Category: Mindful Resilience

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From resignation to positive acceptance

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“If we can make a clear distinction between acceptance and resignation, we can start practicing positive acceptance on the one hand and avoid resignation on the other”.
Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope you enjoy this week’s article on acceptance. A quick reminder of the  Stress-transformation coaching offer details below. If your reading this and its past the expiry date, let me know and we’ll see what we can work out…

In the spirit of dynamic mindfulness,

Toby 

From resignation to positive acceptance

For many of us there can be resistance to the idea of acceptance because we mistake it with resignation or giving up. It can be useful to make a clear distinction between them, so we can practice positive acceptance on the one hand and avoid resignation on the other.

Healthy acceptance involves a wholehearted acceptance of our reality, of something that has happened. It is reality oriented and acts as a basis for moving forward:

  • I accept that although I wanted to get the job, I didn’t.
  • I accept that this person manipulated me, I can see it now.
  • I accept that I am still a bit sad about X…

For acceptance to move to resignation, there needs to be added to this a ‘negative’ belief about our life in general:

  • I accept that although I wanted to get the job, I didn’t, and this always happens to me, I never get the break!
  • I accept that this person manipulated me, I can see it now. The world is full of manipulators trying to make a victim of me…
  • I accept that I am still a bit sad about X, why is my life always so full of misery?

To avoid resignation and move to ‘positive’ or dynamic acceptance, we can practice mindfully adding a sentence to it that helps us move forward optimistically:

  • I accept that although I wanted to get the job, I didn’t. But I learned a lot, and I have another interview tomorrow!
  • I accept that this person manipulated me, I can see it now. Boy, this experience is going to help me be less naïve in the future, I’m glad I had it.
  • I accept that I am still a bit sad about X…but I’m less sad than I was last month, and its natural to feel sad when you lose something that you value…

What are the situations in your life where you can practice moving from resignation to positive acceptance?

Related article: Acceptance and forgiveness – The difference

Article © Toby Ouvry 2019, 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 Courses at Integral Meditation Asia 

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am, April 20th & 27th – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

FOR BEGINNERS: Saturday 27th April, 11-12.30pm – Get your meditation practice started now- The shortest and most time effective meditation workshop ever

Saturday 4th May, 10am-4.30pm – An introduction to meditation from the perspective of Shamanism

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Meditation for cultivating vitality – Three practices

Below are three simple ways in which you can build vital energy in your body through meditation. They can be practised individually or in combination. They have the general meditation benefit of calming and focusing the body-mind, with the addition of specifically promoting the build-up and flow of life-force through the body.

Method 1 – Relaxing into tension:
Rather than fighting and seeking to get rid of tension, discomfort or fatigue in your body, make a point of moving towards it and relaxing into it. Try and locate the principal areas of tension in your body. Once you have identified them, take some time to work with each one in turn. Take a few breaths where as you inhale you allow yourself to feel the tension in that part of the body. Then, as you exhale relax into it and release. The principle here is that, if you focus attention on the area of the body where energy is blocked and work on releasing it, that will allow new energy and vitality to flow into that area of the body. Let your body relax so that vital energy can flow easily to areas where it is needed.

Method 2 – Breathing into your belly
In both the Zen and Qi gong traditions of meditation, there is a lot of emphasis upon breathing into the belly area, where the core of your body’s life-force (see my article on the Dan-tiens in qi gong) is said to be located. Initially, simply placing the palm of one hand on your belly, just beneath the belly button, and focusing on the rising and falling of the abdomen is a good way to start. Then once you have basic familiarity, you can visualize a ball of light about the size of a tennis ball sitting within the centre of the lower belly area. As you breathe in, see the ball glowing gently with vitality and life-force. As you breathe out see the light and energy from the ball expanding out into the rest of your body, filling it with energy. If you do this consistently, you will find that you have a real, tangible feeling of this energy building and expanding as you do the exercise.

Method 2 – Sitting like a pyramid
If you want to bring a sense of solidity and grounded-ness into your belly breathing, imagine your body as being like a pyramid as you sit and do the belly breathing. Imagine your hips and belly are like the broad base of the pyramid, with your chest and head tapering up to a point, so your hips and belly are super stable and broad. As you breathe in and out of the belly, release tension from your upper body downwards into the belly and hips, building the feeling of strength and stability.

Adding a smile
A final simple method you can combine with any of the above methods; add a gentle half smile into the mix:

  • As you release tension from the parts of your body, smile to them gently and warmly
  • As you breathe in and out of the belly, imagine the energy is warm and smiling, positively radiating out from the belly into the rest of the body.

Wishing you enjoyment with your experience of mindful vitality!

Related articles: 
Mindful Centring – three sitting positions
Breathing from your belly

Article and picture © Toby Ouvry 2019, 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 Courses at Integral Meditation Asia for February

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am, 16th & 23rd February – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 23rd February 11-12.30pm –   Get your meditation practice started now- The shortest and most time effective meditation workshop ever

Saturday 23rd February, 3.30-5.30pm – Developing Your Self-Confidence Through Mindfulness Workshop

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Stabilizing your pyramid of consciousness

Dear  Integral Meditators,

What is the simplest, stabl-est and most basic way to stabilize your mind and attention? The article below explores one answer to this in a practical way.

In the stability,

Toby

Stabilizing your pyramid of
consciousness

Within your field of awareness, you have three basic areas; your senses, your feelings and your thoughts. Of these, which do you imagine is the most stable and reliable? Which of these three moves slowest and is the most predictable? If you watch for a while, you will see clearly from experience that the answer to this is your senses. The mind and emotions can move and change very quickly and unpredictably. Your physical awareness and senses however are much slower moving. For example, if you bring your attention to the sensation of your physical body over a one minute period, you’ll see that it remains fairly constant, even as your mind moves here and there, and your moods shift.

Anchoring your attention to your senses
In mindfulness terms then, if you want to establish basic stability in this moment, the obvious place to go is to your physical body and senses. You can use them as an anchor for your attention. If you think about your attention as like a boat, and your thoughts and feelings as being like the waves, wind and other moving conditions around the boat. Your body and senses then become like the anchor that keeps the boat in one place. You don’t even need to try too hard still your mind and feelings. Just keep coming back to the anchor of your body, and you’ll find this gives you the basic ‘weight’ and stability for a sense of calm to start to come into your mind.

The weight of your body
I find it particularly useful to focus on the weight and solidity of my body. In particular the sensation of the weight where my body is on contact with the floor or surface where it is sitting or standing. So, if you are standing, that would be the soles of your feet, or if you are sitting it’s the back of your legs and butt that is on contact with the seat. If you like you can focus on the weight of your body as you inhale and then feel the tension in your upper body flowing down into the floor through that contact point as you exhale.

Your pyramid of consciousness 
If you think about your consciousness as being like pyramid, with your senses as the broad base, your mind and emotions as the mid-section, and consciousness itself as the top tip (see the article diagram). In this exercise, we are focusing upon stabilizing the ‘base’ of our pyramid by paying attention to the weight of the body. If the base is stable, then everything above it is going to feel basically strong and stable, even when your under pressure.

You don’t need perfect concentration!
Even if as you are focusing on the weight of your body you are only able to concentrate 10-20% of your attention on it, then that is still 10-20% more stability and centre than you have when your lost in your thoughts and feelings. What’s more, if you lose focus on the weight of the body, its very easy to find again, as it is such a simple, obvious sensation. When you have a sensory ‘anchor’ for your consciousness, then even if you ‘get lost’ its easy to find centre again!

This week you might like to spend a few minutes each day ‘stabilizing the pyramid of your consciousness’ by paying attention to the weight of your body.

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am : 1st,15th, 22nd, 29th December – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturdays December 15th & 22nd – Mindfulness group coaching sessions with Toby

Tues & Weds Dec 18/19th, 7.30-8.30pm – Winter Solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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Psychic self-defence & spiritual sources of compassion

Dear  Integral Meditators,

What is the difference between open and closed compassion? And how can you protect yourself from the attacks and imbalances of others around you without withdrawing your compassion from them? The article below explores how…

In the spirit of compassion,

Toby

 

Psychic self-defence & spiritual sources of compassion 

To be competent at ‘psychic self-defence’ means to be able to protect yourself from negative or unbalanced energies that may try and invade your subtle energy field. This energy can come from other people, from an environment, from yourself, or from a source within the inner world. An attack may be deliberate, or it may be unconscious, or co-incidental (just a case of ‘wrong place at the wrong time). In my past articles I’ve written about both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms of psychic self-defence. Here I’m going to be writing about how to protect yourself from other people’s negative energy, without withdrawing your compassion for them.

Saying yes and no: A foundational aspect of psychic self-defence is psychological boundaries. On a simple level, this means if you are happy to do something with someone, you say ‘yes’, but if you aren’t, then you know how to say ‘no’. This means not saying yes to people all the time just because you want to please them, keep them happy, or are afraid of their disapproval. If something or some behaviour is not acceptable to you need to know how to firmly and politely say no. It sounds simple, but in practice a lot of people don’t do it well.

Open and closed compassion: So then if you have someone who you may know and whose pain you may have compassion for, you need to be conscious whether you are going to keep your energy field ‘open’ to them, which means taking on some of their energy (and possibly pain), or whether you are going to ‘close’ your energy field to them. Closing means to take a step back from them, and deliberately not allow their energy to affect you too much, even though you may have compassion for them.
Closing your energy field to someone: One traditional visual way to close your energy field is to imagine yourself surrounded by a golden bubble of light. It’s around your body in a circle or egg shape, but you can shrink it to fit your body like a glove when necessary. This bubble is semi-porous, which is to say it lets in the energy that you want to let in, but blocks the energy you don’t want. So if there is someone whose energy you want to block, the bubble doesn’t let any of their energy in. I sometimes also imagine star-shapes spinning on the surface of my golden bubble; when there is someone whose energy I want to block, one of the stars positions itself (whilst spinning) on the point of my bubble directly between myself and that person making that point totally impenetrable.

Opening a channel for spiritual compassion: So then, what if you have blocked your connection to a person, but still want to extend compassion to them? One way to do this is to send it via a spiritual source. So, any spiritual master, or source of spiritual energy that you feel connected to, you simply visualize that source and see compassionate energy flowing to the person from the source. For example, you can visualize a deity above that person’s head and the light of compassion flowing down through their crown. Or you can visualize compassionate healing light from the earth flowing up through their feet into their body. This is also a visualization you can do for yourself if you feel access your own self-compassion is blocked. Visualize yourself receiving it from a spiritual source and let yourself gradually re-open to receiving compassion and healing.

Related article: Discovering your mindful compassion – Seven ways

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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

 

 Integral Meditation Asia

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Discovering your mindful compassion – Seven ways

Dear  Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at compassion, and how you can go about developing a living, experiential connection to it through mindfulness. The integral Tuesday, Wednesday  and Space2B classes will be on compassion for the rest of the month…
On Saturday the 17th morning there is the The Six Qi Healing sounds: Qi gong For Self-Healing and Inner Balance Workshop. Then in the afternoon 4.30-6pm the Mindfulness group coaching,

In the spirit of compassion,

Toby

Special offer: 10% off on Life-Fullness Life coaching sign ups from now until Wednesday 21st NovemberThe Life-Fullness Integral Coaching Program (LICP) is an integral form of 1:1 coaching with Toby that you can sign up for periods of six-months or three-months at a time. It is mindfulness oriented personal coaching that focuses upon the development of three R’s:

  • Re-generate your creative self and curiosity in life
  • Re-connect to deeper levels of motivation and meaning within yourself, your relationships and your career
  • Re-awakening to a sense of your own inner confidence, energy and personal power

Click here for full details of the Life-fulness program

Discovering your mindful compassion – Seven ways

Compassion can be deeply transformative. Learning to feel, see and act from compassion can have a huge practical impact on our potential for self-healing, finding purpose in our life, and acting with creative benevolence. Below are a few pointers designed to help you connect to your own present compassion and grow its presence in your life.

Your own present experience of compassion –  It’s nice to begin by reflecting. What does compassion mean to you? Can you recall times when you have experienced it? What did it feel like when you were compassionate? What tends to stimulate it? What is your experience of receiving compassion, not just giving it? Pop these questions to yourself and see where they lead you…Make compassion personal to you, a conscious part of your story.
A definition of compassion – One useful definition of compassion is that it is a state of mind that observes suffering with empathy and wishes where possible to alleviate that pain.  A pre-requisite of compassion is that we care about the person (ourself, others) that we are observing. Love, warmth, caring are the basis for compassion.
Compassion begins with awareness – At the root of compassion is awareness. If you want to have compassion for yourself, you need to be able to sit with your own pain, suffering and discomfort. You must be able to look at it, acknowledge it and accept it. This in itself is a powerful act of compassion. Similarly, awareness of other people’s pain is the beginning of compassion for them. You may have had the experience of being in pain yourself, and then a friend really seeing and acknowledging your pain, extending their support to you. Even if they couldn’t do anything about it, just knowing they understand and they care is a real supporting force for us. Acknowledging the pain of ourself and others with care builds a powerful basis for compassion.
Creating reciprocal loops of compassion – Like love, we need to develop the capacity to give and receive compassion between ourself and others. When we are in pain we need to be able to open to and receive the support of others. When we see others in pain we can give compassion. The idea is to create a wealth of compassion in our life. If we give too much without receiving, we burn out. If we receive without giving, we can become a burden on others.
Practising open and closed compassion – Sometimes we can practice compassion unconditionally, in a completely empathetic, open state. But this is not always appropriate. We need to also know how to ‘close’ our energy system and be more objective with our compassion sometimes. There is definitely such a thing as objective compassion, where we are extending concern to others without drowning in their pain and maintaining a clear boundary around what is ‘theirs’ and what is ‘mine’ to deal with.
Avoiding the saviour complex – Don’t be the person that gets weird kicks from ‘saving’ other people, the world doesn’t need you. Save yourself from your own delusions first, and then with compassion empower others.
Lightness and playfulness are the friend of compassion – In the presence of pain it can be tempting to get all heavy about it. Without dismissing or avoiding the real suffering that is there, it is a positive skill to bring humour and lightness to pain. Explore what ‘playful compassion’ feels like.

A beginning – Sitting quietly, become aware of an aspect of your own pain or suffering, on whatever level (physical, emotional etc). Breathing smoothly and deeply (65-70% of lung capacity), spend a few minutes extending compassion to yourself as you breathe in, and relaxing into the pain as you breathe out. Release what pain you can, but don’t try and force yourself to release the pain before you are ready. Just hold the space and breathe with compassion.

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am : 1st,15th, 22nd, 29th December – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturdays November 17th & 24th, 4.30-6pm – Mindfulness group coaching sessions with Toby

Saturday 17th November 9.30am-1pm – The Six Qi Healing sounds: Qi gong For Self-Healing and Inner Balance Workshop

Saturday 24th November 9.30am-12.30pm – Finding simplicity in the complexity – Meditation from the perspective of Zen

DECEMBER
Saturday 1st December 11am-12.30pm –  Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Saturday 15th December, 1-4pm – Integral meditation practice: Optimize your inner calm, strength and energy

Integral Meditation Asia

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Nine different forms of mindful centring

Dear  Integral Meditators,

The world  you inhabit and experience is very different when you view it from your inner centre. This weeks article looks at nine different ways in which you can practice mindful centring. Different ways of enjoying your life more in an empowered way by standing in the middle of it.
If you are a complete beginner to meditation, then I’ll be doing a 90minute ‘Get your practice started Now!‘ session this Saturday afternoon, which is an ideal starting point!

In the spirit of the centre,

Toby

Nine different forms of mindful centring

Mindfulness is by its nature a centring activity, so on one level you might say that any form of mindfulness done well is a form of centring practice. What I’ve done below is to compile a list of practices that help you find your centre in different ways. You can then try them out and see which one or combination works best for you. You’ll see I’ve also linked the sections to further articles that explain the technique in some detail.

Body, senses, breathing – Whenever you bring your attention mindfully to any of these three, then by implication you start to bring yourself back to your center, both in terms of physical location, and the present moment. A few moments being aware of your breathing, or one of your senses, or the weight of your body are all ways of establishing a very basic experience of centre.

Curiosity and questioning – From a position of light observational curiosity, try asking a simple question such as ‘How am I feeling today?’, or ‘What do I notice about my surroundings right now?’ Questioning with curiosity focuses attention and encourages your mind toward a point of centre and focus.

Awareness of your non-centre – If you are feeling off-centre and it’s difficult to settle, then using observation and curiosity ask yourself ‘What is preventing me from feeling centred and present?’ Observing your resistance to the present and your centre will, paradoxically, help you find your centre!

The hub of the wheel – Imagine all the motion and commotion; physical, emotional, mental, in your life as being like the circular motion of a wheel. Imagine yourself at the hub of the wheel. All the energy-in-motion is just the spinning of the wheel around you, you are safe, still and centred in the hub.

The eye of the storm – This is like the hub of the wheel, but a different image and metaphor. All the commotion is like a swirling storm around you. You are in the eye of the storm, a still point of calm and ease right in the centre!

Your vertical core – Imagine a line of light going down from the crown of your head to your perineum (point between the middle of your legs). This is your physical body’s vertical centre, or core. Sitting or standing, rock your body from side to side, and then from front to back whilst focusing on your vertical core. Then take a few breaths centring on your vertical centre, connecting to the feeling of balance that comes from it.

Centres along your vertical core – Once you have your vertical core, you can then centre at specific levels of it. For example, you can centre on it at the level of the belly(lower dan-tien), or the heart, or in the head, in the centre of the brain area. With practice you can learn to centre yourself more and more effectively using these particular physical points in the body.

Grounding – Focus attention on the soles of your feet, imagine yourself with heavy boots, or growing roots from your feet, really connecting to the earth. This can be a nice one to do as you walk. You can also practice feeling centring, grounding energy rising up from the earth as a way of connecting to your centre.

Non-doing – Centring through non-doing means to practice for short periods of time doing nothing, or no-thing on the physical and mental level. This helps us to gently settle and centre our mind in our own primary awareness, in the moment.

So, there you go, nine different ways of finding your mindful centre. Enjoy!

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15: November 3rd,10th – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 27th October, 9:30am – 12:30pm – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention 

Saturday 27th October, 4-5.30pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Tues & Wednesday 30 & 31 October, 7.30-8.30pm – Samhain Meditation – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Tues 6th & Weds 7th November – Deepavali meditation – Connecting to your inner-light

Saturday 17th November 9.30am-1pm – The Six Qi Healing sounds: Qi gong For Self-Healing and Inner Balance Workshop

Saturday 24th November 9.30am-12.30pm – Finding simplicity in the complexity – Meditation from the perspective of Zen

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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Baseballs or confetti?

Dear Integral Meditators,

If you were to learn to deal with your suffering in life, what might start to happen to your access to rapture and joy? The article below explores this question in a practical way…

In the spirit of baseballs and confetti,

Toby
​Baseballs of confetti? 
The truth of suffering
One of the big gifts of my time as a Buddhist monk and studying Buddhism was its orientation around looking squarely at pain and suffering. Of course, Buddhas first noble noble truth is the ‘truth of suffering’; in our life it is absolutely certain that we will meet various forms of pain. The brief summary of Buddhas seven unavoidable sufferings would be: birth, ageing, sickness, death, parting from what we like, encountering things we don’t like, and uncertainty. So, the basic ‘mindful injunction’ here is ‘be ready’ because in multiple ways small and great you are going to suffer. The good news is that, if you are ready for the pain, then you can reduce the amount of pain you experience, and you can also use it to become wiser, happier and more capable in your life. Put another way, your suffering becomes useful to you.What are you expecting, a baseball or confetti?
Whether our suffering is useful to us or not depends alot upon our expectation. If you are standing there expecting life to throw confetti at you, then when a ‘baseball’ of suffering gets thrown your way, then you are going to be completely unprepared, and the likelihood is that it’s going to hit you flush in the face, and cause a lot of pain. If your ‘ready’ for the suffering, or ‘expecting the baseball to come at you’ then when it does, you can basically ‘catch’ it, without it really doing to much damage. For example:

  • If I am wrestling with uncertainties in important areas of my life, if I have a sense that this is a ‘normal’ part of everyone’s life which I expect then I’ll be ‘ready’ to have to deal with it.
  • If I expect my body to give rise to a certain amount of pain, to age and so forth, then chances are I’ll be able to work with pain when it occurs and relax more gracefully into the ageing process (and perhaps as a result staying ‘beautiful’ longer?)
  • If when I engage in a romantic relationship I expect to have my emotional triggers and vulnerabilities pressed, then there is a much better chance I’ll be able to work with them, and preserve the beauty of the love in the relationship for longer, perhaps indefinitely….

The bottom line here is, if you are ready for it, then the capacity of suffering to cause painis much reduced, and the reduction comes in large part from your expectations…

The truth of rapture
Another truth that I think is equally important to grasp, but that isn’t explicitly in Buddhas four truths (but may be implicit?), is what I call the truth of rapture. This truth is really that life contains within it inherent forms of rapture, beauty and bliss. This rapture is available to all of us, but it exists amongst the suffering, messiness, uncertainty and difficulties of our life. The big payoff of opening to the truth of suffering well and courageously is that you them start to open up spaces in your life that contain wonder, beauty and amazement. Sometimes these experiences are quiet and unobtrusive, and sometimes they come to us in waves, loudly and in technicolour. If you take care of your suffering well then there is more and more room for genuine and sustainable rapture. For example:

  • If you are prepared to meet the ‘pain’ of intimacy in a romantic relationship and deal with it mindfully, then the stage is set for a long term and sustainable experience of rapture
  • If you are prepared to accept and deal with the pain of working hard to build a business well and with integrity, then the stage is set for the long-term pleasure and joy of having done so. You can enjoy the joy of both the process and the result!
  • If you are not pre-occupied with, trying to avoid or being consumed by your suffering, then you can find quiet moments of rapture during the day, in the beauty of a view, the presence of a loved one, the passing of time and so forth…

When you know how to catch the baseballs of suffering that come your way, you may find life spontaneously and as if by accident starts to throw a lot of confetti your way!

Related article: Practical Rapture (On rapture, beauty and mindfulness)

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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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Awareness and insight Insight Meditation Integral Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Simple, or aware, or positive, or creative

“There is much inner stability that comes just from observing and being curious. There is a world of difference between ‘My life is a disaster’ and ‘how interesting that part of my mind should be thinking that my life is a disaster!’ Awareness gives us choice.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

In this weeks article I outline four ways of paying attention that, if you get really good at will render you largely impervious to intimidation from any of the current challenges in your life. Enjoy!

In the spirit of attention,

Toby

PS: You can now train in this meditation using my recordings on the Simple, positive, creative & aware training page

Simple, or aware, or positive, or creative

What are we fundamentally trying to do with our attention in mindfulness practice? One way of thinking about this question is to divide our daily attention into four ‘types’ Under each type listed below I detail an introduction to what it is and how to go about cultivating it. In each section there is also a link to a full article on each topic.

Simple – This type of mindful attention involves making our attention simple, grounded, uncomplicated by directing it toward our body and senses. You can take any of your senses, your breathing or feelings within your body as your object of attention here. By keeping your attention anchored to your sensory experience, you make your mind simpler, stronger and more relaxed. Without deliberately making our mind simple every day it’s all too easy to live in a permanently complex, stressful, anxious and worried mental world, that feels intimidating and not much fun. Also, when you think less, you also tend to think better!

Aware – This second type of mindful attention seeks only to pay attention and be aware. It observes and notes what is happening in our mind with impartiality, not trying to change fix, judge or alter. There is a lot of basic inner stability that comes just from observing and being curious. There is a world of difference for example between ‘My life is a disaster’ and ‘how interesting that part of my mind should be thinking that my life is a disaster!’ Awareness gives us choice and flexibility of mind. It also makes it more likely that we will then go onto make better decisions based around what we have become aware of.

Positive – This third type of attention means deliberately paying attention to what good there is in our life, or a situation; what there is to appreciate, feel grateful for, or that is to our advantage. It seeks out reasons to feel happy, glad, optimistic, peaceful, enthusiastic, even if we seem to be surrounded by problems and challenges. Developing our daily skill at this type of attention value adds tremendously to our pleasure and wellbeing. It also increases the chances of us being more effective and energized in the face of problems.

Creative – Finally, the creative mode of attention is where we think and analyze in a focused way in order to find solutions to problems. It is completely different from ruminating, over-analyzing or negative worrying. It simply observes the presenting issue with curiosity (fear or anxiety may be present, but we do not allow them to dominate) and seeks to come up with creative ideas as to how a solution could be found, or a step forward can be taken. The creative mode of thinking is not focused exclusively on the positive. It seeks to know obstacles and problems objectively and realistically and seeks ways to find resolution. This way of paying attention is also creative in the face of non-problems. It seeks to innovate, improvise and enjoy whatever circumstances we find ourselves in!

A suggested practicum: For five minutes, focus on making your mind simple by focusing on your body and senses. Then spend five minutes letting your attention roam, and greeting whatever comes up with awareness, or positivity, or creativity. It can be whichever you prefer, but it must be one. You can repeat this cycle as many times as you like in any sitting. Get used to paying sustained mindful attention to your life in these four ways and notice what starts to change!

Related article: Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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

Integral Meditation Asia

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Awareness and insight Integral Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

Dear  Integral Meditators,

What are important questions that you can use to greatly improve your meditation and mindfulness practice, whatever level you are at? The article below offers two…

 

Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

One fundamental mindfulness question that you can ask yourself is “What is the way in which I am paying attention to my experience in this moment?” Regarding meditation, a central one is “Which positive object of attention is going to be most useful to me in this situation, right now?”

“What is the way in which I am paying attention to my experience in this moment?”
Let’s look at the mindfulness question first. Mindfulness means being aware of what you are doing in the moment, and how you are paying attention to what you are doing. If you ask yourself how you are paying attention to what is happening to you, then you’ll start to notice the way in which your attention is influencing how you experience what you are going through. You can then ask yourself the question “is the way in which I am paying attention here helping me or hindering me to be both happy and effective?” If you can see that your current way of paying attention is working to produce a good result, then you can stay with it. If it isn’t, then you can try making a mindful adjustment that will make an improvement.
For example, if I am in a meeting, and I am feeling impatient because it has gone overtime, I might notice that the impatience is making me both unhappy in the moment, and less effective at bringing the meeting to a successful conclusion. So, I might then decide to make the adjustment of accepting that the meeting is late, and re-focus my attention on patiently getting the best outcome by listening to the other parties, and communicating well.
It is by making many such incremental adjustments each day that mindfulness can really improve out quality of life and make us more effective at what we are doing.

“Which positive object of attention is going to be most useful to me in this situation, right now?”
A meditator is (amongst other things) someone who is concerned with focusing their attention mindfully around a positive object as they go through their daily life. A ‘positive object’ is one that, when we focus upon it helps our mind to feel calmer, more joyful/loving, more confident, grounded, centered and so on. A positive object influences our state of mind for the good when we focus upon it. There are as many different positive objects as there are positive states of mind. The skill as a meditator lies in focusing on the right positive object. For example:

  • If I am experiencing fear, I might take courage, or the recognition of my immediate physical safety as my object of meditation in the moment
  • If my mind is very busy or distracted, then I might practice attention to my body and senses as my positive object, to settle my mind.
  • If I have just received an experience of good fortune, then I can take appreciation of that good fortune as my object of mindful attention.

The skill of the meditator in this context is selecting the right positive object to effectively meet and enjoy the challenge that s/he is going through in the moment. Since life is always changing, the particular positive object will also change as our day/week/month progresses, so we need to keep aware and making adjustments. We can do this by asking ourself this second question.

So, if you can bear in mind these two questions and ask yourself them regularly, then both your mindfulness and meditation practice are going to become more effective. Enjoy!

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Begins 14/15th September – Effortless effort – Insight meditation for self-healing and transformation – a five week course

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 11th August, 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 18th August, 9.30-1pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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The calm of solidity – Four mindful techniques

Dear Integral Meditators,

The ‘calmness of solidity’ means the calmness that can be discovered through the solidity and physicality of your body. In the article below I outline four ways that you can cultivate it both formally and informally to increase the level of your own dynamic calm, which is to say your own ability to remain calm and centered under real-time pressure from your life!

In the spirit of the calmness of solidity,

Toby

​The calm of solidity – Four mindful techniques

The ‘calmness of solidity’ means the calmness that can be discovered through the solidity and physicality of your body. It also means the calmness that can be derived from the elements of your physical surroundings and nature. It is one of the four types of dynamic calm that I outline in my previous article Four types of deep calm, four types of dynamic power. In this article I’m simply going to explain four methods that you can use in combination with each other or individually to develop your own dynamic calm, or your ability to remain calm and centered under real-time pressure from your life!

Practices 1&2: Investigating the absence & the presence of calm.
Investigate with curiosity what your body and your breathing feel like when you are not calm. Notice what it feels like to feel ‘not calm’ or unsettled. If you can then practice simply accepting the absence of calm without making ‘a problem out of the problem’ then paradoxically, this gives you access to a certain type of basic calm!
Secondly, remember what it is like to have the presence of calm within your body. Recall times in the past when you have felt the presence of calm in your body, for example when on holiday in a beautiful location, or in the presence of someone you trust. Practice activating the memory of calm, then breathing and living your life from that feeling. Get familiar with it such that, when you are under pressure in daily life, you can deliberately activate your body’s memory of calm. If you do this you can still feel the presence of calm even when your environment may be unsettling.

Practice 3: Using your physical body and senses to calm your mind and emotions.
With this method, you use your sensory attention as your object of focus, giving your mind a simple calm anchor to relax into in the present moment. For example:

  • The weight of your body on the chair,
  • The quality of the light through the window
  • The sound and feeling of the wind, and the call of the birds, as well as the distant traffic sounds
  • The physical movement of your breathing
  • The colours of the objects around you in the room

You can do this in formal meditation, but also out of meditation during the day as you go about your activities. Stabilize your calm by getting out of your mind and into your senses!

Practice 4: Practicing mountain like calm
This final type of calm uses an imaginative key to use in meditation; Experience your body as being like a mountain, your thoughts and associated feelings as being like clouds and your mind or consciousness itself as being like the sky. A mountain is so solid and centred that it really doesn’t mind if the weather around it is stormy, rainy, windy or chaotic. Imagine your own physical body to be like this; calm, solid and massive. This way, even when your emotions and thoughts go crazy sometimes, there is no need even to stop the craziness. Just focus on being the calmness of the mountain, which is proportionally way stronger and more massive!
So, there you go, four techniques to play around with this week if you choose. You can work with them systematically, or just pick the one that works best for you.

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday 7th July, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat

Sunday 8th July, 9.30am,-1pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing

Integral Meditation Asia

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