting in, because I wanted spiritual enlightenment. Spiritual enlightenment is what I got, but coming back into the world age 32 I realized that my decade sabbatical had profound consequences in terms of my career, finances and outer freedom. The consequences were real and substantial, but I was happy to take those consequences because I knew what I wanted and the price was worth it (at the end of the day).
Now I run a business, Integral Meditation Asia because I want to teach the path of integrated enlightenment. There are plenty of easier ways to make money and gain recognition in the eyes of others, but I will take that consequence because I know what I want.
The thing is, if you know what you want, you will tend to persist, and if you persist intelligently and wisely, there is a good chance you’ll get what you want

A meditation image for focusing on what you want
Once a week I run up and down the stair well of a local HDB flat a few times (Europe or America, read council or public housing). It is 13 stories high. As a practice to remind me to keep focused on what I want without getting distracted here is what I do; as I am running up the stairs I don’t allow myself to look at the story number as I am going by. As I go higher I can feel my lungs straining and my legs hurting, and I want to distract myself by looking at the numbers, I want to know how much farther to go before the pain stops. But I don’t look; I just keep my head down, keep steady and let the top floor come when it comes. During my week when I feel like getting distracted, doubt myself or am getting (mostly well meaning) but contradictory advice from others, I bring my mind back to this image, clarify what it is I want, and keep going.

The curve ball: What if I don’t know what I want?
Then you know something important. If you don’t know what you want you need to know that, and keep asking the question until you get clarity. The tendency can be if you don’t know what you want is simply to drift and let your desires get filled up with other people’s ideas of what you should want, and then you will be lost.

Every day ask the question, “What do I really want?” and persist.
© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

Support for you Meditation Practice 

If you enjoyed the article above, and are interested in sound technology that can help you actively pursue the question “what do I want? the following two tracks may be worth considering:

Categories
Biographical Gods and Goddesses Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence Zen Meditation

Does God Exist? A Meditators Perspective (and what to tell your kids)

Dear Integral Meditators,

Many spiritual paths and religions and  take “God-realization” as their object of attainment, but what if you can’t find God? This weeks article takes both a playful and serious look at this issue. Complementary reading would be  the article on “The Four Less-nesses of Enlightenment” that I wrote a few weeks back.

Yours in the spirit of the God beyond God,
Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia 

Coming soon
 

Does God Exist?  A Meditators Perspective (and what to tell your kids)

A couple of weeks ago my daughter Sasha (8yrs) asked me “Does God really exist? After all you can’t really see him or prove he does”. This is a classic response from a child developing her rational faculties and for whom the previous concept of a creator in the sky, a little like a big father or mother, becomes obviously and patently untrue.
For many of us as we move into adulthood it seems like we are faced with a dilemma; either we accept an unseen, unknowable God on faith, or we decide that he does not exist and that there is no God.

The path of meditation offers a second, non-philosophical perspective on the existence or not of God which is put succinctly in the modern day Zen saying:
“There is no-God and he is your creator”

The way I answered to my daughter was as follows:

  • God exists in a place called no-thing, and no-thing is the place where everything comes from, so you can find God in everything.
  • God lives in a place called no-where, and no-where is the place where somewhere comes from. So because God is no-where he is the only person you can find everywhere.
  • Gods’ identity is in a place called no-self, which is the place where all selves arise. So at the heart of every self there is no-self, which is where you find God.

So, the idea with these three sentences is that they invite a person enquiring after the existence of God to go beyond the world of ideas, philosophy or theology and move instead into a space of experiential, non-conceptual investigation and curiosity.
With these sentences you just need to read them, and then ‘drop-in’ to the space that they invite you into and to be with that space, to be present to something that lies beyond your mind, beyond rationality, beyond ideas.

  • God is un-findable in the world of things, so if you drop into a space of no-thing, that is where she will be, although of course that would be non-be
  • There is no place where God ‘lives’, so if you go to nowhere, that is where you will find him
  • God does not have a self, so if you let go of your own self completely, then you will find God there

To the cynic this can just sound like word games, but as I say the idea is to use the words to go beyond the words to a non-conceptual, living experience that you then hold and rest in.

After finishing this article I then asked my daughter “So what did you think of those definitions of God that I gave you?”
“Good” she said, not looking up from her book.
“Really I said? Stop reading and come here for a moment”
She stood up and came over to me. I asked her the same question
“So what did you think of those definitions of God that I gave you?”
She looks at me, smiles and said “Excellent!”
Then she rolls her eyes, puts on her most ironic face, then sits down to read again.

I think that is what you call approving non-approval.
© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

Support for you Meditation Practice 

If you enjoyed the article above, and are interested in sound technology that can help you more easily get into deeper states of meditation, the following two tracks work well with cultivating formless, timeless meditations:

Beginners Mind

Audio Serenity

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A Mind of Ease Biographical creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Presence and being present Shadow meditation Stress Transformation

Melting the Ice of the Heart, Cooling the Inferno of the Soul

Dear Integral Meditators,

One of my main inspirations Ken Wilbur was once asked what the process of growing and evolving is like. He answered simply “You laugh more and you cry more”. I’ve found that to be true, and this midweek article is something of an exploration of that.

Yours in the spirit of ice and fire,

Toby

Melting the Ice of the Heart, Cooling the Inferno of the Soul

Last week was one of those weeks where there was a lot of tension in my life professionally, personally and physically I found and felt myself to be under an unusual amount of pressure. As a meditation and stress transformation coach I know the signs that I am not coping too well with pressure, for example:

  • I could feel my body armoring itself from the psychological pressure by becoming physically tense
  • I could hear my language with my family becoming abbreviated and sometimes harsh
  • Listening to the inner conversation in my mind I could see how reactive it had become
  • My the centre of my chest or heart space felt like a place where I could not go , it felt inhabited by an energy that was not under my control

In short it felt like my body and soul had simultaneously turned into fire and ice, where there is the quality and heat of anger and frustration, together with the coldness and detachment that comes when you start to feel alienated from your reality through resentment and fear.

At this point I started to feel a little bit like I was having to start my mind-training all over again, like I had to re-learn to mindfully transform my stress. What was the quality that I found most helpful to negotiate my way out of what was happening and find meaning?

Curiosity.

That is to say I did not try and resist any of the things that I was experiencing, or try to change the person I was in that moment. Rather I just tried to become curious about myself and what I was going through, to be interested. To be curious carries a balance of the qualities of observing objectively with caring subjectively. As soon as I started to become mindfully curious about myself

  • I could feel a window for self compassion opening up in my heart
  • I could feel a deeper part of myself becoming present to what I was going through
  • I saw the inner dialog in my mind become slower, kinder, more relaxed
  • There seemed to be a space where a calm me could co-exist without conflict with the part of me that was wounded and upset
  • I felt the tangible presence of hope
  • Despite the feeling of emptiness in my heart I found myself smiling quietly to myself

So, the next time you feel in a fix and your soul is on fire whilst your heart has shut down, perhaps you can invite curiosity into the situation. Sit quietly, relax your judgemental mind and enquire of yourself

  • How are you?
  • What an interesting experience this is, let’s see what we can notice about what is going on
  • We may feel pretty terrible right now, but were still worth paying attention to in a caring way, let’s do that and see what happens

Allow your curiosity to lead the way toward self understanding and compassion.

PS: Curiosity is also a theme I explore in my recent article on Applying Mindful Curiosity to Your Relationships.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

Categories
creative imagery Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality Stress Transformation

Connecting to Your Spiritual Fool in the Mirror World

Dear Integral Meditators,

Normally when we think of the terms ‘you fool’ and ‘being foolish’ we think of them as derogatory, names that we would want to avoid being called or thought of at all costs. This weeks article explores a way of releasing the potential of our inner fool into our lives in a positive way using meditation and imagination.

Yours in the spirit of compassionate humor,

Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia 

Tuesday 11th March, 7.30-8.30pm: Monthly Integral Meditation Class: The Way of the Enlightened Fool

Tuesday 25th March, 7.30-9.30pm: Introduction to Mindful Breathing – A Two Hour Meditation Workshop

Saturday 5th April, 2.30-5.30pm: Meditations for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention

Connecting to Your Spiritual Fool in the Mirror World

This is a creative meditation for accessing your Spiritual Fool. Your spiritual fool is that part of you that:

  • Is playful and creative
  • Combines wisdom and humor together into ‘crazy wisdom’
  • Is not afraid to take risks and chances when it is worthwhile
  • Is not trapped by the rules of conventional society (though will play by them when appropriate)

We are calling this fool the ‘spiritual’ fool as all of the above mentioned qualities are to be used for a compassionate and evolving purposes, rather than just behaving like an idiot (!)

The meditation:

You can do this meditation as an informal contemplation now if you like, as you read.

See yourself in an art gallery. You are sitting in the centre of the gallery; the floor of the gallery is smooth and reflective, as if for example made of marble. The picture in front of you is of a fool, court jester or harlequin. As you look upon the picture, feel yourself connecting to your playful, humorous, risk-taker; that part of you that is not trapped by the rigid conventions of society.
Now look down at the reflection of yourself in the floor beneath you. The reflection that you see beneath you is yourself as the spiritual fool. You may be dressed in old fashioned jesters clothing, or any way that communicates the feeling of yourself as a creative, playful, humorous being.
Now imagine that your world ‘flips’, such that the image that you see beneath you actuallybecomes you. You are dressed as the fool, your way of seeing and approaching the world is through the wise humour and compassionate playfulness of the spiritual fool.

Take as your object of meditation the experience of yourself as the spiritual fool.

During the day the idea when you are working with this meditation the idea is to keep seeing yourself as the spiritual fool, and to approach your daily activities, relationships and so forth integrating the ways of thinking, feeling and acting as the spiritual fool.
© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

Categories
Gods and Goddesses Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Uncategorized

Meditating with the Mirror Self

Dear Integral Meditators,

This mid-week article outlines a creative meditation practice on an aspect of self that I think of as the “mirror self”. One of its main purposes is to stimulate the potential of our imaginative capacity to effect real and dynamic changes in our life.
The meditation is an example of what I have been calling a Greenworld meditation practice, so here is a final reminder of the Greenworld Meditation Workshop I will be running this Sunday 23rd February, and repeating due to demand on Sunday 2nd March.

Below the article you can find full details of the Walking Meditation that I will be running, also on the 2nd March, 8-1030am.

Finally, if the article below looks a little long for you, then you might just enjoy watching the three minute reference to the ‘mirror world’ in the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, in the scene entitled “up is down” ;-)

Yours in the spirit of the creative imagination,

Toby

Meditating with the Mirror Self in the Greenworld

This is a technique for connecting to a primal and dynamic aspect of ourself that is mythic and imaginative in nature. Its purpose is to experience a new dimension of ourself that is unfettered by the habits of our conventional personality and that offers us a new level of creative participation in our world.
To say that the mirror self is mythic and imaginative in nature is not the same as saying that it has no objective reality, but it is to say that it exists within the reality of the creative imagination.

What or where is the Greenworld?
The mirror self resides in Greenworld. The Greenworld is a place that exists within the primal imagination of the planetary being and group consciousness. It is not so much a physical world so much as an energetic one. It is a place that all of us participate in to a greater or lesser degree in our dreams and imagination. However, rather than being merely a by-product of our imagination it is rather an actual  place that we contact and visit through controlled and conscious use of our imagination.
It has various names in the different spiritual traditions of the world. In Celtic Greek and Roman tradition it is sometimes called the Underworld. In the Tibetan Tantric tradition (which I originally trained in extensively) it is called Dakini Land. It is said to be the land of nature spirits and spiritual beings of various sorts, as well as the land where we may find the spirit of our ancestors.
You might also say that it is a world that has been contacted by artists thru-out the ages for for imaginative inspiration.
I call it the Greenworld. I have been engaged in meditations that directly or indirectly involve it for about 15 years now, and it is a practice that I hold very dear to my heart.

What is the mirror self?
The mirror self, simply put is that aspect of ourself that resides in the Greenworld right now. Since the Greenworld does not exist within the confines of conventional time and space, you could say that our mirror self is ever present, simply waiting to be discovered by us.
The Greenworld is almost like a pure inner world that mirrors out outer world. Hence the self that we meet there we call the ‘mirror self’.
Again, you won’t gain a satisfactory experience of your mirror self by looking for rational and linear ways of connecting to it, for it is connected to by means of the creative imagination. In the integral development of consciousness rationality and the creative imagination are not seen as contradictory to each other, rather as complementary capacities that we can develop together within our consciousness.

The meditation 

The meditation is rather simple:

  • Sit quietly. Be aware your body-mind and bring it to a place of relative stillness by focusing on the breathing for a short while. Then focus your intention on the desire to connect to your mirror self within the Greenworld.
  • Now imagine that you look down between your feet, and see there appears to be another, upside-down you beneath you. It is as if you were sitting on a mirror; the soles of your feet touch the soles of his/her feet. As you look down, s/he looks up.
  • See the form of your mirror self. Likely s/he looks like you but different. Her clothes may come from a much earlier time in history. His body is solid and yet also luminous and radiant. You may notice particular colours and energies around and within her body. Notice and currents of energy that you may feel rising from your mirror self through the soles of your feet.
  • Now imagine that your world ‘flips’ upside down, so that you become your mirror self. Experience yourself as your mirror self. What is it like? How does your body feel? What is the mode of thinking and feeling in your mind?
  • What you are ready ‘flip’ back again and return to the outer world. Take the experiences and perspectives that you gained from your mirror self into your daily life. If you like you can keep an awareness of your mirror self by imagining him/her beneath you whenever you look down, the soles of your feet in contact with hers!

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

An Introduction to Walking Meditation Workshopkuhonbutsu-feetDate: Sunday 2nd March 2014

Time: 8.00-10.30am

Location: Singapore Botanic Gardens, meet by the steps at the Exit of the Botanic Gardens MRT next to the Nursery Gate of the Botanic Gardens (click on link above for map!)

One line summary: Learn how to practice meditation and mindfulness as a walking practice.

Overview: Increasingly many people are becoming aware of a need to find a sense of inner calm, peace and centeredness in order to cope effectively with the stresses and strains of modern life. However, it seems equally difficult to find the quality time for a practice such as meditation or mindfulness that can actually help us to accomplish this.

A solution to this can be found in walking meditation. All of us do a certain amount of walking in our life. By learning mindful walking we can combine the time that we spend walking with time spent cultivating our inner peace, stability and happiness. It is a win-win situation!

This 2.5 hour workshop will be located in the peaceful surroundings of the Botanic Gardens,

The RESULTS that you can expect to gain from engaging in this workshop are:

  • Confidence in practising the basic fundamentals of walking meditation and how to integrate it into your daily routine
  • Knowledge of the technical theory behind walking meditation practice
  • The ability to connect to positive mind-states as well as greater levels of physical energy whilst walking

The level of this workshop: Suitable for beginners, or more experienced meditators looking to integrate mindful walking into their repertoire.

Basic Workshop Structure:

First hour: Warm up, Introduction to basic walking meditation techniques for awareness of good posture, developing relaxed concentration and inner silence/spaciousness. Time for Q&A.
Second hour: Integrating elements of thinking, feeling and imagination into walking meditation in order to generate and enhance both our physical energy as well as positive mind states. Time for Q&A
Final half-hour: Integrating awareness of nature and the natural landscape into our walking meditation in order to enhance positive energy exchange between ourself and our environment, and receive healing and balancing energy from natural elements of the landscape such as trees and water, sun and sky.

In addition the class itself you will also receive: Backup notes covering the basic meditation techniques covered in the class

Feedback from past walking meditation workshops:

1: ”The outdoor walking helped me easily connect to nature on a holistic scale and feel energized nurtured and a strong sense of belonging (perfect timing) it put things into perspective. I felt incredibly at ease and peace.”

2. ”I was amazed at how simple Toby’s steps are, and how ‘portable’ walking meditation can be as a practical, everyday energy balancer or enhancer. You can literally take it wherever you go, wherever you are …in the park, on the beach, in a busy airport, and even in the confines of your own home. An instant, private oasis of tranquillity at your feet!”

Cost of Workshop: $65 per person

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE WALKING MEDITATION CLASS BY CREDIT CARD

To register or for further enquiries: Email info@integralmeditationasia.com, or call 65-9675027