Category: One Minute Mindfulness

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Awareness and insight Meditation techniques One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Zen Flowers, Zen Doorways

Hi Everyone,

This week’s newsletter looks at Zen meditation practice from two lenses, firstly there is the class this coming Wednesday 22nd February entitled “Zen and the Flower of Life” which looks at Zen practice from the perspective of the original teaching of the Buddha from which Zen meditation is said to derive.
Secondly, this week’s meditation article focuses on how we can develop a more complete experience of our own consciousness through a practice that I call “doorway mindfulness”. I hope you enjoy it!

Yours in the spirit of flowers and doorways,
   
Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Events in February

Wednesday 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th February 10.30-11.30am – Qi Gong Meditation Classes at Basic Essence


Zen and the Flower of Life: Meditating on the Origins of Zen

With meditation teacher Toby Ouvry

Date and Time: Wednesday 22nd February, 7.30-9.00pm

Venue:  Gallery Helios, 38 Petain Road, Singapore 208103 (click HERE for map)

This 90minute meditation class will be taking as its subject the story told in the “Flower Sutra” which is said to be the teaching of the Buddha from which the path of Zen meditation originated. Toby will be teaching a simple but profound method of Zen meditation and contemplation based around the flower sutra teaching.

The class will consist of a 20-30minute walking meditation, followed by a short talk, and then a 30-40minute sitting meditation session.

Course fee:  Sing$35, all participants will be provided with a set of class notes and an MP3 recording of the class for their own personal use.

Click HERE to make payment for this class by credit card

To register or for further enquiries: Email info@tobyouvry.com or SMS 65-96750279

About the Teacher: Toby Ouvry is a meditation teacher and artist who has been practicing and teaching for over fifteen years, including five years as a Buddhist Monk. You can find more out about Toby and his work by going to www.tobyouvry.com

Article of the Week:

Doorway Mindfulness as Zen Practice 

Zen practice is based around the understanding that although the thought-based, linear or logical mind constitutes only a small part of our total consciousness, we have become completely identified with it up to the point that it dominates our life, feelings and experience almost completely.
Thus, one of the main objectives of Zen practice is to develop our Consciousness-Awareness, our awareness that our consciousness is much more than the particular thoughts arising in our mind at any given moment.
Within Buddhist teachings, ‘consciousness’ is often defined as ‘clarity and awareness’. ‘Clarity’ in this context means having no form (i.e.: physical, emotional or mental form or characteristics). Clarity might also be thought of as light, or a sense of inner space and spaciousness.
‘Awareness’ means having the power to perceive or understand. In order to get in touch with the level of our being that is pure conscious awareness, we need to be able to let go temporarily of our thinking mind, thus allowing the clarity and light of our natural or original consciousness to become manifest.To do this, we need to find ways of regularly bringing our mind back into the present moment, and letting go of our habitual over-attention to the contents of our consciousness. Whenever our mind is fully in the present moment, our thinking mind will necessarily be pacified, as thinking by definition always has a past or future topic as its object of contemplation.
In addition to practicing the formal sitting meditation exercises taught in Zen, it is very important to find ways of bringing our mind back into the present moment during the day. One way in which we can do this is, every time we pass through a door way, to take an easy deep breath, letting go of the mental activity in our consciousness and relaxing into the here and now for a few moments. By doing so, we shall momentarily allow the clarity and light of our consciousness to become manifest, and prevent ourselves from becoming completely pre-occupied with the subjects that our mind is concerned with processing. Using a physical doorway as a prompt for our mindfulness of the present moment is one way that it is useful to prompt our mindfulness, as each day we pass though many doorways!
There are many similar techniques that we can devise for ourselves that can help us to do this. The best method is the one that works most effectively for you!

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

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Awareness and insight Inner vision Meditation techniques One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present

Dropping Your Conceptual Leaves

Hi Everyone,

This week’s article focuses on the value of adopting a periodically more minimal mental approach to our life’s challenges.

Yours in the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Dropping Your Conceptual Leaves

Seasonally the beginning of November in the northern hemisphere sees the change from autumn to winter, the leaves having started to turn brown and whither in September and October now begin to drop from the trees in earnest, leaving behind the naked skeletons of the trees across the landscape. Life in nature, although still present becomes much more minimal and quiet with the onset of the winter months.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been using the image of a tree in late autumn and winter as an image in meditation. I become the tree and imagine my leaves dropping away. As I do so I also feel all my excessive conceptuality and mental baggage dropping away. I let go of ideas and preconceptions and just allow myself to rest in this state of minimal awareness, like the stillness of a bare tree in winter, its life quiet and hidden but nevertheless fully present deep inside its structure.

Dropping your conceptual ‘leaves’ like this on a regular basis is a very healthy thing to do. So many of our ‘problems’ are actually just labels that our overly conceptual mind has placed upon things that disturb us, rather than being vitally important life problems in themselves. Quietening our mind and sitting in silence allows us to see which of our problems are really worth solving, and which can be solved simply by dropping our mental label of them as problems.

As you can see I like to meditate with the energy of the seasons, so the coming months are a period where I deliberately set aside a little more time for very simple silent sitting meditation, as a reflection of our movement into the latter part of the year. You might like to consider this too!

Practical suggestion.

Take the tree dropping its leaves image described above as your object of meditation. Become the tree. As you drop your leaves feel your conceptual thoughts falling away also. Sit and relax deeply into silence. Once your mind is quiet you can drop the image of the tree if you like, and just focus on the inner silence.

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

Enjoyed this post? Why not sign up for Toby’s free Creative Meditations E-Newsletter?

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Inner vision One Minute Mindfulness

Mindful of the Thinning of the Veil

Traditionally within the Wheel of the Western Year (by that I mean the progression of the year through the seasons) there are two times when the “veil” between the worlds of our inner and outer perception are thinned, making visionary and dream experiences somewhat more pronounced and vivid. These two times are before and after May the 1st of May or “Mayday”, and the few weeks before and after Samhuinn, or Halloween as it is most commonly known nowadays from October 31st to November 2nd.

Certainly I find that right now in the run up to this years’ Samhuinn my dream life is becoming very vivid, meeting many different characters and  taking strange journeys in my sleep. This time of year is also a time of “reversals” where bad appears as good, good appears as bad. It can be a time of confrontation with our own shadow self , and with the shadow self of the group unconscious. It can also be a time where the spirit of our ancestors attempts to contact us.

Because of all the above things, if you are at all psychically sensitive this can feel like a really chaotic, somewhat dark and “mixed-up” time of year. For me over time I have come to enjoy it as a time where the seeming order of my life becomes much more fluid, and so there is an opportunity to facilitate positive change, and let go of any “skeletons in the closet” that may have built up in my life over the year(!), and look for clues as to the inner work to be done over the coming months.

A Suggested Practice:

Simply pay a little closer attention to your dreams and inner visions (both in and out of meditation over the next 2-3 weeks. Don’t be intimidated if they seem a little chaotic, look upon them as a chance to gain insight into areas of your life that you may normally be unaware of as they lie hidden in your subconscious!

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

Enjoyed this post? Why not sign up for Toby’s free Creative Meditations E-Newsletter?

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One Minute Mindfulness

Mindful of the Stress of Living in an Emergent Time

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www.tobyouvry.com

An emergent time is a time in history where there is a large amount of change, innovation, transformation and transformation going on within society and on the Planet as a whole.

All of this change and transformation can also give rise to the perception that there is more conflict, stress, confrontation, agitation and despair in the world, and that we ourselves as individuals are under more pressure, both on a day to day work/life level, and on an existential level.

I’m not sure whether there has ever been a time in known history where there has been as much change as there is going on currently in our time, or a time where the problems that we are facing, (climate, pollution, economy etc..) have ever been so global in their nature. So many challenges, wonders and horrors seem to be emerging all around us.

One question that I find it interesting to ask myself is “How am I responding or reacting to the pace of change? Do I feel and experience it as a good thing with a lot of positives, or is it something that my mind contracts away from with aversion or fear?”

Like everyone else I think I inevitably feel a certain degree of stress with regard to the pace of life these days, but I think it really helps me to have made a definite choice to envision our human and planetary future evolving in a wonderful, exiting and creative way toward a better future. This involves me making definite specific, practical visionary choices. For example:

– When I contemplate the global overfishing crisis, I imagine how it might lead to the creation of multiple marine reserves where humans actively start to protect and cherish life in the sea on a large scale (This is already starting to happen).

– When I think about fundamentally self-centered tendency that so many people seem to be stuck in, I wonder if the fact that we are all getting crowded into such tightly packed spaces (due to population numbers) will gradually start forcing us all to be a little less selfish, and discover that working together will really produce a better world.

– I can imagine that the internet will become a cause for everyone to become more educated and globally aware.

Of course I really can’t be sure what is going to happen with any of these things, but moving  into a future that seems to be e merging so fast, I think we all need to think consciously about what that future may turn into, and start holding a positive picture in whatever way it feel appropriate!

Practical Suggestion:

– Take one emergent crisis in our world that you think of often.

– Think creatively about the good that may come from it.

– Hold that vision of that good in your mind for a minute

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

Enjoyed this post? Why not sign up for Toby’s free Creative Meditations E-Newsletter?

Check out Toby’s Meditation Classes. 

 

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Meditation techniques One Minute Mindfulness

The Little Reminders Work!

I recently listened to a talk by Roger Walsh on the Science of Meditation (well worth having a listen to, click the link to do so). In the talk he mentions that he spent about three years researching for his book “Essential Spirituality”, reading books and interviewing different spiritual teachers of the worlds great wisdom traditions.

One of the activities that he said virtually all of these teachers found effective themselves for daily mindfulness and consciousness development was the simply practice of placing small reminders in your living space. This means the post-it note on the bathroom mirror, the car bumper sticker, the messages that you write to yourself and place on the fridge. Simply being frequently reminded that you are training your mind, and what that training is is a very effective practice.

One of my own reminders is a picture of Buddha Vajrapani (embodying the spiritual and obstacle dispelling power of all the Buddha’s that sits on my desk. Whenever I feel discouraged I just let my eyes rest on this picture for a while and allow my determination and positive energy to build back up again.

What’s your “little reminder ” practice right now? It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than a message on a post-it on your bathroom mirror!

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

Enjoyed this post? Why not sign up for Toby’s free Creative Meditations E-Newsletter?

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Motivation and scope One Minute Mindfulness

Being Mindful of your Primary Motivation

Before you start something it is always worth spending a moment thinking “Why am I doing this? What is my primary motivation?” If you have a definite reason for doing something, then you can keep it as your focus, thus ensuring greater peace of mind and a higher likelihood of getting what you want from the activity.

– For example, if my main reason for going to play a game of tennis is fun and relaxation, being clear about that ensures that I can enjoy the competitive side of the match I play without letting it become too much of a focus point and thus spoiling my relaxation and enjoyment.

– Similarly if I go out with my wife for a dinner with the clear intention that it is relaxation time, keeping this in mind will mean that I avoid taking up difficult or conflicting topics of conversation that may get in the way of that quality down time.

Conversely:

– If my intention for playing tennis is to push my limits and play as well as possible, I  can make a conscious decision to set aside my merely recreational attitude for a temporarily more serious approach.

– I may deliberately go out for dinner with my wife in order to talk over a difficult or thorny topic, but the fact that I know what my/our intention is ensures that I can keep focused on the goal, and be prepared for the challenge that may come.

My basic point here is that if you are mindful enough to have a clear idea why you are doing something (whatever the size or significance of the activity), then there is a greater chance you will achieve your goal and a greater chance that you will do so with enjoyment and true presence of mind.

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

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One Minute Mindfulness

The Anxiety of Freedom

Normally when we think about anxiety and its causes things such as money, relationships, negative emotions and the like come to mind as primary causes of our mental anxt. However what about freedom?

Søren Kierkegaard said “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom”, and the existential philosophers and therapists have pointed out very clearly that as often as not it is the challenge of dealing with our individual inner freedom and inner power that is as much a cause of stress for us in our life as anything else (see Rollo Mays’ ‘The Discovery of Being’ for a good exposition of this).

When we are really exercising our power of choice and freedom to choose our future fully, we are also saying “I am in control of my life and in control of my destiny”. Relatively few people seem ready to take on this responsibility and the burden of anxiety that we anticipate will come with it.

However I think probably that the lengths we go to to avoid really taking responsibility for our life and stepping into our personal freedom cause much more anxiety than actually having the balls to step into our own power fully!

At any rate being mindful of our inner response to choices and personal opportunities for inner freedom in our day to day life is definitely a good daily object of meditation!

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

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One Minute Mindfulness

What Does Liberation From Suffering Mean?

Does liberation in the spiritual sense from suffering mean that we no longer feel any pain? I tend to think that we will still feel pain of one form or another after we have been liberated, but that pain will not be added to by additional mental suffering and negativeness.

To be liberated from suffering means for example that when you are in physical pain you no longer add to that pain by trying yourself up in knots about the situation you are in. You simply accept the pain as it is, if you can alleviate it you do so through your actions, but if it is just a matter of enduring it with patience,  you can do so without your mind making things any worse than they need to be.

If you can accept pain without it giving rise to mental suffering, then in a very real sense you are liberated from suffering.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot over the last 36 hours or so as my mind and body seem to be a in a certain amount of pain, and chaos. There is plenty of opportunity to buy into it and create suffering from the pain, but as long as I realize I have the choice not to and am mindful to exercise that choice there is no real problem. Pain does not need to become suffering.

 

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

Enjoyed this post? Why not sign up for Toby’s free Creative Meditations E-Newsletter?

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One Minute Mindfulness

Mindfulness of the Way in Which we Are Trying to Solve Our Problems

This morning on the way to work I observed a chicken that had escaped from someone’s garden. It was nervously trying to get back into the garden through the fence by marching up and down the same section of the fence looking for a way in, even though it was very clear that there a was no way in.

Observing this I thought that often this is the way that we approach the solving of our own problems. We try the same approach to a difficulty again and again out of habit even though it may never have worked in the past, like a chicken looking for a hole through a section of fence where there is none. With a little more mindfulness, instead of just repeating old patterns that no longer work (or have never worked) we can re-direct our creative energy to finding a new pattern and approach that may actually solve our issue.

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

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One Minute Mindfulness

Self Flagellation the Same Thing as Sheer Egoism?

This is an interesting quote from Herman Hess’s “Steppenwolf”:

“…his whole life was an example that love of one’s neighbour is not possible without love of oneself, and that self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same isolation and despair.”

I find it very interesting to think of self criticism and self hate as really just being the flip side of egotism. We are very quick to out down ourself and other people for being egotistical, but seem much more tolerant of people (including our own selves) who are overly critical of themselves and have low self esteem.

If we really realize that these two activities are  EQUALLY egotistical, then how would that affect our current view and tolerance of self criticism?

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

Enjoyed this post? Why not sign up for Toby’s free Creative Meditations E-Newsletter?

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