Category: Meditation techniques

Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

Post author By Toby
Post date September 15, 2025

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

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

In the spirit of natural-ness,

Toby

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

Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

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

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

Meditating on the pre-present enables us to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two quotes for meditating unself-consciously

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

A mountain poem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Moving from center – a diagram of how meditation works

Post author By Toby
Post date September 8, 2025

“A meditator sits in the hub of the wheel without being lost in the spinning”

Moving from center – a diagram of how meditation works

In this short piece I want to show you and explain a diagram that I draw frequently in my workshops, organizational trainings. It’s a way of explaining how meditation makes things better for those that practice it. it is called ‘Moving from centre’.

Moving from center

In the diagram you can see there are two circles, both represent someone’s consciousness in daily life and then patterns that it flows in. Here we might define meditation as ‘a way of moving back to your center’;

back to the present moment
back to awareness of your body and breath
back to the central reason you are doing something
back to what you were intending to focus upon
back to what is most important

All of these are examples of ‘coming back to center’ as a meditative act.

The top circle represents someone who does not meditate, or who has no mechanism for moving regularly back to their inner-center. You can see that basically their pattern of consciousness is basically a big squiggle; all their activities, and the thoughts, emotions and impulses that accompany them are all getting mixed up. One activity bleeds into another, one thought leads sideways to another unrelated thought. Emotional states from work come back home at night, worries from home come into your work activities.

Mr Messy

When I was a child there was a character in a story called Mr Messy. He was a guy who was completely chaotic, and whose body was basically just a big squiggle. Many peoples mind and energies are like this, which is tiring and inefficient, but also not a lot of fun…

In the second circle, you can see that the pattern of consciousness has changed, there is now a center-point with lines leaving and returning from it. At the end of these lines are little squiggles, representing daily activities, physical, mental emotional. This is the pattern of consciousness of a meditator. S/he may not be doing anything different from the person in the first diagram, but the way in which their consciousness relates to the activity is different, Going something like this:

Wake-up, center, make breakfast, organize,get kids to school, center
Off to work, staying centered during commute, arrive relaxed and ready
Center around the first task of the day, relax into it
Have a challenging meeting, heated conversation, difficult emotions, center afterward
Lunch, use food to center, aware of but not lost in emotions from meeting
Afternoon, center around first activity, relax into it
Going home, center, don’t carry work into interactions with family
Center around the dinner, reflect on the day

….and so it goes on, the same day, but experienced differently. A meditator sits in the hub of the wheel without being lost in the spinning. They center in the eye of the storm as it blows around them. When you go through life moving to and from center, the sense of harmony and balance that comes from this results in a profound change. The externals don’t change, the internal strong emotions and mental busyness comes and goes like it did before, but we experience it differently.

Welcome to the world of the meditator.

Last week’s article: Scratching out your name card, & other gateways to Zen meditation

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

Tags centering, hub of the wheel, inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, moving from center, power of mind

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Scratching out your name card, & other gateways to Zen

Post author By Toby
Post date September 1, 2025

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

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

In the spirit of label-less-ness,

Toby

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

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

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

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

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

Zen Story: The Governor’s Card

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

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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Zen ergonomics – Sailing with, rather than rowing against life

Post author By Toby
Post date August 23, 2025

“How might I start to sail with this?”

Dear <<First Name>>,

This week’s article explores an image that I use a lot in my coaching practice, and that also have found to be of enduring value in my own life challenges. If you enjoy the article, then you are invited to the upcoming free seminar this Wednesday!

In the spirit of sailing rather than rowing,

Toby

Free online seminar – Sailing with life, not rowing against it: Re-discovering your lightness & beginners mind through Zen meditation

Date: Wednesday 27^th September 2025
Time: 7.30-8.30pm Singapore time

If you can’t make the session live, let us know & we would be happy to send you the recording!

Overview: How can we find a way of encountering life and its challenges where we are working with what we are experiencing, rather than against it? Why does life sometimes seem to get heavier and less spontaneous as time goes by? How can we stay simple and calm in the face of the sometimes bewildering complexities of our life?…read full details

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

Zen – Buddhism meets Taoism

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

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

Sailing – working with, not fighting against

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

Post author By Toby
Post date August 18, 2025

“Often, we feel like we must escape our thoughts to get into meditation. Not thinking about thinking turns our thoughts into a doorway to meditation, & a space of calm amidst any inner storm”

Dear Integral Meditators,

One of the deep and abiding pleasures of meditation is that of being able to sit in a state of non-conceptual awareness. One of the reasons people don’t achieve this is because in their minds they think it must be really difficult to achieve, it must be a lot of effort. In reality, achieving non-conceptual awareness is more a matter of trying smarter, rather than trying harder! The article below explores how to start relaxing into the pleasure of non-thinking.

If you enjoy the article, there are many sessions on non-cenceptual meditation coming up that you can join live, online of via the recording; The One Heart Zen open day, The upcoming Zen classes & deep dive sessions, and the Finding your inner-center workshop. Further details via the links.

In the spirit of non-conceptuality,

Toby

Not thinking about thinking – A Zen approach to non-conceptual awareness (AKA cultivating Prajnic awareness)

Non-conceptuality – A central practice for awakening

In the Tibetan school of Buddhism I spent my first decade of meditation training in back in the 1990’s, the main meditation was the meditation on emptiness. A central way of understanding emptiness is that it is simply non-conceptual awareness; the ability to see and be with things as they are, rather than as we think they are. Another word for non-conceptual awareness is ‘prajnic-awareness’,

To give a slightly more rounded sense of the word prajna, here is a quote from the Wikipeida page on it: Prajñā is often translated as “wisdom”, but according to Buddhist bioethics scholar Damien Keown, it is closer in meaning to “insight”, “non-discriminating knowledge”, or “intuitive apprehension”

The meditation on non-conceptual wisdom is a central practice all the Mahayana schools of Buddhism, Tibetan, Japanese Zen, Chinese Chan. So, when we cultivate it, we are cultivating a lineage of meditation that has a long and central role in the practice of awakening and enlightenment! Perhaps more importantly, accessing non-conceptual awareness enables us to find a place of reliable peace and wellbeing amid stress, uncertainty, emotional upheaval and all variety of life challenges. If you make it a part of your experience, you can find the ‘calm amidst the storm’ wherever you are and wherever you go.

Cultivating non-conceptual awareness

One simple trick to start cultivating non-conceptual awareness is to deliberately try and be aware of several things at the same time. For example:

The sky above you
The earth beneath you
Your breathing
The overall sensation of your body

Your senses
Your emotional state
Your thoughts
Awareness itself, or the simple experience of being conscious

You can create your own variations.

Spend a bit of time cultivating an awareness of each domain, getting a feeling for each. Then put them all together and try and be aware of all of them simultaneously. To do this, you have to stop thinking and just be aware. You can’t be aware of 3-4 thigs at the same time AND think about them! So, what this does is it ‘traps’ or ‘tricks’ you into just looking, just being aware. This then gives you a gateway to the actual experience of non-conceptual awareness, or prajnic-awareness. If you do this then you are practising ‘seeing without thinking’, ‘awareness without thoughts’.
If you continue to meditate in this way, then you will start to drop deeper and deeper into non-conceptual awareness (aka consciousness-itself, or emptiness), which is the gateway to realizing the awakened or enlightened state in many of the great wisdom schools of the world.

Not thinking about thinking – A Zen approach to non-conceptual meditation

Another fun ‘meditation game’ you can play is with thoughts themselves. Watch your thoughts. Normally you will notice that you will them have thoughts about the thoughts; judgments, assessments, thoughts on other related subjects etc… So here, the practice is to experience any thought that comes up simply as itself, without thinking or reflecting upon it. Here we are practising turning our conceptual awareness into a doorway to non-conceptual awareness. If that sounds quite Zen and paradoxical, it is because it is!
Normally we feel like we have to escape our thoughts to get into meditation. Not thinking about thinking turns our thoughts into a doorway to meditation and prajnic-awareness. You might think of this as a ‘trick for the wise’, try it in your own practice, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Related reading: Prajna – Seeing things from all angles & none
Non-Dual meditation & Organismic reality

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

Saturday 23rd August, 3-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day: Sound of Zen meditation with singing bowls

Saturday 30th August, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, non-conceptual awareness, power of mind, prajna, prajnic meditation, Zen meditation

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Inter-connected or over-connected?

Post author By Toby
Post date July 21, 2025

“Reduce your device time & increase time spent enquiring into interdependence to go from feeling ‘over-connected & lonely’ to ‘Inter-connected & supported’”

Dear Integral Meditators,

I’ve recently facilitated some corporate workshops on ‘Digital Detox for Corporate Professionals: Reclaiming Focus and Productivity’. Creating this workshop & seeing people’s response to it has really opened my eye’s to how chronic the problems around overuse of devices are for us these days. In the article below I explore a simple flip to go from ‘over-connected, overwhelmed & lonely’ to ‘inter-connected & supported’. I hope you enjoy it!

I’m almost completed with the new meditation programs starting in August/September, you can see the full line up in the Whats On section beneath the article.

In the spirit of connected,

Toby

Inter-connected or over-connected?

What is my relationship to the world? Is a question is one worth asking yourself and seeing what sort of answers and perceptions come back to you. Your sense of your relationship to the world is fundamental, it forms the basis of most of your other perceptions, choices and experiences in life. For many people, the temptation is to experience ourself as someone coming into life from the outside, an outsider who dies not belong, and has to ‘fight’ to earn their place. Life is a battle to belong, rather than an enjoyment of your sense of already belonging.
A ’flip’ that I continue to enjoy is that of being born from life, rather than into it. To quote from a previous article on the subject:

“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.”

Being ‘born from life’ gives us a sense of effortless belonging, which is a great and un-lonely place to begin feeling into our connection of self-to-world.

Observing interdependence – Inter-connected & supported

We can strengthen our sense of feeling connected to the world by seeing, through contemplation, the way in which we are all interconnected. There are innumerable ways in which we can do this, to give three short examples:

I am writing this article on my parents dining table. To be able to use this table I rely on the carpenters that made it, the wood supplier, the trees it came from (and by implication the forest, not to mention my parents’ hospitality!
I can do the same thing with the computer that I am writing on; so many people involved in the supply chains that put the machine together, created the software and so forth, for me to then buy and use relatively effortlessly
I’ve just finished a coffee whilst writing. Again, to get the coffee to me relies upon the water from the tap, the coffee supply chain, the supermarket, the coffee plant, the land that the coffee plant grew on…

In any aspect of my life, if I start to look at the interdependence that doing what I am doing relies upon, my wisdom-eyes open, and I start to see how intimately and fully I am connected to everything else in the world. From this comes gratitude of course, but also a fundamental reduction in my loneliness. I am always inter-connected, and in this way never alone in a lonely way!

Over-connected & lonely

The above two states of being and feeling interconnected contrast sharply with the experience of many people who are what you might call ‘over-connected’ through their phones and being online all the time. Our devices enable us to be ‘connected’ and ‘in-touch’ all the time, however this experience paradoxically leads many to feel lonely, left-out (and afraid of being left out), isolated and yet compulsively over-connected.

A few practice points:

Reduce, and manage wisely the amount of time you stay connected to the world through your devices
Use the amount of time you save from reduced device time to develop the wisdom of interconnectedness and belonging outlined in sections one and two of this article. This wisdom does not need to be hard work, it’s really just about grounding yourself in the recognition of it. Your inter-connection is fed easily and gently by the recognition!

© 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

Saturday 23rd August, 3-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day: Sound of Zen meditation with singing bowls

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

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

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, interconnected, interdependence, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness and technology, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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Mindful of: Your masculine & feminine balance

Post author By Toby
Post date June 30, 2025

“If our masculine and feminine energies are harmonized, it is a huge plus for our inner resilience and sense of wellbeing.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at working with your masculine & feminine balance. If you enjoy the article, you’d be welcome to join us for the Wednesday class & Saturday class where we will be working with this topic!

If you are interested in Qi gong then do check out my workshop on Saturday 12th July, 9am-1pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing

In the spirit of your feminine/masculine balance,

Toby

Mindful of: Your masculine & feminine balance

In this article I want to explore a few mindful positions around your sense of the masculine and feminine energy within you, and how to bring them together into a harmonic, or mutually supportive partnership. If our masculine and feminine energies are imbalanced, or fighting each other, then this can be a source of conflict and dissonance. If they are working together, it is a huge plus for our inner resilience and sense of wellbeing.

Male & female, masculine & feminine

One thing to distinguish initially is the difference between your male and female energy on the physical and biological level, and our masculine and feminine. It is possible to be physically male and very feminine in terms of energy balance, or female biologically and quite masculine in energy balance. Obviously, we are either a man or a woman, and we will have a sense of how we experience that. We will also, as a man or woman have both masculine and feminine energy flowing through us. It is worth reflecting upon this, making the distinction, and then starting to get an intuitive sense of your own point of balance in terms of masculine and feminine polarities.

A balancing chart

Here is a list of masculine and feminine qualities, roughly arranged in complementary polarities:

It is not the only list, or a ‘complete’ list, but by looking over it you can start to give name and form to some of the natural polarities in terms of masculine and feminine, yin and yang energies. The idea with each of them is to build BOTH qualities within yourself, in a way that they are complementary, mutually supporting and ‘aware’ of each other. For example, if you take the first one, Loving and powerful, which is a fundamental one. Tune into the part of you that is loving in various ways. Then tune into the part that is powerful and expresses power. Working with them consciously, you can practise becoming both powerful and loving in your expression of your thoughts, words, relationships, and actions.

Merging your masculine & feminine self

Sitting quietly, imagine that on either side of you, you have a man and woman. Recognize these as being embodiments of your masculine and feminine selves. Feel into their energy on both sides of you to get a sense of both. When you are ready, as you breathe in, feel both figures moving inwards toward you, so that eventually their bodies merge with yours. Experience yourself as being one masculine and feminine being, balanced, harmonized and strong.
If you like you can do this exercise with one of the polarities in the above list. For example experiencing the ‘willful’ part of your masculine energy in the man, and the ‘nurturing’ aspect of your feminine energy in the woman. Then proceed with the merger as described.

Related articles: The middle way
Polarity meditation – Working consciously with tension

© 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

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, masculine feminine balance, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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The Cloud of Unknowing, the ocean of…

Post author By Toby
Post date June 21, 2025

“Relaxing mindfully into your confusion often starts to dissipate the fogginess & return you to clarity without you ‘trying’ to”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at working with states of mind and emotion that we often consider to be in the way of our wellbeing, transforming them into the path of awakening. If you enjoy the article, you’d be welcome to join us for the Tuesday & Wednesday class where we will be working with this topic!

Also, quick shout out for the beginners meditation workshop on Saturday the 28th June…

In the spirit of clouds & oceans,

Toby

The Cloud of Unknowing, the ocean of sadness

On aspect of tantric meditation is the transformation of difficult emotions, passions or feelings into the path to awakening. It requires a degree of skill and a willingness to experiment a bit, but if you are willing to try, it can bring some decent results quite quickly. In this article I want to focus on ignorance/confusion and sadness.

From confusion to the Cloud of Unknowing

This method can work with a range of feelings such as confusion, overwhelm, dullness, anxiety. Take the feeling of confusion that you might have about what to do in a particular situation. Imagine also that you’re feeling a little tired, and that your brain has been a little overworked, so you have that ‘foggy’ sensation behind your forehead and above your eyes. Most often these feelings are ones that we fight with to overcome and get rid of. In this method however, you simply relax into the feelings and sensations of the confusion. You sense the brain fog behind your eyes and relax into it, letting your mind become foggy and cloudy. You allow your confusion to make you dull. By doing this you relax into a ‘Cloud of Unknowing’, a non-conceptual space of relaxed spaciousness. The dullness becomes your friend in aiding you to let go of your thoughts and into a state where the unknowing-ness leads you into a state of open empty space that is ‘Just this’.

The term ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ is a contemplative expression:
“The Cloud of Unknowing (Middle English: The Cloude of Unknowyng) is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer. The underlying message of this work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon consideration of God’s particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender one’s mind and ego to the realm of “unknowing”, at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God”.

Our own confusion and dullness can help us to start to awaken to deeper levels of consciousness through the Cloud! You will also find that relaxing into the Cloud also often starts to dissipate the fogginess, and help you return to clarity (without ‘trying’ to).

The Ocean of sadness

When working with confusion, I often use the feelings in my head as the focus point. With sadness the focus changes to the heart and stomach areas, where we often feel sadness most keenly. Here you take a feeling of sadness and relax into it. If you imagine the sadness is like an ocean, and you let yourself gently sink beneath the surface and into the deep depths. I also follow the feeling in my body down into my stomach, it’s like a sinking feeling from your stomach down into the abdomem. As you sink down you start to let go of the specifics of the sadness, and just relax into the deep, non-conceptual, oceanic space that the sadness opens up within you. It’s like you are drifting in the depths of an immense ocean. This technique transforms the specific sadness into a deep non-conceptual space that you can then use to meditate on consciousness itself. In this way you transform an obstacle to meditation into the gateway to meditation.
Like the confusion, you may also find yourself emerging from the sadness quite naturally and without effort as a side effect of this practice.

Related articles: Darkness emerging as light
Messiness, unlabeling, unknowing
Taking the weight off your chest (Transforming sadness)

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

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Practical dimensions of chakra meditation

Post author By Toby
Post date June 10, 2025

“When you meditate, you start to learn to move or ‘travel’ between different states of consciousness, which opens up creative possibilities”

Dear Toby,

This week’s article takes at the chakras as a way of navigating between states of consciousness in meditation. If you enjoy it, it will be the subject of this week’s Tuesday, Wednesday class, or the Saturday dee-dive session. You would be welcome to join, either live-in-person, or online!

In the spirit of inner traveling,

Toby

Practical dimensions of chakra meditation

The subtle energy body and levels of consciousness

When you meditate, you start to learn to move or ‘travel’ between different states of consciousness, which opens up creative possibilities. The simplest model of consciousness states is a set of three and looks something like this:

Gross level – Physical body and biological life force (The domains of physics, chemistry & biology)
The subtle level – The level of mind, ranging from the everyday mind and attendant emotions to more subtle, refined, higher levels (The domains of psychology, philosophy & metaphysics).
The causal, or very subtle level of consciousness – The level of consciousness itself, formless, timeless (a ‘living, primal emptiness’) and unitive in nature.

Some correspondences – Chakras as a map of states of consciousness

Chakras are subtle energy centres, or ‘wheels’. They are most often described as being located along a central channel, or energy meridian that runs from the base of the spine to the crown of the head, and then down to the third eye, or point between the eyebrows. different schools and systems use different colours, but the ‘rainbow’ version described below is a good version to start with. The three levels of consciousness are split into the seven levels as follows.

Gross levels of consciousness (Physics, chemistry biology)

Base chakra – Located at the base of the spine, red in colour, related to the world of physical form, and our surviving/ thriving in that domain.

Sacral chakra – Located at along the spine at the level of the sacrum, orange in colour, related to the biological world of sexuality, reproduction, relationships, and the attendant feeling/emotional states

The subtle levels of consciousness

Solar plexus chakra – Located at the solar-plexus level of the spine, yellow in colour, related to the psychological world of everyday thinking, healthy or dysfunctional ego formation, our sense of power or agency, and/or lack of it.
Heart chakra – Located at the heart-level of the spine, green in colour, related to our love energy, both in relation to ourself, others and the world around us.
Throat chakra – Located at the throat-level of the spine, blue in colour, related to our communication energy (speech), both in relation to ourself, others and the world around us. You could also add ‘truth’ to this chakra, as in “speaking one’s truth.”
Third eye chakra – Located between the eyebrows (If you imagine the chakra column of meridian rising from the base of the skull, up to the crown of the head and then down between the eyebrows), indigo in colour, related to our wisdom facility, and depth of perception.

The very subtle, or causal level of consciousness

Crown Chakra – Located at the crown of the head, violet/white in colour, related to our capacity to rest in an expanded state of causal or formless consciousness.

A simple meditation

Sitting in meditation, sense into your subtle body, same shape, and size as your physical body, interpenetrating it
See the chakra column with the attendant chakras extending from the base of your spine to the crown of your head, and then down to the third eye zone between your eyebrows
In meditation feel and see light and energy being activated within your base chakra. Feel it rising progressively through each of the chakras, with their attendant colours and capacities.
See the light rising into your crown chakra, where your personal consciousness dissolves and merges with the timeless emptiness of consciousness itself
See the light from your crown chakra descending to the third-eye chakra between your eyebrows, rest in stillness. After a while imagine seeing the world around you, and yourself being inseparable from the formless timeless emptiness you contacted in your crown charka. The world is a dream-like manifestation of consciousness itself, that you are. They co-exist singularly, like the two sides of one coin…

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

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Essential Freedom – On the mindful ‘big three’ & Awakening

Post author By Toby
Post date May 26, 2025

“Daily intention, attention, and awareness can be experienced as expressions of our essential Freedom, Love & Bliss”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article takes a creative look at how to bridge basic mindfulness & deeper states of Awakening. If you enjoy it, it will be the subject of this week’s Tuesday, Wednesday class. You would be welcome to join, either live-in-person, or online!

In the spirit of our essential Freedom,

Toby

Essential Freedom – On the mindful ‘big three’ & Awakening

This article weaves together the fundamentals of mindfulness practice with some essential ‘Tantric’ elements. By ‘fundamentals of mindfulness’ I mean working with our basic intention, attention, and awareness. By Tantric, I mean seeing and experiencing these three in qualities their essential, purified, or awakened form. What it offers is a space where we can explore the space between simple mindfulness and higher/deeper states of meditation presence in a way that is creative and playful.

The mindful big three

As I mentioned, your ‘mindful big three’ are intention, attention, and awareness. They are three what you might call ‘all accompanying characteristics of our everyday consciousness, meaning they are there and functioning pretty much all the time whilst we are awake and sleeping.

Intention is what moves us to step into action. With mindfulness we are trying to be more conscious and less automatic about our intentions, so that they become more caring, constructive, and high quality.

Attention is directed by our intention. If our intention is mindful, our attention will then be focused towards to where our intention channels it. We marshal our attention with our intention. High quality attention then helps us to be more effective in life, and to enjoy it more.

Awareness is our potential to be conscious; it is consciousness itself. Our awareness follows our attention. The energy of our consciousness awareness follows where we place our attention.

Awakened mindfulness – Freedom, love & bliss

So, each moment of our consciousness has these three dimensions, intention, attention, and awareness. What I want to do now is describe a visualization that enables us to relate to these three in their pure or essential form:

Freedom of intention – Imagine your intention as a star sitting in the center of your head/brain. It sits in the freedom of an open sky, and when you focus on it you can feel that open, spacious freedom. Its light is the light of your conscious intention that you can use to navigate your life successfully and wisely.

The Heart of loving attention – See your attention as a diamond at your heart, the facets of the diamond reflecting and radiating rainbow lights around it. The rainbow diamond represents all the different ways that your attention can be directed to yourself and the world in a loving, skillful, benevolent, and compassionate manner.

The bliss of your Ocean of consciousness – See in your lower abdomen there is a drop of water that contains the entire ocean. This is your Blissful Ocean of consciousness, the source from which awareness comes from. If you relax into this Ocean in your belly, you can feel your consciousness becoming open, blissful & calm, like the depths of an Ocean.

Putting it together:

You can meditate on the star in your head as your essential, awakened Freedom of intention. In daily life you can use the star-image to create and stay with mindful, conscious intentions

You can meditate on the diamond at your heart as your essential, awakened Love. During the day you can use the diamond image to be creative with the different ways you can make your attention loving, constructive and benevolent.

You can meditate on the drop of water in your belly as an Ocean of Bliss-Consciousness. During the day you can be dropping into this simple, blissful state of awareness to recharge, relax and recover, before moving back into more active states of intention and attention.

Related reading: The holy trinity of mindfulness
Indestructible safety (On Therapeutic & Tantric mindfulness)

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

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