Category: Mindfulness

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

Post author By Toby
Post date March 3, 2026

“Relax into fatigue, work WITH your body, rather than fighting with it to complete the task when you are tired”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at how to work with fatigue & stress, rather than against it. If you want to get more done with less effort, this practice can be quite transformative!

Heads up for the Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & energy balls meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life, which is very much focused on re-calibrating our energy-fatigue dynamic…

In the spirit of acceptance,

Toby

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

Tired of being tired

When we are tired, often without realizing it we can find ourself fighting with the fatigue. The sensation of fatigue, particularly when we are stressed is uncomfortable, dulling, even actively painful. Consequently, we unconsciously react to the pain by:

Repressing it
Pushing it out of our awareness
Taking our mind away or ‘out’ of our body to avoid the discomfort
Seeking distractions, something to take our attention away from being tired

As a short-term coping mechanism, this can work for a while, but as a method it is very inefficient because:

We must expend effort avoiding the fatigue, and we are tired already
It sets up an antagonistic relationship between ‘me’ and the fatigue. I am fighting it rather than working with it
We start to dis-connect from our body, and the mainly legitimate signals that it is giving us about our energy level and what we are experiencing

If we persist with this approach, then the medium to long term effect is that I become ‘tired of being tired.’ What this means is not only am I literally tired for the first reasons that my body is signalling to me, but I am also tired of having to always fight, avoid and repress my feelings of being tired!

Accepting fatigue

The first step towards a more ergonomic and compassionate way to deal with our fatigue is to get in touch with and accept our fatigue. If we are a fatigue repressor, then this can feel pretty counter-intuitive at first, but it releases the potential for a whole new dynamic. As you are reading, get in touch with your body, and the feelings of fatigue or stress in it.

Notice your resistance to it initially, or your antagonism
Try and relax yourself and your body a little. In particular, soften the area of your body that contains the pain of the fatigue
Breathe in and out of the area, breathing in extend a bit of warmth and compassion to this body part, as you breathe out, encourage it to release the fatigue so that fresh energy can come into the body-tissues

If you build competency at doing this, then temporarily the pain will lessen, and you will feel a bit more energy. If you need to keep on working or doing whatever you are doing, then you do it in a more relaxed way, working WITH your body, rather than fighting with it to complete the task. Working with the body and its fatigue means:

You are no longer losing energy resisting and fighting your fatigue
You and your body-mind become a much more singular energy that can move forward with purpose
Your body responds to your encouragement and acceptance with energy, so it helps you because you help it(!)

When you need to rest, rest!

When we fight with our fatigue, this can de-sensitize ourself to it so that sometimes/often we fail to respond in the most obvious way, which is to build in time for more rest. Instead, we just keep pushing on, we procrastinate, we ignore the signals until we are in a state of different degrees of burn out or over-fatigue. This then takes much longer to recover from that plain old tiredness.

Practice points

Notice your resistance to fatigue
Practice relaxing into and working with your body and feelings of fatigue
Notice the greater enjoyment and efficiency of working with, not fighting your tiredness
Be decisive around rest

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Accepting & recycling your difficult emotions

Post author By Toby
Post date February 23, 2026

“The quickest way to get to where you want to go is often to accept where you are.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at mindfulness around emotions, and working with emotional energy. If you enjoy it, we will be exploring these methods in both the weekday (Weds eve) and Saturday sessions this week. You are invited!

You might also consider the Inner smile & energy balls meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life.

Final call for this weekends Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing!

In the spirit of inner recycling,

Toby

Accepting & recycling your difficult emotions

In last week’s article on ‘Your emotions as horses’ I led with this quote:

“The emotions you currently think of as being the most useless in your life might just be the ones that you need to learn to ride better”

In this piece, I want to explore the theme of accepting and recycling difficult emotions, as well as the mental narrative and the bodily/somatic states that goes with them.

To recycle the energy of difficult emotions, they first need to be acknowledged and accepted. There is a Zen saying that goes “Pulling the weeds we give nourishment to the plant,” meaning that we can learn to be grateful to our inner difficulties, if we know how to use their energy, like pulling and then burying weeds next to a plant so that they can nourish it.

Our ‘normal’ approach to a difficult emotional state is to try and push it away, so that we can replaced it with a more ‘positive’ state. Another quote I often use in my trainings is:

“The quickest way to get to where you want to go is to accept where you are.”

What this points to is that, counter-intuitively, if you can accept and be at peace with a difficult emotional state, the state itself can change more rapidly to something more constructive. It is the accepting and not resisting that enables the transformation.

For example, if I am hurt or disappointed by someone’s behaviour, acknowledging that feeling of hurt or disappointment is a first step towards transforming it.

Smiling at it to accept and soften the energy

From acknowledgment I can then move onto acceptance. Even though we may understand intellectually the principle and benefit of accepting, it is not easy to do! The gateway to accepting a difficult emotion is often guarded by resistance. One technique I find helpful when in a state of resistance is to gently smile at my resistance, inviting it to soften its hard, rigid stance. Smiling and inviting our resistance to let go (and not being in a hurry about this) enables us to access the feeling of the emotion itself. Once we have this access, we can then use the smiling technique to work with the emotion. In my example of hurt and disappointment, I can smile inwardly to the part of me that feels this way, encouraging a softening of the emotion, making its energy more malleable. This opens up the emotional energy to the ‘recycling’ or transformational stage of the practice that I explain below.

Recycling emotional energy using the microcosmic orbit

I have talked about the microcosmic orbit in a previous articles this year. With emotional energy we raise its vibration by looping it up the back of the body, and re-directing it down the front, which is the basic pattern in all M-O meditations.

Imagine two points of light within your body, one at the bottom of your perineum, the second at the crown of your head. Now imagine a golden thread running up the back of your body, from perineum to the base of the spine, up the back of the body to the crown. It continues thru the crown to your third eye, and down the front of your body, through the belly and back down to the perineum (see diagram).

As you breathe in, feel the energy in your body flowing up the back of the golden thread to your crown, raising and purifying the vibration of the energy as it does so. As you breathe out, feel energy flowing down the front of the body, bringing the higher vibrational energy back down into the torso. As you do this, imagine that the energy of your difficult emotion is being ‘sucked’ into this loop, recycled up the back of the spine and returning down the front of the torso, as neutral/positive emotional energy, ready to be deployed by you in other directions.

Recycling rather than avoiding emotions is a great way to increase your energy levels and resilience in life. Initially the techniques can sound a bit eccentric, but once you try them a few times, the principles are not that complicated.

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

Post author By Toby
Post date January 20, 2026

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

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

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

In the spirit of not one, not two,

Toby

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

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

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

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

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

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

Practice the unified body-mind 10-minute meditation recording

Brain energy activation microcosmic orbit meditation, basic mindful positions

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

Practice the microcosmic orbit 12-minute brain activation meditation

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

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

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

Enjoy!

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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Foundational beginners mind/energy resilience practice with guided meditation

Post author By Toby
Post date January 12, 2026

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

In the spirit of new beginnings,

Toby

Foundational beginners mind/energy resilience practice with guided meditation

This article outlines the basic forms of two meditations:

The beginners mind meditation,
and the microcosmic orbit meditation.

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

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

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

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

Basic descriptions, & guided meditations

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

Beginners mind basic ‘mindful positions:

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

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

Position 3: Recognizing each moment as a new beginning

Practice the 10minute beginners mind meditation with the recording

Microcosmic orbit basic mindful positions

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

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

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

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

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

An integration recording

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

Beginners mind + Microcosmic orbit 10minute integration form

Enjoy!

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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

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Squares & triangles – Mindful strengths building

Post author By Toby
Post date November 22, 2025

“Once you know how to breathe in squares and triangles, you can create your own mindful flow practices to build the qualities & capacities that you wish”

Dear Toby,

This week’s article looks at a practice I have evolved over the years, designed to enable creativity within a basic, consistent structure. Enjoy!

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

In the spirit of building strength,

Toby

Squares and triangles – Mindful strengths building

Square and triangular breathing, the basic concepts

Square and triangular breathing are methods where you combine your inhalation and exhalation with short pauses. The practice of pausing your breath in itself offers benefits such as:

calming the nervous system, improving focus, and enhancing emotional regulation
increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood, which reduces the excitability of the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and promotes a sense of calm
greater control over the breathing process, which can lead to increased mental clarity, resilience, and better decision-making

Square breathing is where we place a short pause both at the top and the bottom of the breath. A well-known form of this is called box-breathing where you breathe in, pause, breathe out and pause at the bottom of the exhalation, each for a count of four, hence ‘breathing in a box’, or square.

With triangular breathing there is just one pause, at the bottom of the breath, hence three stages or ‘sides’ like a triangle.

To use these breathing forms for strengths building, we simply combine the breathing with qualities, or states of mind to build them as we breathe. For example in my Wednesday class last week we began by practising breathing in a square in the following manner to cultivate mindful flow and presence:

Breathing in, gathering and focusing our energy in our body
Pause, being focused and present
Breathing out, relaxing our body, relaxing into the present moment
Pause, holding a state of relaxed presence

We practiced with sets of three square breaths like this, with pauses in between just to enjoy the sense of being in state of focused, relaxed presence. Focused, relaxed presence are foundational strengths for building competence in meditation and mindfulness. In this practice we used square breathing to build these strengths systematically.

In the Saturday class last week, we opened with a triangular breathing form, where:

As we breathed in, we opened to a state of adventurousness
Breathing out, dropping into a state of calm
Pausing at the bottom of the breath, relaxing in a state of calm adventurousness

Adventurousness and calm are qualities we can use to meet our challenges and opportunities in such a way that we enjoy them where possible, and also navigate them with calm strength. The triangular breathing provides a structure to cultivate these qualities deliberately in a structured way.

Once you know how to breathe in squares and triangles, you can create your own mindful flow practices to build the qualities and capacities that you wish to develop in our life and work. I like to combine qualities together into polarities that balance and complement each other. From the above examples you can see:

Relaxed and focused
Adventurous calm

There are many, many variations that I have used over the years:

Engaged detachment
Humble self-assertion
Gentle courage
Serious lightness

And so on…

The great thing about meditating with squares and triangles is that you have one technique, with many variations. So, you can create variety and stimulation in your practice, whilst at the same time keeping it basically consistent and ‘the same’.

Related reading:
Using mindful flow to train in strengths-building
Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)
Meditation wings – Five foundational meditation polarities

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

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Finding inner space within your mind by focusing on outer spaces

Post author By Toby
Post date October 13, 2025

“Normally, when we walk into a room, it is the objects in the room that we notice, when by far the biggest element in the room is the space, and the light or darkness in it”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s newsletter features an article I wrote originally all the way back in 2010 which I have updated. If you enjoy it, it will be a part of the focus for this week’s Tues/Weds or Saturday Zen meditations.

In the spirit of inner space,

Toby

PS: Final shout out of this Friday morning’s The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course

Finding inner space within your mind by focusing on outer spaces

An ongoing motivation for both beginners’ starting meditation and those who are more experienced practitioners is the need to create and preserve a sense of space within our mind which we can relax into and use to keep the rest of our busy lives in perspective.
One technique I use regularly that I find creates a sense of inner space very quickly is to focus on an awareness of the outer spaces that exist in our physical environment. The mind basically becomes like what it focuses upon, so when you focus on an outer physical space, this in turn quite naturally starts to give rise to a sense of an inner space within our mind. Here is one example of a way in which you can do this:

Making your mind BIG

We have been using this technique recently in the class I facilitate. Once you have sat down in a comfortable posture, become aware of the sky and stars up above you and the earth beneath you, allow your awareness to become big and open like the sky above you, and vast solid and stable like the Earth beneath you.
After you have done this, extend your mind horizontally around you, out to the horizon of the land, to the north, east, south and west. Extend your awareness as far out as you can to feel the curve of the Earth’s surface all about you. Now you have a sense of your mind as being BIG, and spacious, taking in the vast physical spaces all around you.
Stay with this feeling for as long as you like, let yourself relax as much as possible into your sense of the big space all around you; above, below, and extending out into the for directions of the horizontal/horizonal plane.
If you do this for a while, you will find quite quickly that a sense of inner space and calm arises within your mind. By focusing on the big space outside, you start to feel the big space inside!

Smaller space focus

You can also do the above exercise in a similar way but with a much smaller space, such as the room that you might be sitting in. Normally, when we walk into a room, it is the objects in the room that we notice, when by far the biggest element in the room is the space in the room, and the light or darkness in it. We can make our mind much more spacious in a short period of time by relaxing into an awareness of the outer space of the room, and let it create a corresponding sense of inner space within us.

A final point here is that I have found that this meditation helps ANY problem that I may be facing and that I am concerned about. When your mind feels big, then problems seem much more manageable. In a small mind consumed by itself and its own challenges, even small issues can take on a distorted life of their own!

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

Watch Toby’s video on Meditating with the bright shadow:

Upcoming workshops & series’ on the shadow & the golden shadow

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

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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Host & guest – Zen Witnessing

Post author By Toby
Post date September 23, 2025

Dear Integral Meditators,

The Host and guest is a traditional Zen analogy for the for the stages of the path from an un-awakened to awakened state. Its a simple blueprint that can inform you at any level of your inner growth, particularly if you are an active meditator.

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

In the spirit of ,

Toby

Host & guest – Zen Witnessing

The Host and guest is a traditional Zen analogy for the for the stages of the path from an un-awakened to awakened state. The image is taken from the Surangama sutra, where ‘Host’ means emptiness, our essence, the nature of mind, while ‘guest’ means phenomena, or the content of consciousness.

The Host, consciousness itself, the Witness

If you look at your awareness from moment to moment, there are things that are changing within it, and there is something that is not changing. The thing that is not changing is the experience of awareness itself – that which is aware of and watches the content of consciousness coming and going. This is why it is often called the ‘the Witness self’. In the analogy it is the ‘Host’ because it is the permanent, or fixed resident in our consciousness. The contents of consciousness are like the guests in an Inn or hotel, coming and going in a transient manner. Contrastingly, consciousness itself, or the Witness Self is like the proprietor of the Inn, the ‘permanent resident’ so to speak.

The guest – the content of our consciousness

The content of our consciousness is essentially:

Our body and sensory experience, the outer word
Our mind, thought perceptions and inner world
The feelings and emotions that attend/arise from our physical and mental worlds

Unlike our observer consciousness, our outer experiences, thoughts and emotions come and go, like the guests of the Inn.

Part of the emphasis on being present in the moment, both in Zen and in meditation more generally, is so that we can start watching our awareness, and distinguish between the Host and guest in our own being and consciousness. By doing this we can start to effect a transformation of our identity that has four stages:

Stage 1: The guest within the guest
This stage of development refers to the un-awakened person, whose identity completely revolves around the guest, and who has no awareness whatever of the Host.

Stage 2: The guest within the Host
This stage refers to the initial stages of our meditation. At this stage our identity often still gets lost in the guest; in our thoughts, feelings, and body. However, we are aware of a ‘higher or deeper level’ of being, the Host, and our life begins to be informed by it.

Stage 3: The Host within the Guest.
At this stage out sense of self has substantially transitioned to the Host, which becomes is the main driving force in our life and actions. The guest still occasionally becomes unhappy and tries to take charge, but by this time the Host is usually in the driving seat.

Stage 4: The Host within the Host.
At this stage we have achieved a stable experience of enlightenment; our identity is firmly centered in the Host, and it is the Host that always guides the activities of the guest. We are no longer caught up in the illusory games of the guest, but are able to use our transient ego as an expression of our formless enlightened nature.

Some of the Pertinent questions to ourselves in our meditation and daily life to start centering ourselves around the Host:

Where is my identity focused right now, within the Host or guest?
Which aspects of the guest (thoughts/mind, senses) does my sense of self most often get mixed up in?
Where is the Host within me right now?

The journey of Zen is one that takes us from our current obsessional identity with the form level of our being to a core identity based around Consciousness itself, the Host. It is an unfolding PROCESS that progressively reveals the Enlightened nature that is already within us, here and now.

Related article: Witnessing the witness

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

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Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

Post author By Toby
Post date September 15, 2025

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

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

In the spirit of natural-ness,

Toby

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

Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

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

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

Meditating on the pre-present enables us to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two quotes for meditating unself-consciously

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

A mountain poem

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

“The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.”

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

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

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

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Scratching out your name card, & other gateways to Zen

Post author By Toby
Post date September 1, 2025

“What might happen if you temporarily put down your identification with the job title that you carry on your name card, you just scratched it out for a while?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

On the 23^rd of August I led a Zen meditation on the ‘Man or woman of no rank’ at the One Heart open day. This theme is one of what I like to call ‘the gateways of Zen’, you can listen to the meditation we did by clicking on the link.

In the article below I talk a little about the idea of the person of no rank, and share a short story related to it. If you enjoy the meditation & the article, then do consider participating in the Zen sessions that start this week, weekdays, or Saturdays, or both. You can participate in person, online or via the recordings!

In the spirit of label-less-ness,

Toby

PS: Full details of all events in September below article!

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

What might happen if you temporarily put down your identification with the job title that you carry on your name card, You just scratched it out for a while?
What would happen if you did something similar with other roles that you identify with;

Your family roles as a parent, child, or sibling?
Your identification with gender roles, nationality of culture?
Your age, your personality ‘type’?
The story that you carry around with you almost all the time?
What if you even forgot your name?

To put down your labels in this way is to become a ‘man or woman of no rank, and is one of the gateways to Zen. The traditional story below illustrates this quite vividly.

Zen Story: The Governor’s Card

In the city of Kyoto, there lived a great Zen master called Keichu. He was the head of Tofoku, a huge cathedral in the city. Keichu held sway over his jurisdiction and was well-respected for his astute perceptiveness.
When Kitagaki took over as the Governor of the city of Kyoto, he heard much about Keichu’s wisdom. Deciding to pay his respects, Kitagaki called upon Keichu one evening. Upon reaching the cathedral, Kitagaki presented his business card to Keichu’s attendant and asked for an audience with the Zen Master. The attendant asked Kitagaki to wait and went inside to give the card to Keichu.
“Master, there is someone here to see you,” the attendant announced.
“Who is it?” Keichu asked.
The attendant gave Keichu the Governor’s calling card which read: Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto.
“I have nothing to do with this fellow!” bellowed Keichu, throwing the card in disgust. “Tell him to leave right away!” he said, turning to the attendant. The attendant picked up the calling card and dashed to the hall where Kitagaki was waiting. “My apologies, dear Sir,” he said. “The Master does not wish to see you,” he told the Governor, remorsefully returning his card.
Kitagaki was startled. He took his card and was about to leave when he read the words on his card. Realizing his folly at once, the Governor took a pencil and scratched out something from his card. “That was my mistake,” he told the attendant, giving him the calling card again. “Would you please be kind enough to ask your Master one more time?”
The attendant returned to Keichu’s chamber and handed him the Governor’s card again. The card now simply read: Kitagaki. The Governor had scratched out the words, ‘Governor of Kyoto.’
Keichu read the card and his eyes lit up.
“Oh, it is Kitagaki? Yes, I would like to see him now; send him in please!” he told his attendant.
And that’s how the Governor of Kyoto got an audience with the Zen Master Keichu.

Related reading: Becoming a man or woman of no rank
Meditation spaghetti western style

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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Zen ergonomics – Sailing with, rather than rowing against life

Post author By Toby
Post date August 23, 2025

“How might I start to sail with this?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article explores an image that I use a lot in my coaching practice, and that also have found to be of enduring value in my own life challenges.

In the spirit of sailing rather than rowing,

Toby

This week’s article: Zen ergonomics – Sailing with, rather than rowing against life

Zen – Buddhism meets Taoism

Zen is a non-dual school of meditation, and a Mahayana Buddhist one. Being a non-dual school means that is aims at a direct perception of reality As It Is, rather than as our mind thinks it is. To be a Mahayana school essentially means that Zen is underpinned by the motivation and aspiration of universal wise compassion, aiming to help all living beings find a release or liberation from their suffering.

Zen also offers an ergonomic approach to life, meaning that it aims to help us relax into our challenges and tribulations, rather than fighting with them. By learning to gradually accept things as they are and as we find them, we can find ways to work with what is going on rather than fighting it. It is very practical and ‘earthy’ in a way that combines the ‘transcendence’ of Buddhist meditation with the nature-based ‘flow’ philosophy of Taoism.

Sailing – working with, not fighting against

Alan Watts often used the image of sailing rather than rowing to give a sense of how this works. If you have a particular situation you are facing, notice the way in which you are approaching it. Are you trying to fight to overpower it, or are you relaxing into it, trying to find a way of relating to what is going on that is skilful? Fighting with a situation is like being in a boat and trying to row against the wind – every stroke takes effort, you pit your strength and energy against the wind and every stroke takes toil. A ‘sailing’ approach on the other hand involves trying to catch the wind and work with it, to use the energy to help you. If the wind is against you, then a good sailor knows how to tack, or sail diagonally into the direction of the wind, so even if the situation is difficult or challenging, we are looking to find ways to use it rather than fight it!

Centering, putting down concepts, your self-concept & entering relaxing into the beginning

Before you think about what to do in a situation to sail rather than row, it’s good to simply be present to it. A few pointers for this:

Center yourself in your body, in the moment. Try and feel the centre-line of the body, the mid-point between the front and back of the body, and the left and right halves of the body that runs from your crown to your perineum. Take a few slightly deeper breaths if you need to relax
Put down thinking, clear your mind. If you can’t stop thinking, then a skilful way is to not think about the thinking; be present to thoughts without causing them to generate more thoughts (if that sounds a bit Zen, it’s because it is!)
Notice and then put down your self-concept. Don’t just put down your thoughts, also notice you are carrying an idea of yourself into the situation; all the labels, roles and images you have about what and who you are
Relax into the beginning. Meet your situation in the moment, the now, free from your ideas about it, and what it should or shouldn’t be. Try and resist the temptation to start seeking a solution or a fix, just take your time being present with it, and relaxing into that as best you can

From this position of relative center, presence and relaxation ask yourself the question, “How might I start to sail with this?”

The better you get at sailing, the more relaxed you become under pressure, the less exhausted you feel when you become tired, and the more you notice how many small ways there are to sail through your life challenges with a degree of enjoyment, pleasure and creativity!

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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