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Moving from center – a diagram of how meditation works

“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
 

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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Scratching out your name card, & other gateways to Zen

“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 23rd 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
 

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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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The Cloud of Unknowing, the ocean of…

“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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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Practical dimensions of chakra meditation

“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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

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The Freedom of your inner garden

“Work in the inner garden of your mind a little bit every day, like you would work on an outer garden to give it a sense of order & beauty”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article takes a look at inner and outer gardening. 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!

Beneath the article you can see the full list of events for June, including the Meditation & Mindfulness for working with your Child-self  workshop, and the summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation.
 
In the spirit of our inner gardens,

 
Toby

The Freedom of your inner garden
 
Cultivating an inner and outer Garden space
 
Yesterday, Sunday, I spent about an hour in the front and back garden, bringing a bit of order to the gentle chaos that it was becoming. I dug out the root of a Banyan tree at the back that had gone rogue, and I trimmed the jasmine bushes at the front, putting some eggshells and fertilizer in their pots. The great thing about doing any kind of gardening work is that, by the end of it your mind often feels wonderfully clear and peaceful. As well as the peaceful feeling, there is the sense of having brought order and harmony to the physical space, a sense of benevolent control. This in turn changes (for me at least) the overall sense of having some control and order in my life. When I walk through my front gate now, I have the feeling of satisfaction of having nurtured the garden, and I see the plants I have worked with.
 
In one sense of course this can also be taken as a metaphor for the ‘inner garden’ of our mind. Mindful attention is very much about noticing and nurturing focus on the things in life you can appreciate and feel good about. Yes, parts of your life may feel in chaos or dis-order, but don’t forget to notice the parts that aren’t (the inner equivalent of jasmine bushes in the above example), and feel good about the work you’ve done today to bring order to the chaos (the Banyan tree root above).
 
Your energy body and your environment
 
Gardening work and indeed any time in contact with nature can open up some interesting meditation capacities. Here are a few simple ways in which I work with the energy of the environment and nature regularly:

  • Feet on the ground, in meditation or walking, feel the light and energy from the Earth rising up into your body, activating its vitality. Feel like you have a body of energy interpenetrating your physical body. With your light body, sense into the mineral, plant, and elemental (earth, water, air, fire) energies around you. Let this contact feed and balance you inwardly.
  • Feel your belly area to be a focus point for your biological energy. Breathe in and out of your belly, feeling the natural bliss of your life-force and vitality building in that space.
  • Feel your heart-centre to be connected to the sun and its energy. See a beautiful sun at your heart. Breathing in and out of it, making the heart-zone of your body bright, loving & strong
  • Feel your head to be connected to the energy of the sky and stars. See a bright star-light in the centre of your brain, connecting you to the natural Freedom and spaciousness of the sky and stars all around us.

The above are all very simple focus points that, when you take the time to dwell upon them can lead you into quite deep meditation states relatively easily and quickly, it is not hard work!
 
Related reading: Finding energy through meditation – Aspects of meditating with your energy body
Meditating with the energy of trees & plants
Trees, birds & Octopuses – Achieving harmony by letting be

© 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

Ongoing Tuesday & Wednesday’s weekly, 7.30-8.30pm – Embodied Transformation – An integrative introduction to Tantric meditation

Ongoing on Saturdays weekly, 5.30-6.15pm – Embodied Transformation – Saturday Tantric deep-dive meditation sessions

Saturday 24th May, 10.30am-12noon – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Level 1 – Friday 30th May, 8am-4pm, Level 2 – Friday 13th June, 8am-4pm – Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to Non-Dual Meditation Practice Retreat & Course

Tuesday 17th, Weds 18th June, 7.30-8.30pm – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday 21st June, 2-5pm SG time – Meditation & Mindfulness for working with your Child-self  

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Re-awakening the Bliss of your childhood

“Reconnecting to your bliss can have a profound effect on everything else; pain is less wearing, emotional dissonance is easier to harmonize, disappointments & life’s curve-balls are easier to work with”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article takes bliss and childhood as the subject. If you enjoy it, it will be the subject of this weeks Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday class. You would be welcome to join, either live-in-person, or online!

Quick reminder of the The Call of the Wild: Shamanic Meditations for connecting to animal guides in the inner world Masterclass & Mini-retreat over the weekend!

In the spirit of thoughtful bliss,
 
Toby

Re-awakening the Bliss of your childhood
 
When connecting to the bliss of being alive came naturally
 
When I was a young boy, I used to ‘twiddle’ my hair. This meant taking a lock of my hair between my index & middle fingers and rubbing it gently between the two. This very quicky sent me into a relaxed, semi-trance state that felt very naturally blissful. This bliss was a physical feeling in my body, not an abstract idea. When it happened, the front of my tongue would rise to the top, front of the roof of my mouth, where I would feel it ‘suck’ rhythmically, like a baby sucking on a bottle, or a breast. Twiddling my hair could go on for long periods, like in the back of a car whilst on a weekend journey. My parents literally called me ‘Toby twirl’ because of this habit, which lasted actively until my early teens.
After my early teens, I forgot about twiddling my hair for several years. But when I started practicing Qi gong, and meditating, I noticed that that familiar ‘sucking’ of my tongue on the roof of my mouth returned, along with the feeling of bliss in my body at certain times. This was something of a discovery, because once I had connected to the experience of childhood bliss, I found I could very easily go into a state of meditation by recalling the experience of twiddling my hair, and activating the feeling of blissful aliveness in my body. The bliss was/is really useful, because it makes it easy for the body-mind to relax, and to stop thinking about stuff. If you can access a state of bliss, since it is so much more pleasant to feel blissful than worried, it easy to choose feeling blissful over compulsive stress, at least for some of your day!
 
So, then I have a question for you; do you have any memories of childhood bliss, like the ‘hair-twiddling one’ that I mention above? Perhaps it was in your childhood, but it might have been later, in your teens, or a passage of your adult years. If you can find such a memory and remember it, then that can then act as the basis of your own re-awakening to bliss in the here and now.
 
Re-connecting to that cellular memory now
 
When you recall your experience of childhood (or other) bliss, what will happen is that you will activate your body’s cellular memory of it. This means you activate the feeling of the blissful memory in the body, and so actually start to experience a little bit of the bliss in the present moment. If you dwell upon that feeling now, you can grow it back to the power of it’s original state, thus bringing back the regenerative energy of bliss into your life. Just a few minutes a day of reconnecting to your bliss can have a profound effect on everything else; pain becomes less wearing, emotional dissonance is easier to harmonize, disappointments and life’s curve-balls are easier to accept and work with.
 
The bliss-work is nice to explore as a practice by itself, but there are also two further ways in which you can enhance the building of your bliss are:

  1. Combining it with core cellular breathing
  2. You can combine it with the meditation on Making yourself bigger

© 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 10th & Sunday 11th May – The Call of the Wild: Shamanic Meditations for connecting to animal guides in the inner world Masterclass & Mini-retreat

Starts Tuesday 6th, Wednesday 7th May, 7.30-8.30pm – Embodied Transformation – An integrative introduction to Tantric meditation

Starts Saturday, 10th May & then weekly, 5.30-6.15pm – Embodied Transformation – Saturday Tantric deep-dive meditation sessions

Tuesday 13th & Wednesday 14th May, 7.30-8.30pm – Wesak compassion & inner visioning meditation

Saturday 17th May, 3-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day: Heart Opening meditation with singing bowls

Tuesday 17th, Weds 18th June, 7.30-8.30pm – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday 24th May, 10.30am-12noon – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Level 1 – Friday 30th May, 8am-4pm, Level 2 – Friday 13th June, 8am-4pm – Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to Non-Dual Meditation Practice Retreat & Course

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease creative imagery Essential Spirituality Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation techniques mind body connection mindful dreaming Mindfulness Presence and being present

Time – a holograph from Eternity

“Time is a holograph from Eternity”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This weeks article outlines a way of relating to time in a radically different way how we usually do, offering a way to a space of peace and centred-ness wherever you find yourself. 

If you enjoy the article, then you are welcome to join the Tuesday & Wednesday, as well as the Saturday sessions this week, where we will be working with this meditation directly.

In the spirit of unity in diversity, 

Toby


Time – a holograph from Eternity
 
The Eternal Now
 
Tibetan Dzogchen meditation is one of several of the non-dual meditation schools to emphasize that time is an illusion. An illusion in the sense that, it appears that we move from a ‘real’ past, to a ‘real’ present, to a ‘real’ future in a linear, consecutive fashion. For them it is only the Now moment that exists. You can start to see through the illusion of time by challenging yourself to get out of this current present moment.

  • You think about the past and what happened there, but wait, that thought about the past is happening Now, right here!
  • You project yourself into the future, thinking intensely about an outcome, you see it with crystal clarity. But where is that thought about the future? It is right here, Now
  • When the past or future event you are thinking of happened/happens, were will it happen? Of course, in the Now
  • You can distract yourself from something that you find uncomfortable in the present by taking your attention away from the thing that is there, but where is that distraction? Once again, the distraction is occurring in the Now moment

 
All confusion and suffering from this perspective comes from the seeking mind, trying to find fulfilment outside the now, rather than recognising that you have already arrived. Where? In the Eternal, always already Present, where you have always been and always will be. By collapsing the illusion of linear time in to the Eternal Present, we contact the Unitive or Non-Dual condition of reality that underlies all the surface change.
 
Holographs from Eternity
 
Imagine you have a many faceted diamond at your heart, radiating rainbow lights out around you. If you go inside that diamond, you find a space that is Just This, the place of the Eternal Now. It is formless, size-less, time-less. You feel like when you are in this space that you are in a place that is infinitely small and infinitely big, all embracing, Unitive.
 
Sitting within your physical body, with the diamond at your heart, you see that the diamond is projecting time and space around you, just like a holographic projector. It projects the three-dimensional world all around you, with the appearance of time and space. It also projects your inner space, the space of your mind with thoughts, memories, images and emotions. From the space of the eternal Now, the illusory world of time and space arises around you, like a rainbow appearing in the sky.
 
As you watch and observe the holographic world around you, you can clearly see and feel that it is the dance of the Eternal now; arising from it, not separate from it, the illusion of multiplicity arising from our own singular, formless, timeless consciousness.
 
I’ve gone into the details of time and timelessness quite extensively in other articles, in this one I wanted to try and paint a picture that you can use and explore in meditation, one that if you can get your imagination behind, then you can really start to get a feeling for the Eternal Now as a gateway to the Non-Dual state. The Non-Dual state that it accesses is not one (like most other meditations) where you shift from an every-day state to a deeper meditative state. Rather it is a way of recognizing what is already Here, Now, whatever state of mind that you might find yourself in. Like other Non-Dual meditations this offers a way of integrating daily life and spiritual life into a mutually coherent, complementary whole.
 
Related articles: Dancing between time & eternity
Four Types of Present Moment


© 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 

Categories
A Mind of Ease Biographical creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

Making yourself bigger

“Whatever us going on in the small temporal experience you are having right now, you are bigger than it, and it is workable”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This weeks article looks at the scale of who you think you are, and suggests some mindful ways to change the balance in a positive way!

If you enjoy the article, we will be meditating on this topic in both the  Tues/Weds class  and the Saturday deep-dive sessions. I invite you to join us either live, online or via the recording.

In the spirit of bigger (in this case) being better, 

Toby

 


Making yourself bigger
 
The feeling of oppressed
 
Whenever we feel, if you observe the experience of being stressed, scared or overwhelmed, it is often something like:

  • My body feels contracted in on itself, reduced. My sense of ‘I’ follows this
  • The challenge feels LARGE, much bigger than mee, like a tall building or monster towering over you
  • A sense of being weak or helpless in the face of this massively larger, more powerful force

 
This feeling then makes not just the presenting challenge more difficult, but everything that happens to you. Life feels like a struggle, a trap, something that you are a victim of.
 
Working with scale
 
About eight years ago I had an experience sitting in meditation where I felt my body was not just a small body sitting in my room, but large, as big, bigger than the apartment block. It was as if I was sitting in the landscape like a large building, looking down upon everything. Along with this literal feeling was an experience of feeling stronger, more powerful in relation to my life. It changed my sense of how I existed in relation to my challenges, in relation to what was possible. As well as power, there was a feeling of calm confidence.
I stayed with this feeling for several weeks, letting it become a part of my foundational way of going and being, I had literally become bigger!
 
Beyond psychology
 
The Yogachara school of Buddhism asserts that all our internal problems come from a mistaken sense of self. We perceive ourself as a small being, inside our skin, with a separate, foreign world outside of us. In reality, it asserts, our True Self, or Self-as-Consciousness is infinite and boundless. As this infinite and boundless self, we are not in the world, the world is in us! We are as huge infinite and boundless as consciousness itself!
By engaging in some simple Yogachara-ic ‘mindful shifts’ we can achieve some quite remarkable changes in our experience, I’m placing a few below.
 
Some mindful positions on Bigness
 
Sitting in meditation, walking, or otherwise in a state where you can settle into a mindful condition, use the following simple sentences as anchors for exploration:

  • I am not in my body, my body is in me (as a boundless, timeless consciousness)
  • I am not in the room, the room is in me
  • I am not walking/sitting in this landscape, the landscape is in me
  • I am not on the Earth, the planet is in me
  • I am not within the orbit of the moon, the Lunar sphere is within me
  • I am not within the Sun & solar system (Galaxy, Universe, whole of Creation), they are within me
  • I am not in life, life is within me, I am Life

Everything is happening within you, within your boundless Body, Mind and Heart. Whatever us going on in the small temporal experience you are having right now, you are bigger than it, and it is workable.
 
Related reading:
Non-Dual meditation & Organismic reality
Making yourself big
Connecting to Your Big Mind (Is the Mind in the Body or the Body in the Mind?)
Born from Life, not into it
Small Focused Mind, Big Open Mind


© 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

Starts Tues 11th, Weds 12th February, 7.30-8.30 pm – Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to non-dual meditation practice

Begins Saturday 15th February – Freedom & Fullness deep-dive non-dual meditation sessions

Tues 18th, Weds 19th March, 7.30-8.30pm – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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A Mind of Ease Concentration Enlightened Flow Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Presence and being present Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence Zen Meditation

Prajna – Seeing things from all angles & none

“Prajna is awareness that does not break reality into opposites. When you are feeling broken-apart by the world, it is a place you can return to, finding wholeness instantly”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

The meditation processes I describe below are part of the ongoing theme of Non-Duality practice that I have been writing about the last few weeks. The beauty of them is that they are simple at the same time as profound. Have a go at developing your prajna!

If you enjoy the article, we will be meditating on this topic in both the  Tues/Weds class  and the Saturday deep-dive sessions. I invite you to join us either live, online or via the recording!

In the spirit of prajna, 

Toby

 


Prajna – Seeing things from all angles & none
 
Dualistic or conceptual reality
 
From the point of view of the Madhyamika Buddhist meditation school, confusion and suffering derives at its root from what is called dualistic-appearance. Dualistic appearance is basically what happens when we conceptualize. Conceptual thinking and feeling does two things:

  • When we see an object or person (or belief etc…) we then throw our idea of the object on top of the object itself, so now there are two things appearing to us, not just one. This is one reason why it is called dualistic appearance.
  • Secondly, we see the world in terms of opposites, polarities, or dualities, for example good and bad, higher, and lower, better or worse, nirvana (freedom) and samsara (bondage).

Dualistic appearance sees the object together with our idea of the object, and then we conceptualize the object in terms of its opposites.
For example, let us say you or I meet a female primary school teacher. The first instant you see her, you will see her ‘as she is’. In the next moment your mind will start throwing concepts on her based upon things like:

  • Your experience of primary school
  • Your assessment of teachers
  • Whether she is your child’s teacher or not

You will start making assessments in terms of opposites:

  • She’s a better/worse teacher than my primary school teacher
  • She is polite/rude
  • She is admirable/contemptible
  • She is superior/inferior to me

Of course, using these dualities well is essential for navigating the world effectively. But it is also this same duality that prevents us from seeing the world as it is, from seeing reality from an Ultimate or Absolute point of view, and that creates all sorts of sufferings and problems for us.
 
Seeing dualistic appearance / Pranja – Dropping dualistic appearance
 
In our own self-enquiry, we can start to look for and see the processes of our own dualistic appearance. We can watch how we ‘throw’ our ideas onto people and things, and box them into polarities. This is a very interesting and powerful practice in itself. We can then practice dropping our ideas about what we are seeing, and try to encounter things as they are, in a singular, non-dual manner. One way to do this is to practice the ‘mirror mind’ method that I outline in a precious article. You imagine that your awareness is a mirror, simply reflecting back what it sees without adding or subtracting to it. This non-dual way of viewing the world is called prajna, or wisdom.
 
 
Seeing things from all angles and none
 
Another complementary technique to mirror mind that you can use is explained by Ken Wilber in his article on ‘Five Reasons You Are Not Enlightened’. I’m just going to quote it directly below, as it is very clear:
“One little exercise I use to get into a state of pure awareness without any conceptual operation is to: Ask yourself how do you feel physically? So, you start to get a sense of how that is. How do you feel emotionally? How do you feel morally? How do you feel mentally? Now how do you feel from all those angles at once?
As soon as you hear that question, there is a silence in the mind, a quiet, there’s no immediate answer that comes up. And that is because you have an awareness that is not conceptualizing and not feeling. It’s just pure, unqualifiable awareness. And that is an example of prajna, or being in pure awareness without concepts. And so, remaining in that state sooner or later allows you to have a realization of Ultimate Reality, where emptiness and form are not two. Where samsara and nirvana are not two. Because it is an awareness that does not break reality into opposites. And so this type of awareness is the fundamental practice of the Madhyamika, and in many cases Mahayana schools of Buddhism”.
 
Related reading: Mirror mind meditation
Dualistic Appearance – What you see, and what you think you see


© 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 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Presence and being present

Non-Dual meditation & Organismic reality

“Imagine the Earth as an Organism, Life as an Organism, & then your Self as that Single Organism”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article is an overview of several different types of non-dual meditation, and then a way of meditating on non-duality that I find to be very effective both for beginners and more advanced practitioners.

Do check out the Tues/Weds class series starting this week Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to non-dual meditation practice, and the deep-dive non-dual meditation sessions beginning on Saturdays, these are meditations for growing your Bliss, Freedom, Big Wholeness Big Love & ‘Always Already’ wisdom!

In the spirit of Organismic reality, 

Toby

Non-Dual meditation & Organismic reality

Non-Dual meditation is really the ultimate form or meditation, I mean this in two senses:

  • Firstly, it is the highest or deepest realization you can attain in traditional meditation (although of course, being non-dual, it transcends ideas of ‘higher’ or deeper’)
  • Secondly, within the meditation traditions it is the final statement about the ‘ultimate nature’ of reality

 
Here are five summarized approaches to non-dual meditation

  1. In the Madhyamika Buddhist approach to non-duality, the method is seeing and then letting go of conceptuality. If you see how concepts get in the way of meeting reality ‘as it is’ then you can move beyond them into unity consciousness
  2. In the Yogacara school of Buddhism, the problem is seen to be objectivity, seeing things as objects outside of yourself, rather than all a part one singular unity (These first two, Madhyamika & Yogacara I spent a lot of my years as a Buddhist monk studying extensively)
  3. In the Tibetan Dzogchen school, the challenge is the illusion of time. There is a big emphasis on realizing the one Singular and Eternal NOW moment, with objects in the moment seen as ‘ornaments of Spirit’, the one appearing as the many.
  4. In the Vedanta tradition, the problem is described as ‘seeing many selves rather than One-Self. Peel back our layers of self-identity we discover the one I Am Presence within self, the ‘Big I’ (I-I) that lies behind the small i.
  5. Christian contemplative meditation identifies the issue as ‘living in separation’ (the original sin). Living in separation consciousness gives rise to fear, a type if experiential self-contraction, which keeps us from experiencing the Love of God/Love of All. The emphasis here then is the practice of Unconditional Love as a path to Union with the Ultimate reality.

 
In my up-coming course on Non-Dual meditation, I will be covering all of these approaches in some depth. What I want to do here is give an experiential taste of non-dual meditation though what you might call ‘Organismic reality’ or experiencing Life and self as a singular organism.
 
Step 1 – Meditation on your own organism. Sitting with your body, notice how it naturally appears as one thing, , a single totality. Now imagine zooming into a single cell in your body, notice it appears as a single cell, but from your perspective as the whole body, you can see quite clearly that it is a single unit within a larger reality, a small self that is really part of one larger, ‘bigger self’.
Step 2 – Coming back to your body, notice how it appears separate from its environment and from other bodies, separate from the rest of the Earth. Now zoom out so that your consciousness includes the whole of Planet Earth, a single Unity. Experience this natural ‘One Earth’ feeling of Unity, be it.
Step 3 – Now go back to your body awareness, but feel it to be a part of the bigger, singular body of the Earth, like a cell in the body of the one Planet.
 
Imagine the Earth as an Organism, Life as an Organism, Your Self-as-that-Single Organism
 
Your physical body is a single cell in that Organism, but you in the deeper sense of your true-identity are the One Organism of Life and the Planet itself. Take this feeling of Self as the Earth, Self as the total Organism of Life. Feel and experience your actual Self as the One Life behind all of life on earth. Be that Singularity, that Non-Duality.
 
I hope you enjoyed this window on Non-Duality, and I invite you to come on the Non-Dual journey with me over the coming weeks!
 
Related reading: The world as an organism

© 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 February 8th, 15th, 22nd, 10-11.40am – Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers – a three module course

Starts Tues 11th, Weds 12th February, 7.30-8.30 pm – Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to non-dual meditation practice

Tues 18th, Weds 19th March, 7.30-8.30pm – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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