Category: Presence and being present

Brightening your brain using your vital energy – Microcosmic orbit meditation

Post author By Toby
Post date December 27, 2025

“Linking your vital energy to your brain function is one of the most effective ways to improve your cognitive function and your overall energy resilience”

Dear <<First Name>>,

This weeks article explores a fundamental ‘energy resilience ‘ practice that I highly recommend becoming familiar with!

Before the article is the details of the new year beginners mind meditation. if you are coming, please reply to this email saying so. If you can’t make it but would like the recording, let me know and I can send it on.

In the spirit of resilience,

Toby

Tuesday 30th December, 7.30-8.30pm, SG time – 2026 New year ‘Beginners mind’ meditation (Free, online only)

This meditation session is focused upon setting up the 2026 new year energies in a way that invites the best possible experience moving forward. We will be…read full details

Article: Brightening your brain using your vital energy – Microcosmic orbit meditation

Microcosmic orbit meditation is an ‘energy meditation’ that I’ve been using for thirty years or so. It is very simple in essence. In this article I am going to:

Explain a simple microcosmic orbit technique you can get started with
Give examples of how I have been using it to help with my health, mental clarity and energy levels

Your vital or generative energy

Microcosmic orbit meditation uses as its base the sexual, generative, or vital energy that we carry in our lower belly, hips and generative organs. It raises this energy up the back of the body into the brain, enhancing our brain energy, but simultaneously raising the vibration of the vital force. You start then by focusing awareness down to your hips and loins, bringing some warm, friendly, nurturing attention to this area of your body. This can be done over the course of a few breaths, being nurturingly present to your vital energy.

The basic circuit

If you then imagine that there is a loop or circuit of energy, made up of two channels. The first runs from the perineum, to your crown, up the spine into the brain. The second runs down the front of your body. You can imagine it as:

A point of energy in the perineum
The back channel as a tube made of light rising from perineum to the coccyx, up the spine to the base of the skull, then up the back of the head to the crown, down to the third eye between the eyebrows, and down to the upper lip
The frontal channel runs from the lower lip down the front of the chin, neck, chest belly, then down thru the sexual organs back down to the perineum

A simple practicum

So, then a twelve-breath practice that I like to do is as follows:

Three breaths smiling gently and sending friendly awareness to my vital energy down in my lower belly and generative organs
Six breaths where I am focusing on feeling the energy rising up the back of my body as I inhale and exhale, rising into the brain, flowing up to the crown and down to the third eye
Three breaths focusing on the energy flowing down the front channel from my third eye and lips down to my sexual organs again, completing the circuit
Pausing and feeling the flow continue organically

Repeat 1-3 times as a little ‘set’ of microcosmic orbit practice. Part of the point of this practice is to:

Use your vital energy to being energy and clarity to your brain and mind-function
Circulate your vital energy thru-out the whole body to promote overall health and wellbeing
Promote a sense of balance and increased capacity for presence

Examples of when I use this practice during the day include:

As a part of my daily sitting practice, to bring clarity and energy to my meditation
As a short work break to re-set my energy
If I cannot sleep at night as a way of balancing the energy of my body and making it easier to relax

You can see a slightly more detailed description of the meditation technique here:
Meditation on the microcosmic orbit
It’s the sort of practice that builds not just over one or two repetitions, but over extended periods of short, consistent practice. We will be using a number of variations and types of this meditation in the upcoming Wednesday & Saturday series on ‘Beginners mind, resilient body’, as it forms the ‘resilient body’ half of the program.
© 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

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Ongoing on Saturdays, 5.30-6.45pm SG time – Saturday Integral meditation deep-dive sessions with Toby

Ongoing on Wednesday, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Tuesday 30th December, 7.30-8.30pm, SG time – 2026 New year ‘Beginners mind’ meditation (Free, online only)

Tues 13^th, Weds 14^th January, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Saturday 24th January, 9.00am-12.30pm – Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

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Mindfully talking, & not talking to yourself

Post author By Toby
Post date December 15, 2025

“The most important conversations you are having are the inner ones that you are having with yourself. Has what you have been saying today inwardly helped or hindered you?”

Dear Toby,

This week’s article looks at the inner conversation that we all have with ourselves, and how to start working with it mindfully…

A couple of free seasonal meditations coming up, the Winter solstice & new year online sessions, you are all invited!

In the spirit of self-talk,

Toby

Article: Mindfully talking, & not talking to yourself

Most of the time you are talking to yourself

For almost all people, there is an internal conversation we are having with ourself all the time. It is probably the most important conversation you are having because:

As mentioned, it is going on almost all the time, whether someone else is around or not
If it is working for you, it can be an almost constant source of support, encouragement, and resilience
If it is working against you, it is an almost constant source of discouragement, conflict, and weakness
You can’t escape it by running away. Unlike other people, the voice follows you wherever you go!

Noticing the conversation & making adjustments

Step one then could be to recognize the inner conversation and acknowledge its importance. This can then be a motivator to start working with it. To start working with it, we need to start to watch it and notice what’s going on as we talk to ourselves!
As in all mindfulness practice just becoming aware of it, and starting to study it as an object of consciousness can be profoundly transformative. Based on your observation, you can then practice making small, skilful interventions in the conversation that make it more balanced and useful for you. For example, there is a tremendous difference between
“You’ve just wasted half an hour procrastinating, you idiot, why do you always do that”
And:
“Its normal for me to take half an hour or so to settle into my work, lets see if I can make it just twenty minutes today!”
It’s not rocket science, but it can make a big impact, particularly if we do it regularly, and start to get the compound effect going!

Learning to suspend the conversation

Part of the joy of meditation of course, is to learn that you can actually switch the conversation off, what a relief! Ways to begin the conversation suspension include:

Watching the spaces between the words in your inner conversation, dropping into them and gradually extending them
Placing short pauses between your inbreath and out breath, practising suspending the conversation just for those pauses

Exercises such as there help to build familiarity with the state of silence, even when our mind is still quite active

Being pro-active about the conversation

A final method that I can’t recommend highly enough is to activate your ‘inner life-coach’. This means you are taking charge of your inner conversation and saying things to yourself that are encouraging, supportive, balanced, and wise as you go through your day. Being pro-active about this conversation when I play sport is the single best and most consistent tool I have found to bring my best performance out. But, and more importantly, if life is the sport, and today, right now is ‘game day,’ then the time to activate this capacity within yourself is now!
Sometimes it may feel like being pro-active like this takes a lot of work. But then its a lot more work living with a miserable, oppressive inner voice. So you may as well engage in the inner work that is taking you somewhere, rather than just being miserable and running round in circles!

Practicum

Set aside time to watch your inner conversation with a degree of curious objectivity
Practice making small skilful interventions
Practice ceasing the conversation for short periods
Cultivate your ‘inner life-coach’!

© 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

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindful self-talk, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

A Mind of Ease Concentration creative imagery Energy Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Squares & triangles – Mindful strengths building

Post author By Toby
Post date November 22, 2025

“Once you know how to breathe in squares and triangles, you can create your own mindful flow practices to build the qualities & capacities that you wish”

Dear Toby,

This week’s article looks at a practice I have evolved over the years, designed to enable creativity within a basic, consistent structure. Enjoy!

Last call for this Saturday 22nd Nov, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

In the spirit of building strength,

Toby

Squares and triangles – Mindful strengths building

Square and triangular breathing, the basic concepts

Square and triangular breathing are methods where you combine your inhalation and exhalation with short pauses. The practice of pausing your breath in itself offers benefits such as:

calming the nervous system, improving focus, and enhancing emotional regulation
increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood, which reduces the excitability of the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and promotes a sense of calm
greater control over the breathing process, which can lead to increased mental clarity, resilience, and better decision-making

Square breathing is where we place a short pause both at the top and the bottom of the breath. A well-known form of this is called box-breathing where you breathe in, pause, breathe out and pause at the bottom of the exhalation, each for a count of four, hence ‘breathing in a box’, or square.

With triangular breathing there is just one pause, at the bottom of the breath, hence three stages or ‘sides’ like a triangle.

To use these breathing forms for strengths building, we simply combine the breathing with qualities, or states of mind to build them as we breathe. For example in my Wednesday class last week we began by practising breathing in a square in the following manner to cultivate mindful flow and presence:

Breathing in, gathering and focusing our energy in our body
Pause, being focused and present
Breathing out, relaxing our body, relaxing into the present moment
Pause, holding a state of relaxed presence

We practiced with sets of three square breaths like this, with pauses in between just to enjoy the sense of being in state of focused, relaxed presence. Focused, relaxed presence are foundational strengths for building competence in meditation and mindfulness. In this practice we used square breathing to build these strengths systematically.

In the Saturday class last week, we opened with a triangular breathing form, where:

As we breathed in, we opened to a state of adventurousness
Breathing out, dropping into a state of calm
Pausing at the bottom of the breath, relaxing in a state of calm adventurousness

Adventurousness and calm are qualities we can use to meet our challenges and opportunities in such a way that we enjoy them where possible, and also navigate them with calm strength. The triangular breathing provides a structure to cultivate these qualities deliberately in a structured way.

Once you know how to breathe in squares and triangles, you can create your own mindful flow practices to build the qualities and capacities that you wish to develop in our life and work. I like to combine qualities together into polarities that balance and complement each other. From the above examples you can see:

Relaxed and focused
Adventurous calm

There are many, many variations that I have used over the years:

Engaged detachment
Humble self-assertion
Gentle courage
Serious lightness

And so on…

The great thing about meditating with squares and triangles is that you have one technique, with many variations. So, you can create variety and stimulation in your practice, whilst at the same time keeping it basically consistent and ‘the same’.

Related reading:
Using mindful flow to train in strengths-building
Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)
Meditation wings – Five foundational meditation polarities

© 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

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 15th November, 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

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

Saturday 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindful strengths building, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Presence and being present Shadow meditation Stress Transformation

Change your idea, change yourself – Working creatively with your self-concept

Post author By Toby
Post date November 5, 2025

“We can learn to relate creatively to our self-concept in a way that opens doors, rather than closes them. The older we get, the more important this creative capacity becomes”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article explores a creative & psycho-dynamic meditation form. The stages of it form the basis of my upcoming weekday & Saturday series on ‘how to work with your bright shadow’. If you enjoy the article, then do consider attending one program, or even both of them!

In the spirit of opening to possibilities,

Toby

Change your idea, change yourself – (Five stages to) Working creatively with your self-concept

By the time you get to adulthood, your dominant sense of self, at least for most people, is an idea. This idea is called your ‘self-concept.’ It is a dynamic collection of conditioned beliefs, assimilated past experiences, habitual emotional states, absorbed philosophies, learned behaviour and so on that you identify as ‘me’.

“I am an extrovert”/introvert
“I am an Asian/European/African and therefore I can/can’t….”
“I’m an optimist/pessimist”
“I am good at/not good at…”

You get the idea. Your self-concept is just an idea of who you are, but it is an idea that you are completely or at least very closely identified with. It defines most of how you turn up, how you behave and what you feel yourself to be capable of.
Furthermore, your self-concept has two parts, conscious and unconscious. The conscious part of yourself concept is your self-image. The unconscious part is the part that is not acceptable to your self-image, and that you repress and reject. Any part of your self-concept that you don’t like or feel threatened by, you can push into your unconscious, where it becomes a part of your shadow, or dis-owned self.

What I outline below is a way of working creatively with your self-concept, to open possibilities, rather than close them. By doing so it becomes possible to relate to our idea of ourself in a way that opens doors, rather than closes them particularly, but not only as we find ourselves getting older.

For this work, it is a good idea to take a specific area of your life and self-concept, bearing it in mind as you work your way though the five stages below…

Step one, observing – noticing the narrative, conceptual and non-conceptual

Firstly, take the position of the observer in your field of awareness, and practice, observing, listening to and accepting this part of your self-concept, and your close identification with it. For example, if you are taking your idea of self-as-parent:

Notice the commentary within you about what a parent should or shouldn’t be, and how you are measuring up
Observe the emotional range coming up within you, and your judgements about those emotions
Accept whatever arises as fully as you can

At this stage I find working on accepting and observing with the qualities of curiosity, courage and care to be particularly useful.

Step two, dis-identifying – dropping the labels, badges, and roles

Secondly, practice putting down, or dis-identifying with all the labels, roles and badges that are involved in this part or aspect of your self-concept. Practice becoming a man or woman. A person of no-rank, no position in life. Practice just being a being, and enjoying the freedom of that space.

Step three, imagining – exploring new ideas of self-in-role

From your position as a person of no-rank, explore new ideas, and possibilities of yourself in the role you are working on (parenting, romantic partner, professional, etc…). Connect to new ideas and possibilities that you might integrate into this area of yourself in this role.

Step four encountering – meeting and communicating with your new self

Visualize the self that you have imagined in step three as a person in front of you. S/he looks very much like you, but embodies the qualities that you have been imagining. As you see this person in front of you, invite a communication. Ask them a question such as:

What are you asking of me right now?
How can I integrate you more fully into my daily life?
What is your perspective on this situation/problem that I am facing right now??

Have a chat and see what transpires!

Step five role-playing – developing yourself in your new role

Imagine the ‘self’ in front of you steps toward you. Imagine you step toward them. Another step and you step into each other, and merge. Experience yourself AS this newly imagined self, BE them.

Once you have finished the meditation, work on role-playing this new self into your daily life. Meet your challenges AS them, particularly with regard to the specific roles you identified in step 2 above.

Related articles: Why we may repress our strengths – six reasons
The bright shadow, the one who can do what you cannot do

© 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

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Ongoing Tuesday & Weds September, 7.30-8.30pm, – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Ongoing Saturdays 5.30-6.15pm – Zen meditation Deep-dive – A 10 session practice series

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

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

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, self-concept, shadow meditation

A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Finding inner space within your mind by focusing on outer spaces

Post author By Toby
Post date October 13, 2025

“Normally, when we walk into a room, it is the objects in the room that we notice, when by far the biggest element in the room is the space, and the light or darkness in it”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s newsletter features an article I wrote originally all the way back in 2010 which I have updated. If you enjoy it, it will be a part of the focus for this week’s Tues/Weds or Saturday Zen meditations.

In the spirit of inner space,

Toby

PS: Final shout out of this Friday morning’s The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course

Finding inner space within your mind by focusing on outer spaces

An ongoing motivation for both beginners’ starting meditation and those who are more experienced practitioners is the need to create and preserve a sense of space within our mind which we can relax into and use to keep the rest of our busy lives in perspective.
One technique I use regularly that I find creates a sense of inner space very quickly is to focus on an awareness of the outer spaces that exist in our physical environment. The mind basically becomes like what it focuses upon, so when you focus on an outer physical space, this in turn quite naturally starts to give rise to a sense of an inner space within our mind. Here is one example of a way in which you can do this:

Making your mind BIG

We have been using this technique recently in the class I facilitate. Once you have sat down in a comfortable posture, become aware of the sky and stars up above you and the earth beneath you, allow your awareness to become big and open like the sky above you, and vast solid and stable like the Earth beneath you.
After you have done this, extend your mind horizontally around you, out to the horizon of the land, to the north, east, south and west. Extend your awareness as far out as you can to feel the curve of the Earth’s surface all about you. Now you have a sense of your mind as being BIG, and spacious, taking in the vast physical spaces all around you.
Stay with this feeling for as long as you like, let yourself relax as much as possible into your sense of the big space all around you; above, below, and extending out into the for directions of the horizontal/horizonal plane.
If you do this for a while, you will find quite quickly that a sense of inner space and calm arises within your mind. By focusing on the big space outside, you start to feel the big space inside!

Smaller space focus

You can also do the above exercise in a similar way but with a much smaller space, such as the room that you might be sitting in. Normally, when we walk into a room, it is the objects in the room that we notice, when by far the biggest element in the room is the space in the room, and the light or darkness in it. We can make our mind much more spacious in a short period of time by relaxing into an awareness of the outer space of the room, and let it create a corresponding sense of inner space within us.

A final point here is that I have found that this meditation helps ANY problem that I may be facing and that I am concerned about. When your mind feels big, then problems seem much more manageable. In a small mind consumed by itself and its own challenges, even small issues can take on a distorted life of their own!

© 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

Watch Toby’s video on Meditating with the bright shadow:

Upcoming workshops & series’ on the shadow & the golden shadow

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

Ongoing Tuesday & Weds September, 7.30-8.30pm, – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Ongoing Saturdays 5.30-6.15pm – Zen meditation Deep-dive – A 10 session practice series

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

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

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

Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Insight Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Zen Meditation

Compassion, wisdom & your original face

Post author By Toby
Post date September 29, 2025

“What is your original face before your parents were born?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

The ‘Original face’ mentioned above is a well known Zen koan, or riddle. In the article below I outline some simple awareness exercises to use it to develop your wise compassion, or ‘Karuna’.

If you enjoy it, you’d be welcome to join this week’s Tues/Weds or Saturday Zen meditations, where we will be exploring our original face in the sessions.

In the spirit of originality,

Toby

PS: October & November see the return of my Shadow & Language of the shadow workshops, click the links for full details!

Compassion, wisdom & your original face

This article is really a set of pointing out instructions for developing compassion in the spirit of Zen meditation. There are five ‘positions’, each one can be explored as a practice in its own right, but put together they invite a rich and wholistic growth of our wise compassion over time.

Position 1: Centering in the six directions

Sit comfortably, then become aware of the direction in front of you, behind you, to your left, to your right, above and below. Become aware your vertical center, which you can visualize as a line of light and energy extending from your crown to your perineum. As you breathe in, breathe into your bodily center, as you breathe out let your awareness expand out into the six directions. Us this breathing pattern to become focused, relaxed, and present.

Position 2: Reflecting on your own pain & suffering with self-compassion

In this state of relaxed presence, become self-aware, creating an atmosphere of warmth and care toward yourself. Become aware of any parts of yourself that are in pain or suffering for whatever reason. As you breathe in, feel yourself contacting these parts of self, as you breathe out extend gentle understanding and compassion to them, embracing them with this energy.

Position 3: Meditating on your ‘Original face’

Reflect upon the well-known Zen koan:

“What is your original face before your parents were born?”

Here your ‘original face’ is simply the space of consciousness itself before thoughts are ‘born’, the space and ‘face’ before you think (see the description of the Host in my previous article). Return to position 1, centering in the six directions, but emphasizing moving into stillness and non-thought in the moment. As you breathe in center, as you breathe out let go of your thoughts and relax into the open space of consciousness itself, your ‘original face’.

Position 4: Generating wise compassion for all living beings, recognizing them as ‘Self’

Position 3 invites us to see that, in the space of consciousness itself, ‘self’ and ‘other’ dissolve into a singular identity as consciousness itself. Consciousness itself appears as both ‘self’ and ‘other’. Recognizing this, allow your care and compassion to extend from yourself to all other living beings, knowing that, in the space of your original face, we are all one aspect of the same being. This combination of compassion and the wisdom recognizing your ‘Original face’ is called Karuna in Zen, which means wise compassion.

Position 5: Reflecting on your own opportunities for daily compassionate presence, & small acts of compassion

From the ‘metta’ perspective of position 4, now reflect on your own day and life. Look for ways in which you might be able to direct your compassionate presence towards those around you, and express it to them in small, appropriate ways.

Related article: Host & guest – Zen Witnessing

© 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 & Weds September, 7.30-8.30pm, – Integral Meditation from the Perspective of Zen – A 10 week series

Saturdays 5.30-6.15pm – Zen meditation Deep-dive – A 10 session practice series

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

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

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

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

Awareness and insight creative imagery Essential Spirituality Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Zen Meditation

Host & guest – Zen Witnessing

Post author By Toby
Post date September 23, 2025

Dear Integral Meditators,

The Host and guest is a traditional Zen analogy for the for the stages of the path from an un-awakened to awakened state. Its a simple blueprint that can inform you at any level of your inner growth, particularly if you are an active meditator.

If you enjoy it, you’d be welcome to join this week’s Tues/Weds or Saturday Zen meditations, where we will be exploring Host & guest in the sessions.

In the spirit of ,

Toby

Host & guest – Zen Witnessing

The Host and guest is a traditional Zen analogy for the for the stages of the path from an un-awakened to awakened state. The image is taken from the Surangama sutra, where ‘Host’ means emptiness, our essence, the nature of mind, while ‘guest’ means phenomena, or the content of consciousness.

The Host, consciousness itself, the Witness

If you look at your awareness from moment to moment, there are things that are changing within it, and there is something that is not changing. The thing that is not changing is the experience of awareness itself – that which is aware of and watches the content of consciousness coming and going. This is why it is often called the ‘the Witness self’. In the analogy it is the ‘Host’ because it is the permanent, or fixed resident in our consciousness. The contents of consciousness are like the guests in an Inn or hotel, coming and going in a transient manner. Contrastingly, consciousness itself, or the Witness Self is like the proprietor of the Inn, the ‘permanent resident’ so to speak.

The guest – the content of our consciousness

The content of our consciousness is essentially:

Our body and sensory experience, the outer word
Our mind, thought perceptions and inner world
The feelings and emotions that attend/arise from our physical and mental worlds

Unlike our observer consciousness, our outer experiences, thoughts and emotions come and go, like the guests of the Inn.

Part of the emphasis on being present in the moment, both in Zen and in meditation more generally, is so that we can start watching our awareness, and distinguish between the Host and guest in our own being and consciousness. By doing this we can start to effect a transformation of our identity that has four stages:

Stage 1: The guest within the guest
This stage of development refers to the un-awakened person, whose identity completely revolves around the guest, and who has no awareness whatever of the Host.

Stage 2: The guest within the Host
This stage refers to the initial stages of our meditation. At this stage our identity often still gets lost in the guest; in our thoughts, feelings, and body. However, we are aware of a ‘higher or deeper level’ of being, the Host, and our life begins to be informed by it.

Stage 3: The Host within the Guest.
At this stage out sense of self has substantially transitioned to the Host, which becomes is the main driving force in our life and actions. The guest still occasionally becomes unhappy and tries to take charge, but by this time the Host is usually in the driving seat.

Stage 4: The Host within the Host.
At this stage we have achieved a stable experience of enlightenment; our identity is firmly centered in the Host, and it is the Host that always guides the activities of the guest. We are no longer caught up in the illusory games of the guest, but are able to use our transient ego as an expression of our formless enlightened nature.

Some of the Pertinent questions to ourselves in our meditation and daily life to start centering ourselves around the Host:

Where is my identity focused right now, within the Host or guest?
Which aspects of the guest (thoughts/mind, senses) does my sense of self most often get mixed up in?
Where is the Host within me right now?

The journey of Zen is one that takes us from our current obsessional identity with the form level of our being to a core identity based around Consciousness itself, the Host. It is an unfolding PROCESS that progressively reveals the Enlightened nature that is already within us, here and now.

Related article: Witnessing the witness

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

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

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Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

Post author By Toby
Post date September 15, 2025

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

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

In the spirit of natural-ness,

Toby

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

Sitting unself-consciously – The primal pre-present

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

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

Meditating on the pre-present enables us to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two quotes for meditating unself-consciously

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

A mountain poem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Moving from center – a diagram of how meditation works

Post author By Toby
Post date September 8, 2025

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

Moving from center – a diagram of how meditation works

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

Moving from center

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

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

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

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

Mr Messy

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

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

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

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

Welcome to the world of the meditator.

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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

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Scratching out your name card, & other gateways to Zen

Post author By Toby
Post date September 1, 2025

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

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

In the spirit of label-less-ness,

Toby

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

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

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

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

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

Zen Story: The Governor’s Card

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

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

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

All upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

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

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

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