Category: Integral Awareness

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creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

Your deep time project

“With a ‘deep time’ goal the work we do today will not even nearly be finished when we die. Essentially, we entrust it to the next generation, we focus on our process, without knowledge of how it will finally end up…”

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope you’ve all been enjoying the Christmas break! I’ve been staying near some historical sights over the break, and this has gotten me reflecting on the way in which our sense of time influences both our sense of what’s possible in our lives. The article below is an exploration of this and its applications to mindfulness practice.

And if your looking for a meditation course to get stuck into in 2022, we will be kicking off with  Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures a ten part series on Jan 11/12th.

In the spirit of deeper time,

Toby

Your deep time project

I’ve been spending the Christmas period in the west country of the Britain, near Glastonbury, Somerset. I’ve seen around Glastonbury Abbey and Tor, as well as Wells Cathedral, which are both medieval buildings, over 800 years old. I’m also hoping to go around Stonehenge tomorrow which is of course a stone-age construction, between 4-5 thousand years old. For all of these buildings, the women and men that began the construction would have not have seen the final building. In fact, they would have been at least 3-4 generations before the completion of the structure. It’s interesting to think then of the mind-set of those working. Essentially, they were working as an offering to future generations, and as a sense of offering something up to the divine, or something bigger than their temporal selves.

The speed of time today
Reflecting upon this, and spending a bit of time walking in these places, sensing into the presence of the deeper-time energy, it got me thinking about how much of our time these days is pretty much the opposite of deep time. We need our phone and internet connection fixed now. At work, often we are thinking of the goals for the next 24 hours, few days, a week. There never seems to be enough time in the day, and everything needs to be done all and at once, now. All of this is in stark contrast to a ‘deep time’ goal, where essentially the work we do today will not even nearly be finished when we die. Essentially, we entrust it to the next generation, we focus on our process, without knowledge of how it will finally end up…

Your own sense of deep time
With the current ‘ecological crisis’ (I put it in quotation marks because in reality it has been building for a long time, not just now), I was thinking how useful this ‘deeper time’ medieval/stone age mindset would be, where the aim was extended across multiple generations, and well beyond our own life-span. If we all re-learned to think across generations, and into the deeper future, our sense of what and how we are creating in our lives would change radically.

Your own deep time projects?
So, then the question might be, “What are my own deep(er) time projects?” The ones that I will be offering up to the next generation to take and interpret in their own way, and build upon. These projects are the opposite of the ‘immediately done, now, today’ stuff that occupies so much of our head-space and energy. It’s the opposite of Instagram likes, short-term attention span, quick-fix. Are there any areas of your life at the moment that involve deep-time projects, and a deep time mindset? If not, what would such a project look like for you, what could you instigate or get involved in?

Deep time and your peace of mind
The interesting thing about spending regular periods of your day in ‘deep time’ is that the cadence and atmosphere of these periods is slower, less stressed, even-minded, peaceful, regenerative. It gives the option to ‘drop out’ temporarily of our short-term goal mindset into a different space that invites a different range of thoughts and emotional states.

Deep time and your medium-term resilience
If your everyday ‘time-range’ extends from the short-term to the long-term, then finding the inner resilience, even-mindedness and stability to get thru medium term challenges and goals becomes relatively easy. For example, we are all at the end of our second year of uncertainty coming from the Covid crisis. Getting through the ups and downs of this is much easier if you are dropping into a deep-time mindset regularly, as two years isn’t such a long time, relatively. I’m now in the 21st year of my post-monk meditation coaching business. There have been a lot of ups and downs during that time, but with a deeper time mindset, and the even-minded resilience that comes from that, it feels like the beginning rather than the end!

Related article: Meditating on time

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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 & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

This meditation session is focused upon setting up the 2022 new year energies in a way that invites the best possible experience moving forward. We will be:

  • Releasing and letting go of energies, events and experiences from the past year that may hold us back from moving into our full potential
  • Developing a flexible, soft, ‘beginners mind’, renewed and ready to be ‘born again’ with energy and enthusiasm in 2022
  • Focusing both consciously and intuitively upon the inviting of new energies, aspirations and goals that we wish to bring in and manifest over the course of the new year…read full details

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

This series of 10 classes is an introduction to simple, practical Zen and Taoist meditations that can temporarily help us to reduce our stress and thrive joyfully in daily life. They can also, practiced regularly offer us experiential insight into our true nature and help us to answer some of our deepest life-questions and attain a truly stable sense of inner transformation. The sessions can be attended as a complete course in itself, or each class can be taken as a practice in and of itself…read full details

Saturday January 15th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors

This workshop explores relevant and living ways in which we can connect to our own ancestral inheritance in a manner that is appropriate for and empowering to our contemporary lives.

In particular the workshop will offer practical meditations to:

  • Engage in a living communion with both our close (recent in time) and ancient (distant in time) ancestors
  • Awaken fully to the gifts and potentials (spiritual, psychological and material) that our ancestral karma has to offer us
  • Heal damaged or imbalanced ancestral karma that we may have inherited

Read full details

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Tuesday 21st December,  7.30-8.30pm, SG time – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

Tues & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

Saturday January 15th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Your unique insignificance

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun” – Alan Watts

Dear Integral Meditators,

“Unique insignificance” is a term that I created in my article below to help create a harmonic between the ourselves and our fleeting reality. I hope you enjoy exploring it!

In the spirit of your uniqueness,

Toby

Your unique insignificance

You are a unique, one-off event
Although on one level you look a lot like other people, when you look a little closer you start to see that there has, in fact never been anyone exactly like you born on the planet before. After you die, no one exactly like you will be born ever again. You are a unique, one-off event, created by a series of conditions in time and space. In this sense you have intrinsic value and significance that you can feel genuinely interested in and good about. You are like any of the flowers that blossom in spring each year.  Now is your time to enjoy that, rejoice in that and own the creative potential of it. Really dwelling on this is a powerful object of mindfulness.

Getting a sense of scale
It is also true that, in the bigger scheme of things you are completely insignificant. You are one of 8 billion people on the planet. God knows how many people came before you, and how many will come after you. You exist on a small, dust-particle-like planet in a solar system that is one amongst 100-200 billon solar systems in our galaxy. Our galaxy in turn is one of about 125 billion galaxies (observed so far) in this universe. In this sense you just don’t matter at all. Instinctively this makes many people feel a bit uncomfortable. But if we can acknowledge and accept this, then there is actually a sense of liberation and empowerment that comes from ‘getting lost’ in the enormous context that surrounds us.

Singing your song
On one level then we are like a unique flower temporarily blooming, and we grasp this and sing our unique song as loudly, creatively and as vibrantly as possible; we have meaning and significance that we can really value and cherish.

Relaxing into your insignificance
Also, and as well, we and all that we do has no real significance or meaning. In the bigger scheme of things, we are completely negligible. So, in this sense we can let go of our anxiety about ourself and our life. We can relax into our general lack of consequence.

Creating a complementary polarity
Superficially these two perspectives and ways of experiencing ourselves look contradictory, as if one can only be true if the other is false. Looing a little deeper, we start to see that they are actually compatible and potentially completely complementary. It can be easier to own our unique path if we remember that in 100 years no one will remember us at all. If we are singing our own unique song fully, it becomes easier to accept our fleeting-ness and impermanence. We can enjoy and grow into our unique insignificance powerfully and strongly, authentically and without compromise.

Related article: Tipping your hat to the gods of chaos

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com   

Tues & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

This meditation session is focused upon setting up the 2022 new year energies in a way that invites the best possible experience moving forward. We will be:

  • Releasing and letting go of energies, events and experiences from the past year that may hold us back from moving into our full potential
  • Developing a flexible, soft, ‘beginners mind’, renewed and ready to be ‘born again’ with energy and enthusiasm in 2022
  • Focusing both consciously and intuitively upon the inviting of new energies, aspirations and goals that we wish to bring in and manifest over the course of the new year…read full details

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

This series of 10 classes is an introduction to simple, practical Zen and Taoist meditations that can temporarily help us to reduce our stress and thrive joyfully in daily life. They can also, practiced regularly offer us experiential insight into our true nature and help us to answer some of our deepest life-questions and attain a truly stable sense of inner transformation. The sessions can be attended as a complete course in itself, or each class can be taken as a practice in and of itself…read full details

Saturday January 15th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors

This workshop explores relevant and living ways in which we can connect to our own ancestral inheritance in a manner that is appropriate for and empowering to our contemporary lives.

In particular the workshop will offer practical meditations to:

  • Engage in a living communion with both our close (recent in time) and ancient (distant in time) ancestors
  • Awaken fully to the gifts and potentials (spiritual, psychological and material) that our ancestral karma has to offer us
  • Heal damaged or imbalanced ancestral karma that we may have inherited

Read full details

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Tuesday 21st December,  7.30-8.30pm, SG time – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

Tues & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – Zen: The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

Saturday January 15th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for activating the gifts & healing the wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Biographical Enlightened service Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Monk socks/Going undercover

Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season! Winter solstice coming up next Tuesday, if you are  interested in marking this with a meditation, then you’d be welcome to come along to my online  Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only) , on Tuesday 21st December,  7.30-8.30pm, SG time…

I’m at my parent’s place at the moment. yesterday my brother went up to the loft and brought down a bag with several pairs of burgundy socks, mine from my days as a monk back in the 90’s (see picture). This got me thinking about those times, and the article below is one thing that came out!

In the spirit of integration,

Toby

Deep undercover (An ex-monk returning to the market-place)

Some of you may remember the 2002 Hong Kong movie ‘Infernal affairs’ with Tony Leung about a policeman who goes deep undercover in a Triad gang, and then becomes the favourite of the ‘Godfather’ of the gang. The movie then follows his identity crisis as he moves deeper into his criminal role.

“Can I stay in your jail?”
When I was a young Buddhist monk staying in Singapore, I stayed for a number of months in the spare room of a student of mine, who lived in a local HDB apartment. He was a plainclothes policeman who had been undercover for a number of years in the local nightclub and drug scene. Like Tony Leung (but in a different way) he had gone deep into his role, and lost himself in the cars, the booze and the lifestyle of his role. Eventually after losing his marriage and having a bit of a breakdown, he had given up his undercover role, returned to mainstream policing, and become very devoted to Buddhism and meditation practice, which he had used a way of returning to relative normalcy and stability.
My undercover policeman had started coming to my class a couple of months earlier, and I had been staying at a number of different places in Singapore, just improvising really. When I learned that he was a policeman, I figured I could ask him if he had any spare jail cells that I could use to stay in. When I asked him, he looked very serious and thoughtful for a while, then said “No, but I have a meditation room in my apartment, and you can stay there!” And this is how I ended up staying with him.

Coming out of or going back undercover? – Returning to the marketplace as an ex-monk
When I returned to lay life as a monk in 2001, it felt a bit like I was simultaneously coming out of and going undercover:

  • In one way I felt I was coming out of an undercover role, or an alternate reality that I had been living as a monk, and the universe that surrounded that
  • On another level I felt I was going undercover in the sense that I was clearly now coming from quite a different perspective and experience from most of those around me in everyday society. So I was kind of having to ‘look normal’ whilst being quite different in reality!

Transforming but staying the same
Since that time, twenty years ago, I have remained in this situation, in many ways operating according to the same principles that I learned, practiced and created as a monk. Essentially what this means is that my main motivation for being in the world is to help with the evolution of the consciousness of groups and individuals my coaching and teaching meditation and mindfulness. On another level I have changed fundamentally. I am a business owner, I have a couple of kids, I’m married, I have a relatively complex secular life.

The integration is the path, not the problem
To hold these two polarities in places sometimes seems like a tricky process, like holding together two realities that seem to contradict each other. Over the years I have realized increasingly that the task of bringing together these two realities in an integrated way is not in the way of my path, it is my path. The path for me is very much the process of spiritualizing the secular, and secularizing the spiritual, so that together a greater wholeness is created in the world.
In what ways are you ‘working undercover’? And what is the transformation that might be affected within yourself and within society if you were successful in your role?

Related article: Am I happier now than when I was a Buddhist Monk? (Repetition and inner growth)

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

Tuesday 21st December,  7.30-8.30pm, SG time – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

This will be a chance to reflect on the spiritual meaning of Christmas and power of the winter season. We will look at the different ways our own inner light can ‘die and be re-born once more’.

It is a good time to attune to the creative energies within ourselves. We can think about the new year & spring periods that lie ahead of us, what our goals & expectations are, & sow the seeds on an inner level of that which we wish to manifest over the next few months…read full details

 

Tues & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

This meditation session is focused upon setting up the 2022 new year energies in a way that invites the best possible experience moving forward. We will be:

  • Releasing and letting go of energies, events and experiences from the past year that may hold us back from moving into our full potential
  • Developing a flexible, soft, ‘beginners mind’, renewed and ready to be ‘born again’ with energy and enthusiasm in 2022
  • Focusing both consciously and intuitively upon the inviting of new energies, aspirations and goals that we wish to bring in and manifest over the course of the new year…read full details

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

This series of 10 classes is an introduction to simple, practical Zen and Taoist meditations that can temporarily help us to reduce our stress and thrive joyfully in daily life. They can also, practiced regularly offer us experiential insight into our true nature and help us to answer some of our deepest life-questions and attain a truly stable sense of inner transformation. The sessions can be attended as a complete course in itself, or each class can be taken as a practice in and of itself…read full details

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Tuesday 21st December,  7.30-8.30pm, SG time – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

Tues & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Integral Awareness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques Presence and being present

‘Head in the Sun’ meditation

“This is a meditation that you can do to enhance your meditative connection to the energy of the sun, which is the source of all life in the solar system. It also helps you move more rapidly and easily into a thoughtless state, which is a basic competency we are trying to build as meditators.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below looks at how to cultivate the wisdom of non-thinking using environmental awareness, and in particular awareness of the sun. It relates to both meditation events this week:
 The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom, and  the Environmental meditation masterclass & mini-retreat – Working consciously with the forces of nature.
If your curious about how to accelerate your meditation through connection to nature, then either of these are a great session to come along to!

In the spirit of the sun-in-your-head,

Toby

‘Head in the Sun’ meditation

This is a simple meditation that combines cultivating a thought-free state with environmental awareness. Specifically, we use brain-relaxation in combination with awareness of the suns light to create the desired experience.

Finding the sun – This first stage is nice to do, and enhances the experience, but is not essential. Glance outside and locate the sun, physically in the sky. Get a sense of where it is in your current landscape. If the sun has gone down already, get a sense of where it is beneath the horizon.

Sitting in landscape – Then take a seat (this can also be done standing or lying and, when your used to it, walking) Send your awareness out to the horizon line in the landscape around you. Get a feel for the curve of the earth’s surface extending around you from your feet, the sun in the sky above, and the living planet beneath you. Breath and relax with this for a short while.

Relaxing your brain – Now become aware of your brain. Scan from front to back releasing tension as you go, from the area behind the temples and forehead (prefrontal cortex), to the brain stem connecting the back of the brain with your spine. Then go from back to front, doing the same; releasing tension as you go.

Visualizing the sun – Now visualize a miniature sun where your third eye would be, midway between and slightly above your eyebrows. See it shining brightly and dissolving away the clouds of your distracting thoughts and mental tension. See and feel your brain and head becoming light, bright, spacious and thought free. You feel like you have the sky with a bright shining sun in the space where your brain is/was. Meditate on this state, relaxing deeply into it. You can/should also feel that as you are doing this, the sun in your head is connected to the energy of the outer, physical sun in the landscape around you.

Being the sun and sky – If you like you can let yourself absorb more deeply into the experience, letting of awareness of the body, and feeling like you become the sun and sky.

When you are ready come back to your body and relax your concentration.

The benefits – This is a meditation that you can do to enhance your meditative connection to the energy of the sun, which is the source of all life in the solar system. It also helps you move more rapidly and easily into a thoughtless state, which is a basic competency we are trying to build as meditators. Using our imagination in this way can be surprisingly powerful, and in general the more we can engage our imagination in our meditation, the more powerful our meditation becomes.

Related article: The meditators secret weapon (the wisdom of non-thinking)

& The miracle of attention

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

Starts Tuesday 16/Wednesday 17th November – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom

In a sentence: Learn the art of ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom through integrative meditation
Overview: The Wisdom of Awakening series is an ongoing series that looks at different ways to ‘wake up’ and live your life fully and playfully through meditation. The premise of the sessions is that inner wholeness and wisdom are not something that are far away, rather they are something that we can awaken to ‘instantly’ through certain types of mindful attention. In this four class series we take instant awakening, miraculous-ness, independence and sensitivity as our doorways to awakening….read full details

Saturday 20th & 27th November – Environmental meditation masterclass & mini-retreat – Working consciously with the forces of nature

In a sentence: Learn to work consciously with the forces of nature and your environment as well develop powerful meditation states.

There is much concern and talk today about the state of the environment and the relationship of humankind to nature. These sessions cover methods to:

  • Attune to the energies of our immediate and larger environment
  • Build a living relationship to the landscape around us
  • Access meditation states based upon our environment that provide deep powerful peace, as well as increasing our energy in an harmonious manner
  • Increase our sense of being a participant in the miracle of nature
  • Inspire us to live an embodied life in tune with the living Earth and Universe around, above and below us

Read full details

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts Tuesday 16/Wednesday 17th November – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom

Saturday 20th & 27th November – Environmental meditation masterclass & mini-retreat – Working consciously with the forces of nature

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Concentration Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation techniques Presence and being present

Is meditation difficult or easy?

Dear Integral Meditators,

Should you expect meditation to be difficult or easy? In my article below I outline a away of understanding meditation why it could be considered to be both difficult and easy, and also neither. It also shows how you can make meditation something that is not separate from your daily activities and experience.
Last call for this weekends Breathwork Masterclass & Mini-Retreat– Improve physical immunity, wellbeing and inner peace though deep breathing. Also, heads up for next weeks Live & Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session on Tuesday & Wednesday evenings.

In the spirit of energy,

Toby

Is meditation difficult or easy?

Meditation – the point between relaxation & focus, concepts & inertia
There are many different ways of practising meditation, what I want to explain in this article is the space that meditation occupies. If we can identify it clearly, then we can start to see the commonality of different meditation practices despite their differences. This in turn makes it easier for us to start to put together combinations of different meditations together in an integrated, complementary manner, without feeling they are contradicting each other.
Focus and relaxation – All meditation states involve a combination of focus and relaxation. In order for our attention to settle on something, we need to be relaxed enough and focused enough. Too much focus leads to the tension of over-exertion, whilst too much relaxation leads to our attention wandering away anyhow.
Conceptualization and inertia – Meditation occupies a space where we are experiencing something, and we are aware of that experience. If we start to conceptualize or think, our mind moves away from direct experiencing, getting lost in thought, and in the world of ‘past’ and future’. If we start to fall asleep (inertia), our mind also loses its grip on the awareness of its experience in the moment, and away from meditation.

Both difficult and easy?

So, from this point of view then, meditation seems simple. If I want to meditate on my body, I just need to pay attention to the sensation of my body, and be aware of that experience. If I do that, I can say I am in a state of awakened meditation in the moment. If you try that, then you also start to see that although the injunction is simple, it is not always so easy to do. Our attention keeps veering towards thinking on the one hand, and sleep on the other, toward trying too hard and over focusing, and relaxing too much. This simultaneous difficult-ness and easiness is captured quite well in the story of Layman Pang, as Zen Master living in the 8th century, and his wife and daughter, who were also realized masters:

Laymen Pang complained: “How difficult it is! How difficult it is! My meditation is like drying the fibers of ten thousand pounds of flax by hanging them in the sun.”
His wife replied: “Easy, easy, easy. It’s like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed. I have found the teaching right in the tops of flowering plants.”
His daughter, Ling-chao, hearing both outbursts, showed them the truth: “My meditation is neither difficult nor easy. When I am hungry I eat. When I am tired I rest.”

You can practice meditation right now simple by pausing from what you are doing, and becoming aware of what you are experiencing in the moment. That’s meditation. If you can sustain that awareness, then to that degree you spend more and more of your time in an awakened state. But that’s not easy. But it’s not difficult either, and the next step is always the one in front of you. Hence Ling-Chao’s classic Zen quote above “When I am hungry I eat. When I am tired I rest.”

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

 

Saturday October 16th & 23rd – Breathwork Masterclass & Mini-Retreat– Improve physical immunity, wellbeing and inner peace though deep breathing

In a sentence: Learn unique Taoist breathing techniques to improve your immune system, energy level, psychological wellness and improve your meditation.

Overview: According to the ancient Chinese view, the vital force provided by air through breathing is even more important to health and longevity than that provided by food and water through digestion. The way in which we breathe is also a direct reflection of the levels of stress that we are feeling; when we feel calm our breathing becomes deep and regular, when we feel stress our breathing becomes shallower and quicker…read full details

Tues 19th & Weds 20th October – Live & Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

About the meditation: We all live our life within an environment that consists fundamentally/experientially of the Earth, Moon, Sun and Stars. The monthly lunar cycle describes our relationship to the Moon, and the powerful influence that it has on our life. In the physical world we see this influence most obviously in the tides of the sea. In our inner life we experience it as the coming and going of energy, moods and emotions within our psyche. This meditation, done on or around the full moon capitalises on the heightened lunar energies at this time of the month to…read full details

Starts Monday October 25th – The Men’s Group – The path of conscious manhood

How can you move from coping to thriving in your life as a man?

Much is asked of men in their traditional roles as fathers and sons, partners and husbands, students and teachers, employees and employers. The men’s group is a professionally moderated and confidential forum for men. A forum is a safe place for exploring, learning and sharing the successful perspectives, skills, and strategies needed to address and manage the unique issues, problems, and triumphs in our community…read full details

Tues & Weds 26&27th October – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Samhain (Aka All hallows eve, or Halloween) is the time in the northern hemisphere when we enter the darker months of the year & winter. Traditionally it is said to be the time when the veil between the world of the living and the inner world of our ancestors is said to be thinnest. Consequently, it is an ideal time for us to commune with our ancestors in meditation…read full details

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Life Coaching and Meditation coaching 3-6month packages are on a 15% offer up until Weds 20th October. If getting some coaching is an idea you have been contemplating, then this is a good opportunity to get it and save some money on the price. 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

Saturday October 16th & 23rd, 10am-4pm – Breathwork Masterclass & Mini-Retreat– Improve physical immunity, wellbeing and inner peace though deep breathing

Starts Monday October 25th – The Men’s Group – The path of conscious manhood

Tues & Weds 26&27th October – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Friday 5th November 7.30-8.30pm – Online New moon beginners mind, health visualization & envisioning session

 

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight creative imagery Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present

Mastering the cycle of thoughts & emotions

‘Everyday, for most of the day, your thoughts and emotions are interacting with each other. Your basic sense of wellness or not on the psychological level depends in large part on how you are managing this dependent relationship’

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below looks at mastery of thoughts and emotions, and how we can start to master the dynamic between them using mindfulness.
If you enjoy the article, them this weeks Tuesday and Wednesday polarity meditation classes will be focused on this subject!
Live attendance is limited to 10pax per class, so advanced booking is necessary if you want to coe live, rather than online.

In the spirit of inner balance,

Toby

Mastering the cycle of thoughts & emotions

Thoughts and emotions – Our basic everyday psychological dynamic
Everyday, for most of the day, your thoughts and emotions are interacting with each other. Your basic sense of wellness or not on the psychological level depends in large part on how you are managing this dependent relationship. So, to begin, start to watch and notice the dependent relationship between thoughts and emotions in your daily life. Also notice that in this cycle are actions and reactions. We think, then we feel, then we do, we experience a reaction to what we do, which creates feeling, that creates thoughts, that creates actions and so on….

Noticing the influence of the body and environment
If you start to watch, you will also notice feeling and instincts from the body affecting this cycle; a balanced body makes it easier to think and emote well, an imbalanced one makes it more difficult. You will also notice that the inverse is also true; you can to a large degree create wellness in the body by thinking and feeling in a balanced way.
Your environment and outer interactions stimulate a lot of thinking and feeling. Again, notice the dependent relationship; you can create outer wellness by balancing your thinking and feeling, or your thinking and feeling can create outer chaos for you!

‘Not letting difficult feelings become negative emotions and thoughts’
This is a principle that I’ve been using a lot recently. You can substantially break the cycle of negative thinking and emoting by accepting, owning and looking after difficult feelings, not letting them provoke further reactions. Yesterday afternoon I was feeling fairly low and despondent, by accepting and looking after the feeling, and focusing on some good thoughts and experiences, I was feeling back to balance and wellness by the early evening. It could have spiralled, but it didn’t because I held to the principle.

Being guided by the higher mind and intentions
Another super practical principal I find works well is to allow my thinking to be guided by higher philosophical principles. For example, if I can hold to and align my thinking around the Platonic principles of the good, the beautiful and the true (another triad is justice, compassion and harmony), then I find my thinking tends to help me navigate out of a bunch or situations that would otherwise create a lot of negativity emotions wise.

The wheel of fortune
Imagine your everyday thinking and feeling as like a wheel spinning around you. You are sitting in the ‘hub’ of the wheel, watching it spin. As you watch, you can choose to occasionally intervene in the dynamic; introducing thoughts and emotions, or letting go of them. As you relax into the process notice how you can:

  1. Maintain balance by simply watching and holding that observational position
  2. Affect the balance by intervening strategically

This is a simple image that can take you a long way in meditation, and bring you experiential mastery of the polarity between your thoughts and feelings.

Related articles: Finding the center of the wheel
A wheel spinning  out of balance

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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 sessions – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

In a sentence: Learn how to integrate different aspects of yourself and your world into complementary polarities in order to increase your internal harmony, strength and wellbeing

Overview: Polarity meditation is a tradition of meditation that has its precedent in both eastern and western forms of meditation. In the east it is found in Taoist meditation with yin & yang, and in the west within the Tree of Life & Qabalah. In this series we will be focusing on polarities
Read full details…

Saturday October 16th & 23rd – Breathwork Masterclass & Mini-Retreat– Improve physical immunity, wellbeing and inner peace though deep breathing

In a sentence: Learn unique Taoist breathing techniques to improve your immune system, energy level, psychological wellness and improve your meditation.

Overview: According to the ancient Chinese view, the vital force provided by air through breathing is even more important to health and longevity than that provided by food and water through digestion. The way in which we breathe is also a direct reflection of the levels of stress that we are feeling; when we feel calm our breathing becomes deep and regular, when we feel stress our breathing becomes shallower and quicker…read full details

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat

Saturday October 23rd, 10am-4pm – Breathwork Masterclass & Mini-Retreat– Improve physical immunity, wellbeing and inner peace though deep breathing

Tues & Weds 26&27th October – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Biographical Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation

Three examples of mindful stress-transformation

Dear Integral Meditators,

One major premise of my stress transformation techniques is that it is your perception of stress defines your experience of it. Positive/growth enhancing stress and negative/debilitating stress are subjective and potentially changeable for the better. The article below explores three examples from my life recently where I have been practicing changing my perception in order to transform the experience of my stress.

If you’d like to really get to grips with your own stress, and see what you can transform it into, the do consider my  Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat this coming Saturday. You can attend it live or online.

In the spirit of flow,

Toby

Three examples of mindful stress-transformation

One major premise of my stress transformation techniques is that it is your perception of stress defines your experience of it. Positive/growth enhancing stress and negative/debilitating stress are subjective and potentially changeable for the better. Here are three examples from my life recently where I have been practicing changing my perception in order to transform the experience of my stress.

Relaxing and flowing with impermanence – During the Covid pandemic, the Singapore government has been making regular tactical changes to its approach to the disease. It has meant that sometimes I have been able to do live meditation classes, sometimes not. Sometimes this affects my income negatively, sometimes it has improved it. I have found myself with gaps in my schedule as a result of Covid, but then sometimes overly busy and scrambling. I have taken this disruptive environment as a training in relaxing and flowing with impermanence, rather than something that is in the way of my wellbeing. As I have practiced relaxing and flowing with the change, I have found that the calm of the flow has helped me make decisions that have helped me surf the challenges of the reality that I (and all of us) are faced with.

Angry at obstacles – In many mindfulness systems anger is something to be avoided, released or calmed. All of these methods are potentially useful and valuable. But anger is also a powerful emotion that, if harnessed can be used to positive ends. Recently I have been deliberately focusing on the anger within me coming from problems that repeatedly get in the way of me doing my work. When I do get the opportunity to sit down and be productive, I have focused on my anger and irritability to start, and then directed that force to getting things done in the time that I have available. I use it to focus on what I am doing and get s#*t done. Once my allocated work time is up, I then change into a mode of relaxation and acceptance. In this way I use my anger consciously as a focusing and productivity tool.

Thinking slower and better to tackle overwhelm – Having a baby right now, being self-employed, also having a teenager and being quite recently married is a recipe for sometimes feeling overwhelmed. I have all of these things going on in my life, and recently there have been a series of unexpected events that have further come onto my agenda. Because of this the feeling of overwhelm has often been present for me. The instinct with overwhelm is either to panic and get busier, or give up and feel despair. What I have been doing is deliberately slowing down my thinking process (by about 15%), and then trying to think 15% better quality about what’s happening. As a result, I have been consistently surprised about how effective I have been in my choice-making and capacity to focus on tackling one issue at a time. The net result is that my confidence has increased, and my sense of satisfaction at being able to basically keep it together in dis-orienting circumstances.

So, there you go, three examples from my life right now. I hope they inspire you to be thoughtful about your own stress-transformation process, and how you can use your stress to grow mindfully during this phase of your journey.

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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 sessions – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

In a sentence: Learn how to integrate different aspects of yourself and your world into complementary polarities in order to increase your internal harmony, strength and wellbeing

Overview: Polarity meditation is a tradition of meditation that has its precedent in both eastern and western forms of meditation. In the east it is found in Taoist meditation with yin & yang, and in the west within the Tree of Life & Qabalah. In this series we will be focusing on polarities
Read full details…

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat
One sentence summary: Learn how to understand, re-direct and make use of stress, anxiety and difficult emotions through mindfulness and meditation
Overview: Stress, anxiety, fear, anger, attachment – Ordinarily we see these states of mind and emotion as negative; things that get in the way of our happiness and wellbeing, and prevent us from achieving the goals and quality of life that we would like.
But what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy?…Read full details

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat

Saturday October 23rd, 10am-4pm – Breathwork Masterclass & Mini-Retreat– Improve physical immunity, wellbeing and inner peace though deep breathing

Tues & Weds 26&27th October – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Awakening to where you are (Polarity meditation & sitting)

“Polarity meditation gives us access to immediate, simple states of awakening, whilst at the same time allowing us to work with a wide variety of opposing forces in our life, creating a state of balanced harmony, between them, rather than imbalance and conflict”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Awakening in meditation is very simple, but it s also very complex. This article explores how to connect to a state of immanent simplicity and perfection though meditation.

In the spirit of awakening,

Toby

 Awakening to where you are (Polarity meditation & sitting)

Awakening in meditation
To awaken in meditation, certainly from the perspective of Zen meditation, but also implicitly in other forms, involves experiencing what is present for us in the moment, and becoming aware of that experience. I’ll use a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh in his book ‘Zen Keys’ to clarify this:
“Sitting meditation is not to think, reflect or loose ourselves in concepts or discriminations. It is also not to remain immobile, like a stone or the trunk of a tree”
How can we avoid two extremes of conceptualization and inertia? By dwelling in the present moment, right in the midst of our experience, under the lamp of mindfulness. Direct experience and awareness of direct experience are the ways to avoid these extremes. These words may seem complicated, but the experience itself is quite straightforward”
According to this understanding of meditation, to become awakened, or to awaken to our own Buddha nature in the moment is not something that we need to wait for. Rather it is something that we just need to recognize, and then rest in that recognition. Again from the book ‘Zen Keys’, the five principles of Soto Zen sitting meditation can help elaborate on this point:

The five meditation principles of Soto Zen ((Ts’ao T’ung Zen sect)

  1. Sitting meditation, even without a subject of meditation, is enough
  2. Sitting meditation and awakening are not two different things
  3. One must not wait for awakening
  4. There is no awakening to attain
  5. The mind and body are one

Different types of awakening, and awakening in the place you are
So, from one point of view, all forms of awakening are the same in the sense that they are awakening to the experience of the moment. But from another point of view, there are many different kinds of awakening according to the context. In polarity meditation the awakening occurs the point of balance, or harmony between two poles or opposites. Since there are many different types of polarized energy in our life, there are many different points of balance that we can awaken within. Here is one example to help illustrate this based on our physical body’s polarities:

Awakening to your body’s vertical centre: Sitting up, imagine your body’s vertical centre as a line of light/energy going from the crown of your head down to your perineum.

  • With small movements, rock your body from side to side, feeling the left and right halves of your body coming into balance either side of your bodies vertical core
  • Then rock your body forward and back with small movements. Feel the front and back halves of your body coming into balance around your vertical core
  • Then sit quietly and be aware of the sense of balance arising from the left and right, front and back halves of you body coming into balance with each other
  • Staying with this experience, simple move into a state of awakened presence around the feeling of balance in your body

This is one simple fundamental polarity meditation form that you can go deeply into.

There are a huge number of different ‘balance points’ that we can explore and awaken to for example:

  • Between our experience of calmness and excitement
  • Between resilience and vulnerability
  • Between seriousness and playfulness
  • Between our inner and outer life
  • Between ambition and humility

Polarity meditation gives us access to immediate, simple states of awakening, whilst at the same time allowing us to work with a wide variety of opposing forces in our life, creating a state of balanced harmony, between them, rather than imbalance and conflict.

There are a thousand ways to wake up in meditation, all of them are different, and all of them are the same!

Related article: Polarity meditation – Working consciously with tension

Watch Toby talking about Integral Polarity Meditation:

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

In a sentence: Learn how to integrate different aspects of yourself and your world into complementary polarities in order to increase your internal harmony, strength and wellbeing

Overview: Polarity meditation is a tradition of meditation that has its precedent in both eastern and western forms of meditation. In the east it is found in Taoist meditation with yin & yang, and in the west within the Tree of Life & Qabalah. In this series we will be focusing on polarities
Read full details…

Tues & Weds 21st & 22nd September – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation (Live & online)
The Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere marks the mid-point between the warmer, lighter seasons of the year and the cooler, darker ones. The forces of day and night, light and dark are of equal strength. As such it is a great time to emphasize balance and harmony, both in our life and meditation practice….read full details

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat
One sentence summary: Learn how to understand, re-direct and make use of stress, anxiety and difficult emotions through mindfulness and meditation
Overview: Stress, anxiety, fear, anger, attachment – Ordinarily we see these states of mind and emotion as negative; things that get in the way of our happiness and wellbeing, and prevent us from achieving the goals and quality of life that we would like.
But what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy?…Read full details

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Introduction to Integral Polarity Meditation – The Path of the Middle Way

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

Tues & Weds 21st & 22nd September – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation (Live & online)

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat

Tues & Weds 26&27th October – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques Presence and being present

Polarity meditation – Working consciously with tension

“When opposing forces in our life start to complement and strengthen each other, then we start to become capable of levels of both personal performance and enjoyment that are well beyond the reach of most people”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Polarity meditation is a practice that I’ve been working with for many years. It’s principles are one of the bases of my Life-fullness- life coaching practice. Starting next week, I’ll be offering a brand new polarity meditation course. I’ve written an article on some of the basic concepts below, and you can also see a video intro that I have created here: A video intro to polarity meditation
I’ll be doing a special introductory session, live and online next Tuesday & Wednesday 14th/15th September.

In the spirit of harmony in polarity,

Toby

Polarity meditation – Working consciously with tension

Natural tension
Our lives are full of tension, naturally. Without this tension life would lack vitality and challenge. The tension in our life arises from the polarisation of opposite forces and energies. These forces demand that we find and hold a point of balance or tension between them. For example:

  • Our work life and family life
  • Our thinking and feeling
  • Between alone time and social time
  • Between who we are and who we want to be become
  • Between resting and exerting ourselves
  • Between what we want and what others want from us
  • Between being assertive and being patient

Tension leads to stress, but of what type?
All of this tension from polarity leads to stress in our life. However, stress can either be constructive or destabilizing:

  • Negative Stress is: Any form of stress that inhibits our ability to respond adequately, appropriately and successfully to the challenges of life, and to learn from such challenges
  • Positive stress, or Eu-stress is: Any form of stress that improves our ability to respond adequately, appropriately and successfully to the challenges of our life, and to learn from such challenges.

One of the main points of polarity meditation is to enable us to become aware of the tension arising from polarity in such a way that we are able to make what is currently negative stress in our life into positive, constructive stress. It aims to give us the confidence to feel that, whatever life throws at us we have the capability to put it to use in order to grow and thrive. Increasingly we find fewer and fewer situations that we find intimidating or negatively stressful

Working consciously with polarity leads to superpowers
If we can start to get the opposing forces in our life working together, then we discover that we create ‘inner super-powers’. These are the result of two polarities harmonizing and mutually strengthening each other, creating a result that could not happen with just one of these forces in isolation, for example:

  • By harmonizing the forces of our thinking and feeling together we create unusual psychological strength
  • By harmonizing our doing and being we create supernormal resilience and stamina
  • By harmonizing what we want and what others want from us, we develop great relationship skills

When opposing forces in our life start to complement and strengthen each other, then we start to become capable of levels of both personal performance and enjoyment that are well beyond the reach of most people.

Starting your practice
To get a sense of what polarity meditation and mindfulness look like, here are three points to consider to start working with the polarity of your thinking and feeling:

  1. Observe way in which your current thinking and feeling interact.
  2. Notice whether they are working like a team in harmony, or whether they seem to be in conflict much of the time
  3. Experiment mindfully with one simple way that you can improve the balance between your thinking and feeling. For example, practice generating an enjoyable feeling or emotion that you are familiar with, and then looking at and thinking about your life on the basis of that good feeling.

Notice how in simple ways like this you can start to make the polarity of your thinking and feeling into a team that works together for you, rather than against you. Notice how you can create complementary tension and positive stress. Welcome to the world of polarity meditation!

Related article: The middle way

Watch Toby talking about Integral Polarity Meditation:

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

 

 

 

 

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

In a sentence: Learn how to integrate different aspects of yourself and your world into complementary polarities in order to increase your internal harmony, strength and wellbeing

Overview: Polarity meditation is a tradition of meditation that has its precedent in both eastern and western forms of meditation. In the east it is found in Taoist meditation with yin & yang, and in the west within the Tree of Life & Qabalah. In this series we will be focusing on polarities
Read full details…

Tues & Weds 21st & 22nd September – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation (Live & online)
The Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere marks the mid-point between the warmer, lighter seasons of the year and the cooler, darker ones. The forces of day and night, light and dark are of equal strength. As such it is a great time to emphasize balance and harmony, both in our life and meditation practice….read full details

 

 

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat
One sentence summary: Learn how to understand, re-direct and make use of stress, anxiety and difficult emotions through mindfulness and meditation
Overview: Stress, anxiety, fear, anger, attachment – Ordinarily we see these states of mind and emotion as negative; things that get in the way of our happiness and wellbeing, and prevent us from achieving the goals and quality of life that we would like.
But what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy?…Read full details

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts 6th&7th July – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Starts Wednesday September 8th – The Integral Mindfulness & Meditation Online Program with Toby September ’21-March ’22

Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Introduction to Integral Polarity Meditation – The Path of the Middle Way

Begins Tues 14/Weds 15th September – Integral Polarity Meditation – Exploring Earth, Lunar & ‘Vertical’ Polarities

Tues & Weds 21st & 22nd September – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation (Live & online)

Saturday 25th September – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Masterclass & Mini-retreat

Tues & Weds 26&27th October – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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Compassionate presence, awakened action

“As your life experience unfolds, often your compassion for others increases because you can relate to them more as you ‘know how they feel’. If we combine this with practicing simply being present every day, then this can make the power of our compassionate presence grow exponentially”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Compassion isn’t always easy. Making room for compassion for others sometimes feels like a tall order, especially when we are struggling to find compassion for ourself. The article below explores how opening to compassion for others can sometimes be the best way to work with our own pain and stress.

In the spirit of compassionate presence,

Toby

 

 

Compassionate presence, awakened action

Compassion isn’t always easy. Making room for compassion for others sometimes feels like a tall order, especially when we are struggling to find compassion for ourself, and to bear the burden of our own stress and wounds. I want to start by inviting an awareness that sometimes (not at all times), opening to compassion and compassionate action toward the world, can actually be the best way to help change our own experience. As Robin Wall Kimmerer says:

‘Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.’

So, it’s always worth making room for others in our world-view. Its not just sacrificing ourself or ‘being good’, it is an intelligent, wise way of getting by!

Using our own pain
One of the simplest ways to work on transforming our own pain is to use it as a doorway to compassion:

  • If you are suffering from loneliness, you can imagine the millions, or even billions who share this experience in the world. You can find examples in your own life of people you know
  • Your physical sickness can open you to the awareness of the worse and more permanent experience of others
  • Work stress? Oppressive colleagues or bosses? You can bet there are many others who have the same and worse, and you can probably find examples in your own close circle of influence.

If you stopped to think in this way, what would be the main challenges of your own that you can start to mindfully use to develop your compassion for others?

Doing what you can in the face of the limitless
In terms of acting upon your compassionate awareness and impulse, it can feel a bit intimidating. In Mahayana Buddhism, the vow of the Bodhisattva is as follows:

‘However many living being there are, I vow to liberate them all (from their suffering),
However many delusions I have, I vow to conquer them all.
However many spiritual truths there are, I vow to Master them all.’

Well, that can feel like an overwhelming amount to do! One of the best ways to deal with this issue is simply though presence and attention to the presenting circumstances. As Nkosi Johnson says:

“Do what you can,
with what you’ve been given,
in the place where you are,
with the time that you have.”

Ask yourself the question: ‘In this moment, today, what opportunity is there for me to act compassionately and do what can be done to reduce the pain and suffering of others and myself? What can be done, with what I have at my disposal, where I am now, in this moment?’

Awakened, compassionate presence
Often the best response to suffering is presence. To witness and acknowledge the pain in front of us enables us to

  • See it and act if there is something we can do
  • If there is nothing we can do, then sometimes simply acknowledging that we see the pain of others can help them. As a friend of mine the other day said to me ‘Thanks Toby, this helps a lot’. All I had done was say that I saw what his pain, and I believed that in the long term the things that he was going through were forging and forming him, rather than defeating him, and that although he could not see it yet, he was becoming someone stronger than he could imagine!

Compassionate presence comes from practice + life experience
As your life experience unfolds, often your compassion for others increases because you can relate to them more as you ‘know how they feel’. If we combine this with practising simply being present every day, then this can make the power of our compassionate presence grow exponentially. For example, simply practicing ten minutes of my meditation on ‘Sitting like a mountain’ from last week’s article, we can anchor our compassion more deeply in this moment, and in the centre of our being, even as the storms and floods of our life come and go.

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

August 5th, 6th, 7th, 2-4pm – Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers – A three day course

These sessions are specifically designed to help teens develop their real inner skills that help them be:

  • More effective at achieving their chosen goals
  • Build confidence,
  • Build resilience around stress and
  • Increase their capacity for fun and enjoyment as they learn.

Read full details…

Saturday August 21st 9.30-11.30am – Mindfulness for Emotional Intelligence Masterclass

In a sentence: Learn how you can use mindfulness to develop your emotional range and skills

Much of our quality of life depends not so much on what we are experiencing, but the way in which we experience it. Our moods and emotional states to a large degree define the quality of our life experience, at work, in our relationships and in our leisure activities. This masterclass will lead you on an experiential journey to:

  • Understand what feelings, moods and emotions are and how to build an effective relationship to them
  • How to consolidate and expand your existing emotional strengths
  • How to deal with difficult and challenging emotions, and even turn them to your advantage
  • How to increase the diversity/range of emotions that are available to you for enjoyment, pleasure and life-effectiveness! Read full details…

 

Saturday August 28th, 10am-5pm – Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life Workshop

Overview: The Tree of Life is an ancient and comprehensive system of meditation, personal development and inner growth represented by the diagram of a tree. Although it is best known as a ‘western’ tradition of spiritual growth (Judaist, Christian, Islamic), the fundamentals of the Tree of Life practice can be found in different ancient systems of meditation and mindfulness throughout the world. This workshop is a practical introduction to how to meditate with the Tree of Life in order to:

  • Stimulate holistic and integrated inner growth
  • Consciously develop different levels and states of consciousness in meditation, and learn how to transition or journey between them in the inner world
  • Stimulate the development of your creative, imaginal and visualization skills
  • Make systematic, organized contact with guides, teachers, healing forces and archetypal energies within the inner world
  • Practice different types of meditation to build different strengths, and help you deal with different inner challenges…read full details

 

The Mindful Self Knowledge coaching program

This is eight-month coaching program with Toby is designed to facilitate your own personal mindful self-discovery process. It focuses on:

  • Awareness of how your past experience has influenced who and how you are today
  • Confidence in approaching your present experience with playful fullness and enthusiasm
  • Giving you the inner tools to face your choices and your future in an empowered, dynamic, and authentic manner. Read full details

Watch Toby’s video on the Program

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts 6th&7th July – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Saturday 17th, 24th, 31st July, 2-4pm – Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers – A three week
course

Saturday August 21st 9.30-11.30am – Mindfulness for Emotional Intelligence Masterclass

Saturday August 28th, 10am-5pm – Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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