Category: meditation and creativity

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Inner transformation – Slippers & carpets

“Seeing reality isn’t easy, because our mind throws our idea of what we think we are seeing onto what we see”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks a wise way to mindfully work with what you can control in your life. If you like the article, you are invited to come along to this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, where we will be taking this subject as our object of meditation.
 
Also a heads up for this Saturday’s Deep-dive breathing meditation masterclass where we will focus on developing a multi-faceted breathing meditation practice that helps you grow and learn in the face of life’s challenges, and connect you to deep inner stability.
 
In the spirit of slippers,

Toby

 


Inner transformation – Slippers & carpets
 
TRANSFORMATION – by Anthony De Mello
To a disciple who was forever complaining about others, the Master said, “If it is
peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet
with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.”
 
This short story is one that I used to use a lot when I was teaching meditation classes as a monk back in the 1990’s. It’s a really good analogy for helping to re-orientate our attention when we are feeling out of balance, and if you think about meditation as a way of ‘protecting your feet with slippers’, then it’s a nice way to encourage regular practice!
 
Annoyed and overwhelmed – trying to fix the world
 
It’s easy to get in the trap of being in a situation where you have limited control, trying to control everything, and then feeling frustrated, disappointed and overwhelmed. This goes for smaller scale situations at work or at home, or simply when watching or reading about world events on the news. ‘Carpeting the world’ is a huge ask which, if you think about it rationally is a ridiculous thing to be trying to do. But if we are not mindful, we keep on attempting it and reap the same result time and time again.

  • In your relationships, are you trying to ‘fix’ your partner instead of working on ways that you can stay inwardly centred yourself?
  • At work do you often find yourself complaining about how it ‘should’ be, rather than accepting what is and making choices based on that?

Mindful of your locus of control – dancing between acceptance and assertion

“What is it that I am in control of here?” Is always a good question to ask as a way to find out how to work with a situation. One consistent answer that you will notice coming back to you time and time again is “I am (potentially) in charge of my thoughts, attitudes and emotions regarding this situation”.

In other worlds you can control what is going in within you. Working on what you notice happening inside is a way of ‘making slippers’ that will always give a high reward wherever you are. Of course, you can’t control literally every thought and feeling, but you can take responsibility for your inner life, and start to make improvements that begin protecting your feet from stones and other sharp objects.

Maybe there are some things outside of you that you are also in control of, so you can consider asserting yourself and acting around these as well. But asking what you are in control of will also make obvious lots of things that you simply can’t control and have to accept. In this sense acceptance of our limits of control should always be a part of our ‘slipper building’ process. For example, I find it quite a relief thinking about the limits of my control regarding whether people like me or not, or want to work with me. I just do what I can within the limits of conscience, and then relax!

One of the biggest and most useful things to accept is ‘I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO CARPET THE WORLD!’

Three mindful slipper positions

In this situation (of your choice):

  • Am I trying to carpet the world rather than make slippers?
  • What do I need to accept in order to make my slippers?
  • What inwardly and outwardly can I do that will also contribute to my slipper building?

Related article: Effortless adaptation – Solving all your problems & none (II)


© 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 Meditation classes & workshops in with Toby:

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

From Tues 7th/Weds 8th January, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series – Meditation for leaping into reality

Saturday, 25th January, 9.30-11.30am – Deep-dive breathing meditation masterclass

Saturday, 25th January, 5-6pm – Engaged mindfulness & meditation class – ‘Honesty, release and redirection – three levels of non-judgment’

Wednesday 29th January, 7.30-8.30pm – Lunar New Year Meditation 2025: Developing your wisdom, intuition & renewal in the year of the wood snake

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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creative imagery Enlightened Flow Essential Spirituality Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Awakening, not over-thinking

“Growth is achieved by degrees. Enlightenment is instantaneous”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at the practice of waking-up, which is something that we can practice ‘leaping’ into anytime, anywhere. If you like the article, you are invited to come along to this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, where we will be taking this subject as our object of meditation.

In the spirit of awakening, 

Toby

 


Awakening, not over-thinking
 
Enlightenment – Waking up to the freedom of awareness
There is a precept in soto zen that goes something like “One must not wait for awakening.” What this means is that you can touch the freedom of the present moment simply by letting go of your pre-occupations and awakening to exactly where you are. You might think of this enlightenment or awakening as having three levels. You start at level one, which even a beginner can do in a rudimentary way, and as you build confidence you work onto levels two and three.
 
Level one involves simply being fully present to an experience. It could be physical/sensory, it could be thought, or even the more subtle experience of awareness itself. You might think of it as a non-resistance to what is, an acceptance that facilitates an awakening to life in the moment.
 
Level two involves noticing that there is an observer within you, a witness that is present to whatever is there. This witness is the ‘I Am’ within you. With a bit of practice, you can not only awaken to objects of awareness in the present, but also that which is aware of the objects in the present, which is the witness, or your enlightened nature itself.
 
Level three involves insight into the not oneness and not two-ness of the object of awareness (level one) with that which witnesses the object of awareness (level two)’

  • If the witnessing awareness is like the ocean, the object of awareness is like a wave
  • If the witnessing awareness is like the sun, the object of awareness is like a light-ray from the sun

This non-one, not-two experience moves us toward a non-dual or unitive awakening in the moment.
The above three practices are methods of awakening, or ‘Waking up’, and you really just have to commit to doing it again and again, awakening to this moment of your life as best you can and ‘improving’ through practice.
 
Awakening, not over-thinking – a practical reflection
 
Over the Christmas period I travelled back to see my family, and spent almost the entire time sick with a bad flu. One of the main ways in which I worked with this in terms of enlightenment and awakening was simply practicing the three levels above:

  1. Being present to the experience as it was
  2. Being aware of my witness
  3. Resting the not-one, not-two-ness of positions one and two

This enabled me to:

  • not over-think about the ‘bad luck’ or difficulty of my situation
  • simply accept it as I found it.

As a result, I was able to minimize my pain, make the experience into a form of meditation, and endure it with a degree of patience.
Of course, I did spend some time thinking and reflecting on my experience, but (almost)) always in the context of finding mental perspectives that are useful and helpful, rather than ruminating.
 
I’ll end with a short story from Anthony De Mello entitled “Rebirth” that illustrates nicely some important ideas around awakening related to this article.
 
REBIRTH
“Make a clean break with your past and you will be enlightened,” said the ‘Master.
“I am doing that by degrees.”
“Growth is achieved by degrees. Enlightenment is instantaneous.”
Later he said, “Take the leap! You cannot cross a chasm in little jumps.”


© 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

Meditation classes & workshops in January 2025 with Toby:

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

From Tues 7th/Weds 8th January, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series – Meditation for leaping into reality

Saturday 18th January 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday, 25th January, 9.30-11.30am – Deep-dive breathing meditation masterclass

Saturday, 25th January, 5-6pm – Engaged mindfulness & meditation class – ‘Honesty, release and redirection – three levels of non-judgment’

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Destiny & fate, empowerment or victimhood?

“The micro-actions that we do add up, like drops of water in a pot. Do enough of them and they can create a sea-change in your life, & your destiny”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article explores the distinctions between destiny & fate, & how to use mindfulness to work with them creatively in your life. 

If you enjoy the article, it will be the focus subject of this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday evening class , you’d be welcome to come along, live or online!
This class is also the first in a series on the ‘Wisdom of awakening’, details of which are below.

In the spirit of destiny,

Toby
 

 
Article of the week

Destiny & fate, empowerment or victimhood?
 
DESTINY
To a woman who complained about her destiny the Master said, “It is you who make
your destiny.”
“But surely I am not responsible for being born a woman?”
“Being born a woman isn’t destiny. That is fate. Destiny is how you accept your
womanhood and-what you make of it.”
– From Anthony De Mellos ‘One minute wisdom’
 
Mindful of your destiny
 
Here we might consider destiny as “what you do with what life has given you”. You may recognize the voice within yourself that says ‘I have no choice or freedom here, I am a victim of circumstance, there is nothing I can do about this (except complain, or feel hard done by). In this context our destiny is understood as what we make of what we have got/have been given. In this sense destiny is a creative word; we create our destiny, it is in our hands. Sitting mindfully with a phrase such as “I am the primary creator of my destiny” and opening to the feelings and energy that comes from that can help us to access this inner power.
 
Accepting of your fate
 
In the same way that creating our destiny is a power, so is accepting our fate. Indeed, creating our destiny depends upon our acceptance of the life and circumstances we have been given. Without this acceptance there is no way that we can work with what we have, because we reject it. This non-acceptance actively prevents us from asking the question “What can I do with what I have got?” In a certain sense, acceptance is a type of positive indifference to our fortune, whether it be good or bad. It simply opens to what is, and this accepting of what is opens the doorway to destiny-creation.
 
Mindful of victimhood
 
Acceptance of our fate is not passive victim-consciousness. It is a strength that pre-ceeds the power of destiny-creation. Pick an area of your life where something maybe has not turned out that great (in your limited opinion), and practice observing and breathing with it in the spirit of acceptance. After a while you will start to see quite clearly that it is calm, collected, and empowering. It is not at all like victim-consciousness or feeling persecuted. It is a power, not a weakness.
 
Empowering yourself to create your destiny though mindful questions
 
These can be asked around a specific part of your life, or in a more general sense:
What is the fate that I need to accept?
What is the destiny that I can choose to embrace and create?
Where is the voice of the victim-of-fate within me? How can I prevent it sabotaging me?
What is/are the next step/s today to creating my destiny?
 
Micro & macro destiny
 
You might think of destiny as being mainly about the big things in your life, and the big achievements. That is not untrue, but equally I think it’s about the things that you choose in small situations, in micro-experiences. After all, the micro-actions that we do add up, like drops of water in a pot. Do enough of them and they can create a sea-change in your life and your destiny!
 
Related article: Intention determines trajectory – Aspects of integrated mindful intention

 © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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A Mind of Ease Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope spiritual intelligence

Playful detached-compassion

“Life experience, combined with playfulness and observational presence can make the power of our compassion grow exponentially”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article explores resolving the apparent contradiction between detachment & compassion i a playful way! If you enjoy the article, we will be looking at the topic in this week’s meditation session. 

Reminder of this Saturday’s  Making Pearls from Sand: Free online session on mindfully working with your shadow-self, 1700-1800 Singapore time.

In the spirit of compassionate play,

Toby

 


This week’s meditation session Tues 12th/Weds 13th November:  ‘Detached compassion – in the world but not of it’.

This class looks at how to use mindfulness & meditation to:

  • Develop sustainable, high-quality compassion
  • Combine it with healthy detachment
  • Use this combination as an energising & healing force within ourself, our life & the world

 
7.30-8.30pm SG time, live in-person and online

 
Article of the week: Playful detached-compassion
 
Detachment and compassion are qualities that often we consider being separate because they appear to exclude each other.  It seems when you are detached you are disconnected from others, and so cannot feel compassion for them. Likewise, if we were being compassionate we cannot be detached because that means disconnecting from our feeling nature, which is where our compassion is located.
 
However, viewed from the perspective of mindful awareness, it is perfectly possible to bring deep compassion together with a sense of detached, witnessing observation. This is because:
 
We can practice observational detachment from any situation, viewing things from the “big picture” perspective, while at the same time cultivating closeness and intimacy with who or what we observe
 
Good quality mindful awareness is like the sun. It combines the impersonal light of awareness with a nurturing, life-giving warmth. From the perspective of an integrated mindful awareness, we can cultivate an experience of life as impersonally-personal, as deeply involved and at the same time not involved, as compassionate at the same time as being even minded.
 
If you practice bringing observational detachment and compassion together simultaneously in life situations, gradually improving your ability, then you will consistently increase your experience of detached-compassion.
 
Divine Playfulness
 
One of the fundamental qualities of Spirit when we contact it playfulness and a corresponding sense of humour. From its perspective the whole process of creating and evolving a universe is done as a type of game, a way of creatively exploring itself and its potential.
Consequently, if you want to increase the level of spirit in your daily life then entering your daily tasks in the spirit playfulness is a great practice to have.
It is easy to get a little too serious about things and allow our life to become unnecessarily stressful and unhappy. Relating to the challenges in your day as playful games and puzzles set you by the universe to help you grow is a technique that both relieves stress and enhances the deeply felt spiritual nature of your human experience.
 
A five-minute meditation to integrate playfulness and detached compassion into daily life
 
Step 1: Mentally select a particular life situation/challenge that you wish to work on in the meditation
 
Step 2: Recollect your understanding of detached compassion. Open your heart to the feelings that you are experiencing and the other people that are involved at the same time as mentally taking a step back and seeing what is happening from a more impersonal, big picture perspective. Experiment, trying to feel both empathic compassion and witnessing observance. At first do them one after the other, and then simultaneously. Breathe with this combined experience for a while.
 
Step 3: Introduce playful humour to your perspective of the challenge. Think of the challenge as a game that you as a spiritual being are playing to stretch and improve your capability as a human being. Stay with this perspective and the experiences it gives rise to for a time.
If you do this brief exercise a few times you will find that compassionate detachment and playfulness will become an accessible experience for you in your daily life. Life experience, combined with playfulness and observational presence can make the power of our compassion grow exponentially.
 
Related articles: Compassion & care through awareness
Compassionate presence, awakened action
© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

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Are you Solar or lunar?

“Help people become creative ‘inner artists’ in their thoughts, emotions, and philosophy, thus empowering them to change their life & work”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article is the first of two looking at my primary motivations both for being an executive  coach & a meditation teacher. It works with the question ‘Are you a solar or lunar being?’. I hope you enjoy it, ‘part two’ is next week.

Details of this week’s meditation class is below, as well as the the Shadow work & Language of the shadow workshops I will be doing in the next few weeks.  
  
In the spirit of creativity,

Toby

Read the follow-up article in the series: Jackal or Tiger? – Creative, wise courage


This week’s article: Are you Solar or lunar?
 
What brings me passion in coaching?
 
I originally trained as an artist, & ceramic sculptor at University. The reasons that I chose a Fine Art degree was because it offered me the maximum bandwidth to explore the freedom of creativity. After graduating, I shifted from being an ‘external artist’, someone that makes external art, to being a meditation practitioner & teacher.
To me meditation was not an abandonment of creativity, but a shift; rather than making external art, I focused on my inner life, creating harmony, balance & ‘beauty’ within myself. A major reason for this was that I noticed that my inner life had a huge impact upon what I experienced outwardly:

  • If my inner self was feeling optimistic and powerful I tended to behave and experience as such in my daily life
  • If my inner self confused, fearful or resentful, perception of my outer world and my behavior in it changed accordingly

As a meditator, I still felt myself to be an artist, but more of an inner artist. The fundamental driving force was still the principle of creativity, but more ‘The inner creativity behind the outer creativity!’
 
So, my driving passion in coaching is this; I help people become creative ‘inner artists’ in their thoughts, emotions, and philosophy, thus empowering them to change the experience of their outer lives and work.
 
Are you a solar or lunar person?
 
I often explain the power of wise creativity in the following manner:
The light of the moon is, in fact the reflected light of the sun. It does not have its own light. People are mostly like the moon in the sense that, whatever environment they go into, they are largely formed & influenced by that environment. For example, if a person starts to work in a new office with a positive culture, then they will become like that too. If they start work in an office with a negative culture, they will tend to become like that.
 
My passion as a coach lies in making people ‘solar’ rather than lunar. The sun is its own light source, its own source of power. It is creative & generative. The real nature of a human being is to be like the sun, to be the creative force in their life. I help people to realize their inner power, & harness it though structured practices that build confidence. My mission is to help people to tap into their own already existing creativity, using it to change and transform their work and personal life for the better.
 
Related coaching services:
Executive coaching
Life-Fullness Life coaching
 
Related articles by Toby:
Mindful of your inner artist – Becoming sola not lunar
Becoming Your Own Mindful Psychotherapist and Life Coach


© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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A Mind of Ease Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Zen Meditation

The world as an organism

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at how we can relate to the world an our environment mindfully in a way where we feel like we belong and where we can actively participate. I hope you enjoy it!

In the spirit of organismic connection, 

Toby

 

The world as an organism
 
In the Taoist and Buddhist traditions, particularly in China and Japan, the concept of the world and how it works is very ‘organismic’. By this I mean that the way the world exists is like a living organism, as opposed to say a top-down hierarchy. Rather than everything following the rule of the leader, or God, or the Queen, things kind of ‘do themselves’. For example, you don’t have to make a conscious choice to metabolize your food or regenerate your cells after every meal. Rather your body does it by itself. This is because it, and you are an organism. Taoism sees the world like that.
Many environmental movements and philosophies today have also adopted this view, relating to the Planet as ‘Gaia’, where everything is connected to everything else like cells in the body of an organism.
 
Yourself as a cell in the organism
 
So then, if the world is an organism, what is your relationship to it? The answer is something like you are born from the organism and are a natural part of it, like a cell in your body. Like the cell, you participate in the life of the organism, and your behaviour contributes to and effects the organism as a whole.
 
 
Participating in & with the organism
 
The reality is that we are already interacting with the world, like a cell on a body. However, much of this participation is currently unconscious, so we are not deriving the nourishment and fulfilment we could be by doing it consciously. Mindful participation in the world-as-organism aims to help us access that nourishment. So, what is it that we can participating in specifically?
 
Four spheres and six directions

The four spheres are Earth, Moon, Sun and stars, the basic ‘spheres’ of our world and environment. We also exist within the six directions – above, below, in front, behind, left and right. I have looked at these in some depth in a previous article.
 
Four elements & four kingdoms

Another central aspect of your environment is the four elements, earth, water, air and fire. These exist both within your body and around you in the environment.
‘Inter-being’ with the four elements are the four kingdoms; human, animal, plant, and mineral.
We share the body of our planet with the four kingdoms, and each of these contain beings (other cells in the body) that consist of the four elements in different combinations.
 
Walking or sitting participation

Go for a walk, or sit outside. Notice the different aspects of the four kingdoms and elements in the landscape. Notice how you share and exchange energy with them. For example:

  • How the air in your lungs interacts and exchanges with the sky and the atmosphere
  • How the leaves of the plants around you contain water, like your body does
  • How the warmth in your body resonates with the sun
  • How the rocks are strong and solid, like your bones
  • How some animals and plants are more airy (Like birds, obviously), some fiery, watery or earthy. Commune with them as fellow elemental beings existing like you, cells within the body of the Earth

 
You are a cell in the body of life, communing & interacting with the other cells, all expressions of the one body.
 
Related articles:
Aspects of environmental meditation
Born from Life, not into it
Integrating reality & symbolic reality


© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

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A Mind of Ease creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

Born from Life, not into it

“What if, rather than being an intruder into life, we relate to ourself as being born from life, & belonging to Life?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

How we conceive our relationship to life is fundamental to how we experience it. This week’s article looks at how to work with this domain in mindfulness & through contemplation.

Heads up for the the Cultivating your Nirvana, or inner freedom mini retreat on the morning of this Saturday the 12th, & for the Meditation & Mindfulness for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention workshop on Saturday 26th.


In the spirit of Life,

Toby
 

Born from Life, not into it

One of my main informal objects of meditation for the last few weeks has been the distinction between being born into life and being born from it. There are several significant changes in perception that this invites that I think are worth sharing.   

The challenge of alienation
If our sense of being born is that of being born into life, it is very easy for that to give rise to a sense of separateness from our environment and the place we inhabit. ‘Born into’ can have the connotation of being like an alien or an asteroid landing on the planet, like a foreign entity in a strange world. There is a sense of fundamental unrelatedness to the place we find ourself. This conception then opens us to a feeling of existential anxiety, of being threatened and aggressed by our surroundings, and where we must carve out our space despite of our lack of belonging.   

Being born from
What if, rather than being an intruder into life, we relate to ourself as being born from life, and belonging to and in Life? In terms of the truth of it, there is no question of this. Our body was literally conceived of by our parents, who in turn were born from their parents and their bodies. You can trace this all the way back through the species of animals and plants to life being born in the ocean. As a unit of life we emerged from life, life gives rise to life.

A wave from the ocean
Thinking like this we start to relate to ourself as a natural extension of life, emerging from Life at birth, and returning back to Life at death (Life capital L to denote Life as a principle and underlying energy). Thought of this way life and death are not seen as enemies; we emerge from Life as an expression of Life at birth like a wave from the ocean. When we die our life simply merges back into Life, like a wave back into the ocean. It is a natural, smooth, seamless continuum. Changing our relationship to life like this, we then significantly change our relationship to death.

An apple from a tree
Another way of relating to being born from Life is that we realize our relationship to it is like that of an apple or a leaf to an apple tree. The apple emerges from the Life of the tree itself, not as something separate from the tree. The life of the tree gives rise to the apple. The apple arises from the tree itself, in the same way that the tree came from the life in the apple that it grew from.
You are like the apple being born from the apple tree. The life in you is a part of Life, you are an expression of Life, and Life is you.

No room for impostor syndrome
Relating to yourself as being born from Life, an expression of Life, there is a sense of belonging to Life, being a part of Life, being deeply at home in Life. There is no sense of not belonging where you are, not being appropriate to Life, of somehow being ‘in the wrong place’. You are in fact exactly where you are supposed to be. You belong here as much as anything or anyone else.
The things that you are offered in and by Life you are deserving of, there isn’t even a question of that.

Being born from and (dying) merging back into Life.
A wave arising from and merging back into the ocean.
An apple arising from an apple tree.
You belong absolutely, and you are at home, truly.

Related article: Trees, birds & Octopuses – Achieving harmony by letting be

© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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A Mind of Ease creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindfulness Presence and being present

Witnessing the witness article

“Looking outward, the sun of our awareness illuminates our world, looking in on itself, it notices the watcher of the world”

Dear Integral Meditators,

October has a full routine of classes, retreats & workshopsto enjoy, both live & online, starting with the  Mindful Self-Confidence workshop this Saturday 5th, & the Cultivating your Nirvana, or inner freedom mini retreat on the morning of the 12th.
You can find full details of all sessions beneath this weeks article on ‘Witnessing the witness’.

In the spirit of meditation in action,  

Toby

Witnessing the witness – The sun turning in on itself
 
The witness self – your inner sun

One way to center yourself in the present is to focus on a single object in the present moment, such as your body, your breathing, a thought, an image and so on. A second major way to center yourself is to center your attention around the observer within you, and its process of observation. This practice is called witnessing. All you need to do is center in your position as the witnessing observer within your field of awareness.
When you witness, it is important to get the balance right between transcending and including. What I mean by this is the balance of two qualities:

  • Transcending means you observe in a detached manner, treating your observed content as an object
  • Including meaning that you observe your objects inclusively, touching them with care and warmth

In a previous article I compare witnessing to the Sun;

  • The sun shines its life-giving warmth upon us generously
  • At the same time it’s light and warmth are completely impersonal and detached

So, when you witness, good technique transcends and includes the observed object, like the sun shines it’s light on us.

Things to witness

One of the great things about witnessing is exactly the way it turns subjects of consciousness into objects of consciousness. It is much easier to work with and master an object of consciousness compared to something that you are deeply identified with. So, what I like to do regularly is to take as my object of witnessing awareness the things that are bothering or triggering me that day. For example:

  • If I’m feeling anxious about something such as a meeting
  • If I’m feeling the need to be right with someone, and the past conversation keeps replaying
  • If I’m feeling grumpy or distressed about physical pain
  • If I’m feeling sad

…or attached to something/someone, and sometimes if I am feeling good about something, and I can tell I’m really identified with that feeling.

What you do is take your experience as the object of sun-like witnessing, and make it into an object of consciousness rather than a subject of consciousness. At a certain point you will feel the subjective power of that experience fading. It is still there, maybe even still feeling strong, but it is an object, rather than a subject of consciousness. This changes the experience, making it much easier to adapt to and work with.

The sun turning in on itself

Another core practice that you can build once you get used to witnessing, is witnessing the witness. If you were to imagine the light of the sun, which normally shines outwards, turns and shines inwards, this is the essential movement of witnessing the witness. This is a different form of witnessing because:

  • Witnessing consciousness itself has no form, it is just formless, timeless awareness. So there is nothing to ‘see’
  • Secondly, the witness is the absolute subject of consciousness. As such it cannot know itself in the same way as looking at an object from the outside. When you witness the witness, you simply notice the feeling of being the witness, and take that sense of formless timeless ‘being’ as your object of meditation

If you imagine the sun as your basic image for witnessing, and then imagine the sun turning it’s light and shining in on itself, this is a useful analogy and image for meditation to use to gradually access direct experience of the ‘witnessing the witness’ practice.

Structuring your witnessing practice

If I do a 20-minute witnessing meditation for example, quite often I will split the time;

  • 5minutes witnessing an object
  • 5minutes witnessing the witness
  • x2

Putting them together creates a powerful one-two punch for the practice!

Related article: Witnessing like the sun

Witnessing – Being that which is not

Bodies within bodies – Witnessing with your energy bodies

Bare attention – Your inner bird-watcher
 
© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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 meditation sessions & workshops with Toby 

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

Ongoing, Tuesday/Wednesday evening’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditating with the power of intention – An eleven module course

Saturday 5th October, 9.30am-12.30pm – Developing Your Self-Confidence Through Mindfulness Workshop

Saturday 12th October, 9-11.30am – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat – Cultivating your Nirvana, or inner freedom

Saturday 26th October, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditation & Mindfulness for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention

Saturday October 26th, 5-6pm Singapore time – Engaged mindfulness & meditation online class : What is self-awareness?

Tuesday 29th & Wednesday 30th Oct, 7.30-8.30 – Deepavali Meditation – Connecting to your inner light

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The sky of freedom, the fullness of the sun

“Meditative presence – The fullness of our whole being combined with a sense of inner spaciousness and freedom”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

Next week is the start of the Autumn meditation series Meditating with the power of intention – An eleven module course. One of the foundational intentions that we will be working with is the intention to awaken. This weeks article looks at what we are awakening to in meditation, whether we are a beginner or more advanced!

In the spirit of freedom & fullness, 

Toby
 


Sky & sun, freedom & fullness
 
Meditative presence might be thought of as having two basic qualities; freedom and fullness. There are many levels or ‘octaves’ of this experience, ranging from the foundational experience of the beginner, to the deep awakening of more experienced practitioners. The nice thing about relating to meditative presence in this way is that we can experience it on the level that we are at, and grow it as the days, months and years go by. This month I have experienced a tangible deepening of my own experience of this. I have been practising for thirty years, I don’t expect it to be the last time, it’s a process that really has no edges to it!
 
So, what do we mean freedom and fullness? In a previous article I described meditative presence as being:
Full, not empty – When we sit in awareness of the present moment, we start to feel a sense of fullness in that moment. We can then turn up to life with this feeling of fullness, which helps counterbalance the feeling of emptiness that many people feel when they think about themselves and their life.
Empty, not full – Sitting with awareness in the present moment enables us to empty of all the complex thinking and inner noise that our mind is overburdened or overfilled with. We access a sense of ‘empty’ pleasurable inner spaciousness.

Meditation enables us to connect to the fullness of our own presence, and the sense of completeness or wholeness that that gives us. It also enables us to empty our mind of busy thoughts, also and empty our body of excessive tension, giving rise to a sense of inner spaciousness and freedom. In meditative presence there is a chance to step into a deep sense of inner fullness and freedom, starting to relate to ourselves as being fundamentally, in essence that way; full, whole, free, liberated. Starting to relate to ourselves in this way as we go about daily life, we may also start noticing changes in our behaviour and how we experience things. We feel less oppressed and trapped, and more creative, spontaneous, and playful.
 
The sky of freedom, the fullness of the sun

One image that can be useful and powerful to meditate on is your inner fullness being like the sun, and your freedom being like the sky. If when in meditation you imagine the fullness of your being as like a beautiful sun within your heart-space, surrounded by a clear, open sky, which is the natural freedom of your awareness. As you breathe in, feel your energy gathering into the fullness of the sun at your heart, feel the natural wholeness & completeness of it. As you breathe out, let go of tension in your body and thoughts in your mind, relaxing into the sky-like freedom of your own awareness.

If you work with this image, you may find that it helps you connect more profoundly and quickly to your natural state of freedom and fullness. If after a while you feel you have a real sense of the actual state of freedom and fullness, then you can drop the sun and sky image and simply rest in the experience of your natural freedom and fullness. If you find yourself loosing that sense, then you can return to the image as a way of re-connecting.

Another way of doing this is by positioning yourself in front of a window, or sitting outside or walking where you have clear sight of the actual sun and sky. You can use mindful awareness of the actual sun and sky as a way of connecting to freedom and fullness. As always, these things need to be done to be understood fully. Simply reading it on a page won’t reveal it’s potential!

Related article: Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Concentration Inner vision Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Staying with intention

“What is a useful intention that I can center around and stay with in this situation?”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

Good to see all of you who came to the online Engaged Mindfulness class last Saturday! The next one will be 21st September, on ‘the dance of relaxation & alertness’, see you there!

One week to go before the start of the Autumn meditation weekly series Meditating with the power of intention – An eleven module course, this week’s article looks at how to be playful, flexible & creative with your intention through mindfulness…

In the spirit of intention, 

Toby

Staying with intention
 
When we are unable to do what we want in a situation, what do we do? This article explores a way of working with our intention where the intention itself becomes a type of action, enabling us to stay resilient, generous and strong in situations where we might feel discouraged, distracted or inclined to give up and walk away. I explore this in the form of examples. The examples themselves are invitations for you to start exploring how ‘staying with intention’ can be mindfully explored in your own life.
 
Hearing about the grief of another – the other day I had a conversation with a friend who had a family member fallen sick, with no easy cure in sight. Other than offer my sympathy, there really wasn’t a lot that I could ‘do’ about what had happened. In this type of situation, the feeling of helplessness can make us want to turn our attention (consciously or unconsciously) away. Noticing this within myself, I made the choice simply to stay with a caring and compassionate intention, sending that energy toward the people involved when they came into my mind over the next day or so. Simply holding this benevolent intention was the action, the practise. Doing it I felt empowered and more positive.
 
Making a business pitch – my work involves quite often making pitches to organizations, with no certainty around the result. One way that I have found to keep myself even-minded is simply to set my intention; to turn up in order to benefit them, and also to develop my own skill around pitching. Turning up with these intentions, and centering around them has my ‘inner action’ that sets the stage for the meeting, encouraging a good result whether I ‘get the gig’ or not.
 
Finding meaning in your life – ‘What is the meaning in my life’ can be an intimidating question, and the answers so ambiguous that we drop the question thinking it’s too big and what’s the point? The intention to look for meaning in life in my next interaction, in however small a way is something that I stay with, whether the answer is clear today or not. Having the intention is meaningful in itself, and encourages us to notice the opportunity for meaning when it presents itself!
 
Being productive in the day – Sometimes productivity and creativity feels easy, sometimes it feels difficult. If I am having a difficult day getting what I want to get done done, rather than fighting too hard with the conditions, I simply stay with the intention to be productive, and then in a state of curiosity work to achieve what is possible in the circumstances. That is then enough.
 
Developing a skill – Like productivity, sometimes the skills that I want to grow feels easy, but often quite difficult and imperfect. Simply setting the intention to practice and improve (my meditation, my squash game etc…) and then staying with the process enables me to be consistent in my practice, whether I seem to be making progress or not.
 
Not being too intentional – Being over-structured around intentions, and rigid with them can sometimes be very unhelpful. When I notice this happening with myself, I adjust my intention, making it an ‘intention to be unintentional’, or to be spontaneous, relaxed and flowing.
 
I hope these few examples enable you to get a flavour of the practice of mindfully staying with your intention. In any given situation the essential question is ‘What is a useful intention that I can center around and stay with here?’

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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