Category: Meditation and Psychology

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Awareness and insight Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Presence and being present spiritual intelligence Zen Meditation

Zen Meditation on the Body Within the Body (Within the Body)

Hi Everyone,

This weeks meditation article focuses on the Zen meditation on the body within the body. The first part of the meditation, separating our actual body from our conceptual image of our body is a traditional Zen technique. The second part, dropping the body and resting in the pure awareness body is my own addition that I use when I teach the meditation to classes. So it is my own “invention” so to speak, but it is entirely within the spirit and intention of Zen practice.

Yours in the spirit of clear perception,

Toby

Article of the Week:

Zen Meditation on the Body Within the Body (Within the Body)

Our Three Bodies and the Three Dimensions of Existence Highlighted By Zen

All the great wisdom traditions of the world point out that our world is a multi-dimensional one, with these different dimensions  coming together in communion to form the totality of our being and experience.
In the Zen meditation on the body within the body, three of these dimensions are emphasized as objects of meditation, each of these bodies in turn corresponding to a particular dimension of reality.
The Three bodies are:

  1. Our conceptual body, or the conceptual image that we hold in our mind of our physical body
  2. Our actual physical body as it is in the sensory world
  3. Our formless energy body or  body of consciousness

These three bodies in turn correspond to three fundamental dimensions of our reality and moment to moment experience:

  1. The conceptual or intellectual dimension of our existence
  2. The non-conceptual dimension of our existence
  3. The spiritual or formless dimension of our existence that forms the ground or basis of dimensions one and two.

The meditation is called the body within the body, because our non-conceptual body is concealed or hidden by our conceptual body, or body image, and our  body of consciousness is hidden behind the sensory perception of our non-conceptual body. Hence through meditation we discover different bodies behind or within what we thought was just one body.

The Purpose of the Meditation on the Body Within the Body

The purpose of this meditation is to help us develop awareness of what in Buddhism is called dualistic appearance, which is the appearance of an object (such as our physical body) together with the projected mental image of that object (in this case the body). According to the Buddha, all of our suffering and pain arises from the confusion that dualistic appearance creates in our mind.
To take a simple example, an anorexic person with a very skinny body observes his/her body and projects the mental image an unacceptably fat body on their actual body. As a result they continue to starve their physical body even though it desperately needs nutrients. In such a person their idea of their body and their actual body are completely confused, and so as a result they cause themselves suffering and harm.
The above example is an extreme one, but in reality all of us experience this type of confusion more or less all of the time, our idea of reality and the actuality of our reality do not match each other and so as a result we experience confusion, delusion and suffering.
The first point of the meditation on the body within the body takes our physical body (initially) as its object, and shows us how we can become mindful of the difference between our actual body our conceptual image of our body so that we no longer confuse the two in harmful ways.
The second point of the meditation is to cultivate the skill of dropping all appearances, conceptual and non-conceptual, and learning to rest our mind in the natural, open state of pure awareness that is our body of consciousness.

The Meditation

Stage 1: Meditating of the conceptual image of your body
Sitting comfortably in meditation, start to examine times in your life when you have had different experiences of your body, times when you may have hated it, times when you have been proud of it, ashamed of it, embarrassed by it. Try to observe how in each case the way in which you experience your body at those times is actually in large part dominated by a conceptual image of the body, rather than the body itself as you are experiencing it from moment to moment. Try and observe how your conceptual mind projects its imagined image of a body onto your body.

Stage 2: Meditating on the non-conceptual experience of your body
In the second stage of the meditation simply focus on the sensory experience of your body and breathing as they are in the present moment. Using the body and the breathing as an anchor, try and drop all conceptual thoughts as completely as you can, and just experience the physical body as it is, free from your idea of what it is. Try and become as familiar as you can with this non-conceptual experience of your sensory body as you experience it in the here and now.
This experience of the body as it is is called “the body within the body” because it is the body that we “discover” when we drop our conceptual image of our body. Our mental image of our body normally hides our actual body from us (!)

Stage 3: Meditating on your body of consciousness
In the final stage of the meditation simply try and let go of all conceptual and sensory experiences altogether, and allow your mind to rest in the “pure awareness body” or subtle formless energy body that acts as the ground from which arises both our conceptual and sensory experience.  Try and gently sustain your experience of this formless or “spiritual” dimension of existence for the remainder of the meditation.
This third meditation stage and third “body” is called “the body within the body, within the body” because it is the body that is normally hidden behind the mask of the phenomenal world, or the body of form. When we drop our body of form, the body of consciousness appears, or is revealed.

Practice When Going About Our Daily Life

  1. During your daily life try and remain consciously aware of the different images and perceptions that your mind is projecting upon your body, accept the images that are useful and helpful, but do not buy into images that are destructive, deluded or unhelpful. Be mindful not to be fooled by them!
  2. Try and come back to your basic sensory or non conceptual experience of your body by regularly dropping your conceptual thoughts and focusing for short periods on the sensory body and the breathing.
  3. Regard both your conceptual and non-conceptual worlds as appearances arising from the ground of your (Universal) or body of consciousness, like a dream arising from the clarity of deep sleep, or clouds arising within and clear sky.

© Toby Ouvry 2012, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present Shadow meditation

There is Always Something to Feel Insecure About

Hi Everyone,

Back in the 1950’s Allan Watts wrote a book called “The Wisdom of Insecurity”. Although written a while back for me it is still one of the most interesting and useful guides on making friends with our insecurity that I have found. This weeks article takes a look at insecurity, and what we can do to start developing a right relationship with it in our life.
This week also sees the first of two meditation workshops over the fortnight “An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Tibetan Buddhism”. All welcome, full details below.

Yours in the spirit of the wisdom of insecurity,

Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Events in March 

Wednesday April 11th – 7.30-9.30pm at Basic Essence: An Introduction to Meditation From the Perspective of Tibetan Buddhism 

Wednesday April 18th – 7.30-9.30pm at Gallery Helios: Our Inner Universe:Meditating on the Different Dimensions of Existence in Zen Buddhism

 

Meditation Workshop: An Introduction to Meditation From the Perspective of  Tibetan Buddhism

With meditation teacher Toby Ouvry

The Tibetan School of Buddhism has a particularly rich and diverse tradition of meditation that can be of great use for the relief of stress, solving of our daily problems and the awakening of our own inherently enlightened nature.

In this two hour workshop Toby will be drawing on his own extensive training  (including five years as a Tibetan Buddhist monk) to give a practical introduction to the fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice.

In the workshop you will learn three practical Tibetan meditation forms specifically designed to:

  • Increase your mental peace and concentration
  • Increase your wisdom and compassion
  • Purify the mind and lay the foundation for realizing our own enlightened nature (Using a technique known as “Mahamudra” or “Great Seal”)

These techniques are simple, powerful and profound meditation techniques that can be easily integrated into an existing meditation practice, or used to begin a meditation practice if you are a beginner.

Date and Time: Wednesday 11 April, 7.30-9.30pm

Location: Basic Essence, 501 Bukit Timah Road, 04-04 Cluny Court

(For map of location click HERE)

Course fee:  Sing$50, all participants will be provided with a set of workshop notes and MP3 recording of the workshop for their own personal use.

To register or for further enquiries: Email info@tobyouvry.com or Basic Essence on 64684991

 

Article of the Week:

There is Always Something to Feel Insecure About

Sometimes we can find ourselves feeling insecure about a particular issue in our life. It might be our age, our looks, giving a speech or talk in public, what somebody may have said about us, finding a relationship, or not losing it if we have one. Our children, or work, the list goes on endlessly.

One of the keys to dealing with our insecurity is to realize that, even if we were to find a relief from the particular insecurity that we are feeling at the moment, often as not, rather than experiencing an absence of insecurity, our insecure mind simply seeks out something else to feel insecure and frightened about. If we can see this, then we will also be able to start to see clearly that actually our insecurity is more of a compulsive habit of our mind, and that in many ways the particular object/situation that we feel insecure about at this time is simply the latest thing that our insecure mind has latched onto worrying about.
If we can gain such a subjective insight into the nature of our own insecurity, then we realize that the real challenge lies in developing a right relationship to our insecure mind, with the particular issue that we feel insecure about at the moment being secondary.
Here are a few ways in which you can begin to work with your insecurity in a constructive way:

  1. Recognize that insecurity and unknowing is a natural part of our life and learn to open to its creative possibilities, rather than always trying to find security in narrow minded “certainties”.
  2. Open to the insecurity that you may be feeling on a daily basis. Acknowledge it and make a friend of it. If you try and reject it, repress it or disown it, it will simply recede into your unconscious and try and exercise control in your life from there. If this happens life can feel like a real inner battle between your conscious self and desires, and your unconscious insecurities which keep sabotaging your peace of mind.
  3. Spend a few minutes each day acknowledging the insecurity you may be feeling, and just breathing with it. Once you have acknowledged it consciously, and can feel the full emotion of it in your body, you can then spend a little time releasing the insecurity on your outward breath.
  4. Talk to your insecurity(if you want to do so literally, which can be a more powerful way of doing it, I recommend you don’t do it on the street (!) Alternatively you can have the conversation in a written journal). Ask it to voice its fears to you, and gently and firmly challenge the logic of its assumptions. If you can help your insecurity to see that much of its emotion is unfounded in objective fact, then it will find it easier to relax.
  5. Demonstrate to your insecurity each day that you are a capable leaderof your personality by engaging in concrete actions each day to take charge of your life in whatever way feels appropriate. Our insecure mind is like a child, if it can see that it is in the company of a competent, powerful leader or ‘inner parent” then it will tend to relax and feel safe.

© Toby Ouvry 2012, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Essential Spirituality Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Presence and being present Uncategorized Zen Meditation

The Eternal Present and the Four Types of Time

Dear Integral Meditators,

How do you think of time? It is one of three major aspects of our experience (the other two being space and energy). Often as not we think of time as being just one thing, but in reality it is much more than that. In the article below I outline four major aspects of time and give a few thoughts about them within the context of how we can learn to rest in the eternal present.

Yours in the spirit of timeless time,
   
Toby

Article of the Week:

The Eternal Present and the Four Types of Time

The eternal present is the spiritual dimension of time, awareness and realization of which is a major goal within all of the great wisdom traditions of the world. The paradoxical thing about the eternal present is that it is always present with us, so it is not something that you can “achieve” as such. Rather it is more like something that you can become aware of and use that awareness to inform your day to day existence.

From a meditative perspective, the way to meditate upon the eternal present is to recognize it and then rest your awareness in it for extended periods. This gives you a basic platform for starting to integrate the eternal present into your daily life. However in the long term your ability to integrate the eternal present into your daily life will also depend upon the relationship that you have to three aspects of “temporal time” that we also have to deal with. These three I call clock time, biological time and psychological time. What I intend to do in the rest of this article is to outline these different types of time and indicate few simple things that we need to master with each one if we really want to integrate the eternal present into our life.

  1. Clock Time– We all know this one, it is the division of our time into seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months and years. From a meditational perspective we need to be well organized enough with regard to our clock time to integrate regular periods of meditative activity into our day, where we can rest in the eternal present. Without this organizational ability we find ourself continually chasing after clock time, feeling flustered and disorganized.
  2. Biological/Seasonal Time– This is the time that our body is attuned to, and that reflects the wider cycles of time and the seasons on the planet. Animals have attunement to this form of time naturally, and act accordingly and appropriately. However we humans often as not seem to find ourself out of touch with our “biological clock”, mentally overriding it, not listening to our physical body when it needs some down time, and being totally unaware of the natural cycles occurring on our immediate environment. Mastery of biological time essentially means re-allowing our biological and seasonal intelligence to communicate with us and factor consideration of it into our daily activities. You could also call biological time “cyclical time”, as it moves in cycles and circles, rather than in a linear way.
  3. Psychological time– Psychological time is the time that we experience in our mind. You could also call this linear time in the sense that psychological time feels like it is moving from one point to the next, to the next, to the next in a straight line (unlike the cycles/circles of biological time). However psychological time can be fickle in the sense that sometimes a short amount of clock time can feel like an eternity, and a long period of time can feel very short, for example if we are really enjoying ourselves. Psychological time is extremely subjective, with periods of time in our day and life that we “dread” and periods that we look forward to. Psychological time is also interesting in the sense that for example if we look back upon our days activities there may be just one thing that our mind focuses on, as if it was the only thing that happened in the day. The essential point is that our experience of psychological time is defined most often by the way in which we frame our experience with our thoughts, so taking care of our thoughts, and making sure that we are mentally framing our daily experience in as optimal a way as possible is a major aspect of mastering psychological time.
  4. Spiritual time– Spiritual time is the time beyond both cyclical biological time and linear psychological time, and is most often referred to as the eternal present, or the eternal now. It embraces and contains all the other expressions of time like a mother embracing a child.  As mentioned at the beginning of this article, awareness and realization of it is a major goal of all the world’s great wisdom traditions. Quite often when people first hear about the eternal present they think of it as a high realization that is far away from where they are in their own path right now. However in reality the eternal present is in many ways the simplest and most accessible of experiences. In order to access it you simply have to “drop time” and allow your mind to rest in a natural, non-conceptual state. As soon as you do this you immediately begin to enter into the subjective experience of the eternal present moment. As such we can turn to the eternal present for support whether we are a very highly realized spiritual being, or a relative beginner.

In order to begin leveraging on the support and happiness that we can receive from spiritual time/ the eternal present the major thing that we need to do is to simply create time for a little stillness in our routine, and then recognize the eternal present within that quiet space, allowing our mind ad body to rest in the experience as fully as possible!

For other articles by Toby on the eternal present, please read “The Four Types of Present Moment”, and “Your Ego as Resistance to What is Present”. 

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope Uncategorized Zen Meditation

Finding Your Best Response to Anxiety – An Existential Perspective

Hi Everyone,

This week’s article focuses on existential anxiety. The discovery of the idea of existential anxiety has been I think the most informative and transforming single factor in my approach to the challenge of anxiety over the last year. It has really made a big difference to the way I see and experience myself in the world. The article is an attempt to give a taster of existential anxiety and what an important influence it is in our life, I hope you enjoy it!

 

Yours in the spirit of being,
   
Toby

 

Article of the Week:

Finding Your Best Response to Anxiety – An Existential Perspective 

How do you think about your anxiety, and what you need to do to overcome it? For many people, meditators included, anxiety comes under the section of “things that need to be overcome” or “things that need to be gotten rid of”. In this article I would like to suggest that specific aspects our anxiety should come under the section “things that need to be understood and responded to effectively” rather than gotten rid of.

Two types of anxiety
In order to help us understand anxiety it is helpful to distinguish two fundamental types of anxiety. For these definitions I am drawing upon the work of Rollo May in his book “The Discovery of Being” which is an excellent introduction to the field of existential psychology and philosophy:

Causal Anxiety– Causal anxiety is anxiety in our life and mind that has a cause. We are in debt, our child or loved one is sick, we have been dumped or sacked, our cat is keeping us up all night meowing, we are repressing unresolved emotion. All of these are examples of anxiety and stress in our life that is caused by something specific. The way to work with causal anxiety is to become aware of its cause and to work to alleviate it.

Existential Anxiety– This second type of anxiety is the type that arises simply from existing or being alive. We exist as human beings, with a sense of self, and as such we find ourselves continually having to affirm that existence or aliveness against the forces that are continually trying to destroy us.

There are two fundamental points about existential anxiety: Firstly, we can never get rid of it. It is ontological, or inherent in the process of being alive. You will only get rid of your existential anxiety on your deathbed as you release your being to the process of death and dissolution. Secondly existential anxiety is fighting a battle that we can never “win”.  It is the struggle of our being against non-being or, put another way, the struggle of our life against the threat of death. The only way to “deal” with our existential anxiety is to accept the inevitability of our death and dissolution, and to live our life while it lasts in the most courageous manner possible.

Why is understanding existential anxiety important?
Understanding existential anxiety is important because, if we are not aware of it then we will find ourselves projecting it onto other areas of our life, and when we do so this anxiety will then become neurotic and even pathological. For example if I project my existential anxiety on my career, then my work will become an expression of my unconscious fight against the reality of death, rather than an expression and celebration of my highest and best self.
Secondly understanding existential anxiety is important because if we can see it and experience it clearly in our life, then we can respond to it effectively. If we remain unaware of it, the chances of us articulating a positive response to it are hugely reduced.

The classic response of the masses to existential anxiety.
How do most people deal with their existential anxiety? It’s simple, conformity. They de-emphasize themselves as an individual being and instead adopt the consensus of opinions, habits and ways of being prevalent in their society at the time. Along with this conformity comes a corresponding loss of awareness, sensitivity and ability to articulate whatever it is that characterizes you as a unique human being. In short, the unconscious response of most people to their own existential anxiety is to lose themselves in the trance of mass consciousness, which serves as a kind of placebo or tranquilizer. It is an avoidance technique really, but since we do it all the time, most people have no idea that they are doing it.

Three possible responses to existential anxiety to meditate upon.
These are not necessarily easy or immediately pleasurable, but if stuck with lead to a much deeper and more authentic response to our life, our existence and the challenge/opportunity it poses:

  1. Even though I will inevitable lose the fight of my life against death I can nevertheless use the time I have to articulate the beauty and uniqueness of my individuality whilst it lasts.
  2. Does the fact that my individual being is impermanent and transient, like a flower in spring not make it all the more beautiful and valuable? I can choose to enjoy it and cherish it whilst it lasts.
  3. My appreciation of the beauty and transience of my own individual existence can help me value the unique individuality of other living beings around me, and cause me to help their individualities to flower fully. I can choose to care for them, value them deeply and, help them articulate their own response to the challenge of life and death.

In conclusion
Existential anxiety is something that you will have to deal with all your life. You can never get rid of it, or even meditate it away (that is to say you can lose your sense of it in deep meditation, but upon your return to daily life it returns). You can only work with it or try and avoid it, your choice!
Existential anxiety is potentially one of our most powerful and constructive driving forces in our life. Unfortunately for many people the standard response seems to be conformity and avoidance (and the consequent neurosis and pathology), or selfishness and egoism.
The primary requirement for making friends with existential anxiety is courage, the courage to confront the forces of life and death as they exist in your life right now, and to live your being fully now in the light of your inevitable non-being.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Presence and being present The Essential Meditation of the Buddha

Your Ego as Resistance to What is Present

Hi Everyone,

The theme of this week’s newsletter is the perennial spiritual theme of learning to live more fully into the present moment. This week’s article is on the subject of how and why our ego resists living in the present moment, and gives a specific technique for us to start tackling this resistance.

Yours in the spirit of presence and being present,

Toby


Article of the Week:

Your Ego as Resistance to What is Present

Ego is a word that means different things in different contexts, but from a meditative point of view, one of the most practical, useful definitions that I have found is that our ego is simply our resistance to what is present in our life right nowor, put another way, our tendency to wish that the reality in front of us was not there because it does not conform to the reality that we want or wish to be there.
Because our ego is constantly resisting what it present in our life we could say that the ego is actually the source of all our stress and suffering that we experience. To give a couple of examples:

Example 1:  If we have gotten the flu our ego may say things like “This is a lousy time to get the flu because I have this important project on”, or “Why do I always get sick!” Our ego may even try and deny the symptoms that we are sick and continue with our life without slowing down, thus making us even more sick in the long term.
Example 2: If we wish for our partner’s approval regarding something we have done, if s/he does not give us that approval our ego will fight that reality. Rather than accepting what has happened and thinking about what might be the best way to proceed we either try harder for the approval that they are clearly not giving, or we try and punish them for the perceived insult.

In both of the examples above our ego takes the challenge of the situation and turns it into a stressful, painful battle that makes the situation intolerable. We find our ego creating all sorts of mental strategies to avoid the present moment, resist what is present and instead disappear off into a mentally created world that is different from what is actually there.
The ego’s resistance to what is present in our life is one way of describing the dynamic of what the Buddha called “dhukka” or “suffering”; Whenever there is resistance to what is present in our life, there is imbalance and suffering. Correspondingly, whenever there is a letting go of that resistance and a corresponding full movement into the present moment, there we find liberation.

An Exercise to Begin Observing and Releasing the Resistance of the Ego.

A simple technique for releasing the ego’s resistance to the present moment whilst in the midst of your day to day activities is take time regularly in your day to take a few breaths in the following manner:
As you inhale quietly or mentally say to yourself “release”, then as you exhale say“resistance”.  As you breathe in this manner consciously let go of any resistance that you ego is having to whatever is going on in your life, and allow your mind to rest in a state of alert acceptance of what is.

Once you are familiar with this basic practice you can make it slightly more insightful by doing the following:
Before you start your series of “release/resistance” breaths, take a little time to note the nature of whatever your resistance may be to the present moment. For example

  •  Are you resisting the present moment due to a pleasant past memory that you wish was here with you now?
  •  Is your mind hankering after a sense of contentment that is apparently not attainable within the present circumstances?
  • Is it negative anger or another disruptive emotion regarding an unresolved situation that is making you resist what is in front of you?
  • Is sadness or a sense of loss preventing you engaging with what is there with you right now?

Take a little time to get in touch with the specific nature of your ego’s resistance before you try and release it. Then as you engage in your “release/resistance” breathing focus on specifically letting go of the ego resistance that you are feeling right now.

Doing this exercise for 1-3 minutes, three or so times a day over the next week will give you a good start in your journey of letting go of your ego’s resistance to the present moment.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Enlightened service Inner vision Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope spiritual intelligence

Can Meditation Help You Find Your Life’s Purpose?

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a relaxing and fulfilling Christmas and Boxing day, I had a very pleasant time, just about the right balance of sociability, good food and quiet reflection!

With the new year approaching I my thoughts have been turning (like many people) to what I would most like to focus on during 2012. I write the article below on the question of “Can meditation help you find your life’s purpose?” with this somewhat in mind.

Next week sees the return of regular weekly classes in Singapore, in particular the weeklyQi gong meditation class restarting on the 4th January.

Wishing you all the best for your new year celebrations!

Yours in the spirit of new beginnings,

Toby

 

Article of the Week:

Can Meditation Help You Find Your Life’s Purpose?

One way or another, and for a variety of different motives, many people feel that finding their ‘life’s purpose’ is very important to them. What I want to do in this article is to outline three levels of purpose in life, and then give a few comments regarding how meditation may be able to help people to find their life’s purpose on these different levels.
These three levels of purpose move from ‘basic’ indicating the least evolved (but still perfectly valid), to the intermediate, to advanced, ‘advanced’ in this context meaning advanced from the perspective of meditation and the path to enlightenment.

The three levels of life’s purpose are:

1) The Basic Level – Survival and acceptance:
Here survival means accumulating enough material resources for a basically happy life, and developing enough social competence to build successful, lasting, mutually supporting friendships and family bonds (and thus acceptance into your ‘tribe’).  Here meaning in life is found in living it, and the experience of living successfully and happily within the context of one’s society. For a person on this level meditation can help calm their mind enough to facilitate greater awareness of the choices they have to make, and greater intelligence and control to make sure they are able to direct their behavior and appetites appropriately, so that they are not sabotaging their resource building and relationship efforts all the time. On this level meditation will also help them to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and appreciate the good things in their life as they are able to live more ‘in the present’.

2) The Intermediate Level – Personal achievement and working for the greater good:
On this level two principle things come online; firstly joy in personal achievement (combined with a certain level of ambition, some of this egotistic, some more altruistic), and secondly an expansion of our scope and motivation. We evolve from our life being mainly about ourselves and our family to wanting to make a real, genuine, positive and lasting contribution to society and the world. Our life begins to center around the question ‘What is it in particular that I can offer the world?’
On the first level of personal achievement, meditation helps us in a similar way to the basic level by helping us to optimize our awareness, intelligence and consistency, thus giving us the mental strength to accomplish our goals. On the second level of motivation and scope, regular meditation naturally makes our mind bigger and more open, opening it up to empathy and awareness of both others and the world around us and facilitating the natural development of genuine love and compassion.
Another major way in which meditation helps us at this stage is the opening of our intuition, guiding us toward work and activity that will be of most meaning and consequence.

3) The Advanced Level – Doing Nothing, Going Nowhere:
On this last and most advanced level, the search for a “meaning” in life is dropped as we realize the inherent perfection of each and every moment of our life as it is already, right now. On this level we are able to recognize that the idea of a ‘personal purpose’ and meaning to our life is ultimately both illusory and already fully manifest. Life is perfect as it is and has no meaning other than its own natural, moment to moment self fulfillment.Zen practices such as the practice of aimlessness and thoughtlessness are aimed at realization of this level of our life’s purpose, as is the Tibetan Dzogchen practice of ‘hopelessness’ (meaning if you are hoping for a life meaning to manifest in the future for you, then you will never be able to realize that it is here with you right now!!!).

In Conclusion
I have outlined three levels of life’s meaning here, one thing I would like to flag up is thatyou can’t move onto the advanced level of ‘doing nothing going nowhere’ without having developed high levels of competency at the first two levels, basic and intermediate. There are a lot of people whose life has no meaning at all, and who are doing nothing about it and thus going nowhere in the negative sense of the word and this is not at all desirable!  Thinking advanced meditation teachings and practices are an excuse to be a lazy so and so, and to avoid the basic day to day challenges in your life is a complete illusion! All of these three levels can and should be grown and developed together as we go through our life and develop our meditation practice.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology spiritual intelligence

What Does “Spiritual” Really Mean? (And What it Does Not Mean!)

Hi Everyone,

This weeks creative meditations article looks to gain a little clarity with regard to the meaning of spirituality which is certainly not the easiest of topics to pin down!

Underneath the article you can find the details of the final meditation class of 2011, which I have entitled “From no self to the Expanded Self”.

Enjoy!

Yours in the spirit of the spiritual,
 
Toby

Article of the Week:

What Does “Spiritual” Really Mean? (And What it Does Not Mean!)

As a ‘spiritual teacher’ I get to hear and engage in various conversations about spirituality. One thing that often stands out for me is the absence of a clear idea of what we really mean by spiritual. With this in mind, here are five working definitions of what the word spiritual can mean. If you think about your own spiritual path in the context of each of these definitions in turn, you will find that each of them shows you a different aspect of it:

1. The spiritual can refer to the very subtle, formless or causal dimension of existence and experience that lies beyond the coarse physical world of the senses and the subtle energetic world of the mind. It is formless because it is beyond the dimension of physical or mental appearances or ‘forms’. It is called ‘causal’ because it is the dimension from which mental and physical form arise and to which they disappear when they cease. Contact with, experience and exploration of this realm is one of the main aims of meditation.

2. The spiritual is that which is of most fundamental meaning and importance in our life. This is the definition that theologian Paul Tillich uses often. One major reason why the contemplation of death and impermanence is a universal practice in the world’s great wisdom traditions is that doing so helps us to urgently clarify the meaning and purpose of our life in the light of its fleeting and transient nature!

3. Spirituality is the process and discipline of developing a progressively loving and selfless intention. The more genuinely pure and selfless a persons intention, the more spiritual they can be said to be. This process of balanced refinement takes continuous work!

4. Spirituality is the progressive transcendence of the ego, and the opening up to awareness of our expanded or Universal self.

5. Spirituality is the courage and faith to confront and be with the real issues in our life as they arise from moment to moment. To quote Alan Watts in his book ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ – “Faith is an unreserved opening to the truth, whatever it may be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown.”

As an adjunct to the above list here are a few of the things that spirituality does NOT mean but is sometimes confused for:

1. Escaping from the ‘real world’ and our real practical/psychological issues by creating our own subtle meditative fantasy world, and imagining that a state of formless meditation is the answer to all our problems.

2. Avoiding appropriate worldly responsibilities and emotional/relational issues we may have by pretending we have more important ‘spiritual’ activities to do.

3. Imagining we have become totally selfless and have transcended our ego whilst our ego runs rampant in a subconscious level. Ken Wilber refers to this as “boomeritis”, Robert Augustus Masters calls it “spiritual bypassing” and Chogyam Trungpa called it “spiritual materialism”. Unfortunately it is still pretty pervasive.

4. Being nice all the time because that what we think being loving and compassionate is all about.

5. Thinking that just ‘being in the present’ means that we don’t need to deal with our past issues or plan for the future.

6. Mistaking trans-rational spiritual states for pre-rational infantile states, similar to point 3. No, children, animals and trees are not enlightened, however they are unconsciously or intuitively in touch with their spiritual natures much of the time. Spirituality is a process of evolution not regression!

© Toby Ouvry 2011, 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 Class 14th December:

From No Self to the Expanded Self: How Buddha’s Teaching on the Emptiness of the Self Can Lead us to an Awakening of Universal Love and Compassion

Facilitator: Toby Ouvry

Date and Time: Wednesday 14thDecember, 7.30-8-30pm

Location: Basic Essence, 501 Bukit Timah Road, 04-04 Cluny Court. 
For directions click HERE

Superficially it can see like the Buddhist perspective on “no self” the absence of any kind of permanent of fixed identity of both ourself and all phenomenon can seem a little bit frightening and perhaps even nihilistic.  In this one hour meditation class we will be looking at how in reality the realization of no-self awakens within us the capacity to go beyond our ordinary ego boundaries and awaken to our “expanded self” or “great self”, that possesses unconditional love and compassion for all living beings (including ourself!).

This class will be a chance to learn and experience a simple but profound meditation that we can use as a way of liberating our sense of self from limiting patterns and perceptions, and awakening to our true human potential.

On a day to day practical level the understanding that we gain from the meditation can also be applied to help us improve our relationships with others and develop a feeling of pervasive warmth and empathy toward others.

The class will consist of a 30-40 minute practical meditation, and a twenty minute or so talk.

Cost for Class: $25, includes MP3 recording of talk.

To register for class: Contact Basic Essence on 64684991 or email info@tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Motivation and scope The Essential Meditation of the Buddha

Our Anxiety in the Face of Inner Space and Stillness

Transcribed from a five minute talk that I gave at the end of a Qi gong meditation class last week (23.11.11), enjoy!

I just want to say one or two things before we end. I mentioned whilst guiding the meditation that one thing that you may become aware of over time is that our mind resists inner space and stillness. If you ask people “Do you want inner peace?” they’ll generally say “Yes, yes, I want inner peace!” but deeper down actually they don’t. To be able to open to inner space and allow it to change you over time takes a lot of courage. This is a major reason why although meditation is free and it has been practiced for millennia as a way of developing mental peace, relatively few people will do it. This is because from the perspective of the ego, the ego has what you might call an existential fear of inner space. Part of the reason why we like to keep ourselves busy all the time, and when we are not doing anything physically our mind likes to think all the time is because we feel as if we have to keep affirming our existence, otherwise we feel like we are going to disappear! It is like a moment to moment fear of death, of dying. Essentially in this context dying means to have no future, becoming nothing. We feel like “If I am not doing something physical then I need to imagine myself doing something physical, because I still want to exist, and if I stop thinking or doing, then I will stop existing”.

This is a little bit of meditational psychology; it is the way in which our mind thinks, but unless we have examined it closely, for most of us this will be a subconscious pattern. And we need to understand that it is natural to have this type of anxiety (the anxiety of becoming non-existent), and simply having this anxiety is not a problem, it is existential anxiety, the natural tension that arises from being alive and wanting to stay that way. So, this in itself is not a problem, what is a problem is if you are not dealing with that anxiety well, if you are repressing it. A lot of psychological pathologies arise from the repression of this natural anxiety which then becomes pathological anxiety, compulsive doing, and compulsive thinking, compulsive everything!

So the natural anxiety of being alive will always be there, even if you continue to meditate. With a bit of practice in meditation you will start to find you can find a sense of inner space and stillness within yourself, but then it becomes an act of courage to keep opening to that space (which to the ego appears to be a type of death, a type of non-existence) and allowing it to inform your experience of life.

So I just thought I would throw that little thought in at the end of our meditation because it is common to find people having a great initial experience of inner space and stillness in their meditation, but then over time drifting away from their practice and this is one of the main reasons. It is not just because we are logistically busy all the time, although life these days is demanding upon our time and energy (although show me a time in history when life has not been such!), it is because our existential anxiety causes our ego to instinctively veer away from inner space and stillness and find excuses not to meditate. Our ego is actually happy to put up with a lot of stress and a lot of pain/problems, fear and anxiety because all of those things are affirming its existence, you know what I mean? Ego is not a bad thing, but the ego has a lot of fears that aren’t really founded upon anything wise and concrete, so it takes a bit of time for it to learn to trust that empty space, that stillness. So we need to keep if you like holding our ego’s hand and saying “Come on, come on, it is not going to be so bad, just relax and let go” like this!

So this is just and aspect of meditation practice that everyone needs to be aware of if you want to sustain your practice, because your mind and ego will try and find a lot of ways to duck out in order to avoid the anxiety of confronting empty space and stillness.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Presence and being present

Meditating on the Inner Weather of Our Mind

Hi Everyone,
This weeks article focuses on the relationship between the way outer weather functions and the constantly changing ‘inner landscape’ of our mind. It is a useful analogy that I use a lot, particularly when there is a lot of outer rain and wind like there has been for the last few weeks in Singapore!

 

Yours in the spirit of flow and change,

Toby

 

Meditating on the Inner Weather of Our Mind 

Reflecting on the Changeability of our Mind and Mental States

One of the main challenges that we face in developing our inner peace and happiness is that our mind seems to be so changeable and unpredictable. Mind training techniques that we learn work for a while and then just seem to ‘stop’ working without any particular reason. We try and do all the ‘right’ things to make ourself happy and yet sometimes our relative happiness and sadness seems as fickle and unpredictable as it has always been.

It seems like one way or another if we are on a search for inner peace we have to factor the inner changeability of our mind into our approach, and learn to work with it rather than against it.

 

Using the Outer Weather as Our Teacher

One of the practical comparisons that I use when I think about the ever changing state of my mind is that of a landscape and the weather. We all know the weather changes all the time, and most of the time we are able to accept this change without too much of a fuss. This is because we know that it is the nature of weather in a landscape to go through cycles and transformations. There are periods of sunshine, brightness and growth, periods of rain, gloom and cold. This is just the nature of weather.

Similarly if we think about our own mind as existing within the context of the group mind of humanity, or Planetary mind, we can start to understand that there are different “inner weather conditions” that come and go within this inner group landscape.

There are different energies, moods, emotions and thought patterns flowing through the group mind all the time, as well as within the particular landscape of our own mind as an individual. The difference between our approach to the outer weather and our inner weather is that perhaps too much of the time we take our inner weather too personally and too seriously.

Perhaps we can try a new approach where we consciously choose to view the inner weather and landscape of our mind a little more lightly and patiently, like we view the outer weather?

 

Meditating on the Inner Weather of the Mind

The way I meditate on the inner weather of the mind is not so much a formal technique as simply a perspective or lens through which I choose to view whatever is going on in my mind. If I feel happy, glad, joyful, uplifted etc… I think about this as bright skies, sunlight, bubbling streams, plants in bloom and so forth. I go with the flow of this good weather, knowing that it won’t last forever, but will quite naturally change as time passes by.

Similarly if my mind feels dark and gloomy I see no reason to panic, it is just like a cloudy or rainy day. On this type of day things may feel a little more difficult of challenging, but really there is often nothing really ‘wrong’ so to speak, it is just a passing phase that will go away in its own time quite naturally if we hold it lightly and don’t try and fight with it or take it too personally.

I find approaching the ever changing nature of my mind in this way a very good way of staying simple, centered and just going with the flow of whatever is arising.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Categories
Awareness and insight Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Presence and being present The Essential Meditation of the Buddha

Three Liberating Wisdom Perspectives on the Self

Hi Everyone,

One of the fundamental questions on the spiritual path  is “who am I?” This weeks article looks at three perspectives that can help us to see a little deeper into the nature of our own self.
A quick reminder of this Wednesday evenings meditation class on “The Essential Meditation of the Buddha”, 7.30-8.30pm. You can find full details by clicking the link.

Yours in the spirit of flowing awareness,
 
Toby


Article of the Week:

Three Liberating Wisdom Perspectives on the Self

Here are three perspectives that you can adopt as a contemplative practice both in and out of meditation. These perspectives are related to last week’s article on the Essential Meditation of the Buddha, but it is not necessary to read that article for this practice to make sense.
The benefits of working with these perspectives as meditation objects are numerous, but the most important is that they help to liberate us from some fundamental misconceptions in our mind that normally we carry around unexamined, and which cause us substantial suffering and pain.

These three perspectives are:
1.       “Whenever or wherever there is a strong grasping of or attachment to your self-sense there is suffering”.
2.       “Whenever you have a wish for something transient, changeable and impermanent to remain fixed as it is, then there is suffering and pain”.
3.       “Whatever object you look at is not the self.”

Each of these perspectives is explained in three parts.
1)      A statement that describes the perspective itself.
2)      A method for beginning to test the truth of the statement in your own experience.
3)      A short breathing meditation practice that you can use once you have confidence in the perspective and its power to aid you in your pursuit of a peaceful, centered and aware mind and life.

Perspective 1:
Statement: “Whenever or wherever there is a strong grasping of or attachment to your self-sense there is suffering”.

Method for testing the truth of this statement: Recall the last time you experienced pronounced suffering, fear or anxiety. As you do so the feeling of attachment to your sense of self should well up as a physical tension in the center of your chest, a physical sensation, not just a mental one. Focusing on that physical tension, deliberately relax it, and as you do so mentally also relax your attachment to your self-sense. Observe how your suffering decreases in relations to the extent that you are able to relax that strong grasping and attachment to your sense of self.
Actually, most of the time it is perfectly possible to engage all of our daily tasks and relationships successfully with a far more reduced attachment to our self sense than we currently have.

Breathing meditation: Anytime you feel the tension arising from an overactive self-sense arising within your chest space, take a few breaths, as you inhale inwardly say to yourself “letting”, as you exhale say to yourself “go”. As you focus on the words “letting go” and breathing, simply do as the words say, release the tension in your chest and let go of the mental attachment to your-self sense.

Perspective 2:
Statement: “Whenever the self wishes for something transient, changeable and impermanent to remain fixed as it is, then there is suffering and pain”.

Method for testing the truth of this statement: One basic sense of reality that we are trying to develop here is simply the sense that everything is always changing. Whether you look at the coming and going of your breathing, the gradual aging of your body, the way Monday changes into Sunday, the movement of the seasons. As the Buddha said “all produced phenomena are impermanent”. With this in mind it is not so surprising to find out in our own experience that whenever we cling to something impermanent, whether it be a stage in our relationship with our romantic partner that is changing, the growing up of children or whatever there is a sense of pain that goes with it. What we need to do is allow change to happen without fighting it in a negative way. Go with the flow rather than always trying to swim against the current. (Note: Doing this might actually mean that you age more slowly ;-))

Breathing Meditation: On the inbreath focus on the word “flowing” and on the outbreath “awareness” allow yourself to relax into the flow of the moment to moment change that is occurring with each successive moment of awareness.

Perspective 3:
Statement: “Whatever object you look at is not the self”.

Method for testing the truth of this statement: This is a statement that, like the two above it leverages very heavily upon the teachings and observations of the Buddha. The basic thing to observe in your own experience is that:
a)      We tend to cling to many “things” such as our body, different mental states and emotions as “me” as if they were our true self. We are actually doing this one way or another most of the time.
b)      However, in fact all of these things that we tend to think of as self are actually objects observed and possessed by the self, they are not the self itself. The self is always the witnessing observer of these things. The self is always the subject of our awareness, and so anything that we can objectify and consider as an object is not the self.
So, where do we find the “self”? We find it only as the witnessing awareness of everything that our mind observes. This awareness itself has not qualities or form beyond simply being a witness. In this sense the self is pure, empty, luminous awareness, nothing more.

Breathing Meditation: On the inbreath focus on the word “spacious”, on the outbreath focus on the word “awareness”. Allow yourself to rest as deeply and calmly as you can within the pure, formless awareness of your own true self.
An alternative exercise for this section might be to: On the inbreath focus on the word “no” and as you exhale “self”. As you are doing so recognize that everything that you see, sense and perceive lacks a self in the sense of having a tangible form that can be identified as a fixed, inherent self.

© Toby Ouvry 2011, 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