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The dance of conscious & unconscious intention

“Our intentions are like tuning forks, they tend to attract particular types of things and experiences into our life, and also determine the way in which we experience them”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article follows on from last week’s article on on intention, further drawing out the power of intention, and some practices to start being mindful around it!
If you enjoy the article, do check out the upcoming course on  Meditating with the power of intention – An eleven module course. It can be participated in live or online, and is starting at the beginning of September. 

In the spirit of intention, 

Toby
 



The dance of conscious & unconscious intention
 
You always have an intention
Intention occupies the ‘why’ space within our consciousness; the reason we are motivated to do things. There is a ‘why’ reason for all our actions or non-actions. The art noticing or being mindful around intention is three-fold:

  1. Noticing intentions that you have that are harmful or destructive, working against your wellbeing and those of others. Once detected we can work on understanding where they come from and what we can do to reduce and re-direct them
  2. Noticing the positive intentions that we have that are helpful, empowering and creative, then continuing to nurture and strengthen them
  3. Opening to new benevolent or creative intentions that we may not have often at the moment, but that we can see the value in developing them and making them a regular part of our life

Intentions are like tuning forks, they tend to attract particular types of things and experiences into our life, and also determine the way in which we experience them. Dancing with our intentions deliberately can radically shift our life-experience quite quickly, sometimes immediately.
 
You don’t always know that you have an intention
Although we almost always have an intention, we aren’t always aware of the intentions that we have.

  • You might have naturally caring intentions regularly toward your family members, but you might not notice it because it’s just a (positive) habit. If you notice this positive intention that arises regularly within you, you can generate it more often consciously, and you can widen the group or type of people that you generate it towards. Making this intention conscious can improve your relationships significantly
  • You might not be aware of the judgements that you have about yourself, and the harmful intentions that come from them. By making these intentions toward yourself conscious, you can see them more clearly, gently starting to ‘de-couple’ yourself from them, reducing, even eliminating the harmful effects that they are having upon you
  • You may not have noticed that your short, medium and long term goals and intentions are contradicting each other in significant ways. By consciously aligning your short, medium and long term intentions and making them a team, you can significantly increase the power of each

 
Practice points – Creating intentions around intention
 
The intention to live intentionally – the first practice point here is to build the power of your intention to live intentionally, on purpose and consciously. This is a mindfulness power-practice 101, building the power of your intentionality.
 
The dance of conscious & unconscious intention – Practice point two is to notice which of the intentions that you generate are deliberate or conscious, and which are instinctual, unconscious and spontaneous. The idea here is to ‘dance’ with both, creating a harmony between them in your life through your intention to align your conscious & unconscious intentions.
 
Related readingIntention determines trajectory – Aspects of integrated mindful intention
Intention, dedication, meditation
Fourteen levels of mindful intention

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Intention determines trajectory – Aspects of mindful intention

“Your intention determines your trajectory – choose to be more conscious and intentional during the day. Life your life ‘on purpose’!”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article & video explores the concept that ‘intention determines trajectory’ & looks at practical ways you can start to explore it mindfully in your daily life.

If you enjoy the article, then do check out the upcoming course that will be starting in September on  Meditating with the power of intention.

In the spirit of the intentional, 

Toby

 


Watch Toby’s video on Mindful intention:



Article: Intention determines trajectory – Aspects of integrated mindful intention
 
Intention is one of what I call the ‘three pillars’ or ‘holy trinity’ of integral mindfulness: awareness, attention and intention. These three are what I call pre-skills, meaning skills that, if you develop them, they will help you to develop any other skill or capacity that you want to in life. The better you become at them, the more confident you will feel in the face of life’s challenges.
 
Intention determines trajectory
The statement ‘Intention is destiny’ might not be true in the absolute sense of the word, but it holds true on many levels in the sense that our intentions determine our motivations and actions in life. The intentions that we hold in our mind consistently are continually influencing what we do, where we go, what we say, what we choose. Its not difficult to see for example that someone who’s conscious intention is to contribute to society and make it a better place is going to have a very different life path from someone whose intention is simply to fit in with the prevailing norm, and not look too dumb. Given this understanding, the intention to make your intentions in life conscious is a good place to start!
 
You always have an intention
Something else about intention is that you always have one. It can be a conscious intention such as the intention to act to achieve a goal, or it can be an unconscious or instinctual intention, such as the impulse to eat an attractive food, or say something in a moment or reactivity. So, a second practice around intention is to start to notice and be mindful around the intentions that you are having thru-out the day. Notice them coming and going. Notice the ones that are deliberate. Notice intentions that you tend to hide from yourself, or suppress awareness around. “What is my intention for doing this?” is a question that helps you both to become aware of existing intentions, and for clarifying your intention, aligning yourself with the best intentions that you can muster.
 
Three levels or octaves of intention
Three ball park intentions that I practice on are simple and as follows:

  • The intention to be of benefit toward myself today
  • The intention to turn up well for my close circle, friends, family, colleagues
  • The intention (Partly by doing intentions 1&2 well) to be of benefit to humanity and the Planet

I call these ball park intentions, because they hold space well for the other more specific intentions that I may focus on in the day. They create a benevolent intentional space for my activities, and clarify the way in which I direct my energy. I often start a meditation with these three intentions, but they are equally important for:

  • Family interaction
  • Business transactions
  • Social activity

And so on…One thing to notice about these three levels is that we are aiming to create a harmonic between them, get them working together as a team. By benefiting myself I can become stronger, which helps me to turn up better for my close circle, and the enhanced interaction with my close circle ripples out into the world. You get the idea!

Practice points around mindful intention:

  • Be curious about the intentions, conscious and unconscious that you have during the day, witnessing them and noticing patterns
  • Choose to be more conscious and intentional during the day. Life your life ‘on purpose’!
  • Notice how your intentions determine your trajectory in life, both in the short, medium, and long terms
  • Generate and center around the three levels or octaves of intention regularly. Practice motivating yourself from these powerful, core intentions

Related readingIntention, dedication, meditation
Fourteen levels of mindful intention

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Three levels of mindful intuition

“Teaming up our intuition & rationality helps us trust our natural inner guidance and signals”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article offers some ways of making distinctions around different type of intuition, & beginning to work with them in daily life. If you enjoy it, feel free to join us for the Tuesday or Wednesday meditation class, where it will be a focus point of the meditation. 

In the spirit of intuition,

Toby
 



Three levels of mindful intuition
 
What is intuition?
 
For this piece, I’m going to define intuition as a way of experiencing and processing our life in a way that is almost instantaneous, often pre, or trans-rational, meaning preceding logical or systematic thought. Here are a couple of mainstream definitions from the internet that are complementary to mine:

  • Oxford languagesIntuition – using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive; “his intuitive understanding of the readers’ real needs”
  • Cambridge dictionary: Intuition – able to know or understand something because of feelings rather than facts or proof

 
Why is it useful to develop?
 
Reliable intuition is a wonderful capacity to develop, as it enables us to navigate life confidently, experientially, and more successfully. It is a capacity that is complementary to our reasoning, and analytical capacity, rather than in competition with it. If we can make our intuition and reasoning a team, then they can help us to verify choices, navigate confusion and so forth. Teaming up our rationality and intuition helps us trust our natural inner guidance and signals.
 
Three levels of intuition
 
Most often I think about intuition as having three levels; instinctual, mental and spiritual:

Instinctual intuition comes from our biological intelligence. It is the capacity that we share with animals. It is pre-rational, often sensual and sensory. If you quieten the mind and attune to your body-intelligence, then you’ll start to notice this level of your intuition providing you signals and feedback thru-out the day. When you are out in nature, you may notice this level of intuition really coming to the foreground of your awareness, as your animal nature attunes to its environment.

Mental or intellectual intuition is the capacity of our mind to compute answers based on the sum total of our knowledge and experience, before our conscious mind can do it in a linear way. For example, if we are an experienced chess or tennis player, our intuitive sense of the next move or shot will often come intuitively and instantaneously. This ‘feeling’ comes from the capacity of our intellect to make trans-rational calculations based on the totality of our knowledge and experience in this domain.

Spiritual intuition is that dimension of our intelligence that lies beyond both our instinct and our intellect. The intuition that comes from this level is distinct, sometimes characterised as a ‘still small voice within’. In a previous article I describe this intuitive voice as follows:
“What you are looking for is a quieter voice within you coming from a deeper level of your consciousness. Its nature is to be kind, and quiet, strong and wise. It’s easily drowned out by the louder voices of the everyday mind, which is why you need to listen for it closely, in a relaxed frame of mind”
Sometimes referred to as the Higher Self, Soul Self or Spiritual Self, spiritual intuition often feels as if it’s perspective comes literally from an ariel point of view, a ‘big picture’ perspective.
 
If you sit quietly, and recall a particular situation in your life, you can try gently to identify these three voices, attuning to the different information and perspectives they are giving you. Sometimes they will be in broad agreement, sometimes they will be saying different, even contradictory things to each other. It is your job as the conscious self to:

  • Identify these three voices of your intuitive guidance
  • Collate and assess them together, making a decision that you feel is best for you and the situation at hand, all things considered

Identifying and listening to these three levels of your intuition is a part of what I call learning to trust your inner guidance, or ‘inner guru’. Everyone has all three of these, it’s just a matter of putting in a little patient practice to start building your competency!
 
Related articlesTrusting your inner guru
Four ways of working with your inner voice

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Effortless wholeness – The ocean & it’s wave; not one, not two

“Experience yourself as a wave on the ocean, emerging from and subsiding back into the sea, separate from but at the same time one with the ocean, not one, not two”

Dear Toby, 

This week’s article focuses on a technique to deepen the simple feeling of awareness, making it into a communion between yourself as an individual, and yourself as the One or Universal Self. If you like it, you might like to come along too this week’s Wednesday class, where it will be the subject of the  session!

And head’s up for this Saturday 27th July, 5-6pm – Mantra yoga meditation class: Healing meditation with the Medicine Buddha. If you are interested in meditation & healing, you will enjoy this class.

In the spirit of not one, not two,

Toby

 



Effortless wholeness – The ocean & it’s wave; not one, not two
 
In my previous article, Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology I outlined five ways in which simply sitting in a state of mindful presence starts to activate a feeling of wholeness or completeness. Sitting presently in this way we start to feel:
 

  1. Full, not empty
  2. Empty, not full 
  3. Enough, not not -enough 
  4. Strong, not weak 
  5. Free, not limited

 
To our ‘doing’ mind this can seem a little bit too good to be true, there must be something that we have to do or achieve in order to a state of deep meditation and get all these benefits? Here is a short story from Anthony De Mello’s One minute wisdom entitled ‘Identity’ that is designed to further undermine our addiction to striving:
 
IDENTITY
“How does one seek union with God?”
“The harder you seek, the more distance you create between Him and you.”
“So, what does one do about the distance?”
“Understand that it isn’t there.”
“Does that mean that God and I are one?”
“Not one. Not two.”
“How is that possible?”
“The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song—not one. Not
two.”
 
The useful thing about this story is it helps us to see that we can be at the same time one with the universe, and at the same time different, individual and separate. It is not one, not two, not neither, not both & something beyond neither and both.
 
The story gives the image of the sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, and the singer and his/her song. To explore this, first cultivate basic mindful presence; not lost in thought, not falling asleep, present to the moment, and aware of yourself being present. Then take one of the following as your object of meditation:

  • Imagine yourself as an individual lightray, separate from but at the same time one with the sun. Not one, not two
  • Or as a wave on the ocean, emerging from and subsiding back into the sea, separate from but at the same time one with the ocean. Not one, not two
  • Or as a singer singing a song (perhaps when you actually sang a song), separate from, but at the same time merged with the sound and the song itself. Not one, not two

 
Using one of these images, explore relaxing as effortlessly as you can into the feeling of being not one with the universe, or separate from it, but paradoxically both at the same time. Intellectually it sounds a bit bamboozling, but experientially and using the image, you will find that the experience comes naturally, and without needing to try too hard. It is a nice way to enhance and deepen the simple feeling of awareness and mindful presence, making it into a communion between yourself as an individual, and yourself as the One or Universal Self!
 
Related readingMindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology
Your thoughts as light rays, your mind as the sun
 

© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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



In case you missed it in last week’s newsletter: The remembrance, positivity & mindful questioning training page

This first training page for the Engaged mindfulness book & project focuses on three practices, or mindful positions:

  1. Practical learning from life – Asking & learning from mindful questions
  2. Meditation – orienting around the positive
  3. Mindfulness – improving your conscious remembrance of what you are doing

Reference in the Engaged mindfulness book: Page 4-6, An Introduction to the Art of Mindfulness (Download free PDF, or order hardcopy here)



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Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology

“Mindful awareness builds a robust pre-psychological base, meaning the feeling or sensibility you have about yourself before you think or conceive who you are. If we get this base right, many good things follow”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article is on the effectiveness of minddful awareness as a pre-psychological base for navigating and thriving in our lives. If you enjoy it, feel free to join us for the Tuesday or Wednesday meditation class, where it will be a focus point of the meditation. 

In the spirit of awareness,

Toby



Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology
 
In my previous article on the ‘holy trinity of mindfulness’ I outline the role of awareness, intention and attention in mindfulness practice. I describe them as pre-skills that, if you cultivate them will help you develop any other skill relatively quickly and easily.
In this article I want to focus on awareness and what I call its pre-psychological benefits. Again, in the previous article I define mindful awareness as:
“The choice to be consciously aware as we go through life, rather than unconscious, and to direct our conscious awareness skilfully.”
When you make the choice simply to be aware of consciousness in the present moment, there are several fundamental benefits. I want to outline some of these below, in the hope that you will feel inspired to start practicing. Specifically, I want to point out how mindful awareness builds a robust pre-psychological base for ourselves. By pre-psychological I mean the feeling or sensibility you have about yourself before you start to think or conceive who you areIf we get this base right, many good things follow!
 
Full, not empty – When we sit in awareness of the present moment, we start to feel a sense of fullness in that moment. We can then turn up to life with this feeling of fullness, which helps counterbalance the feeling of emptiness that many people feel when they think about themselves and their life.

Empty, not full – Sitting with awareness in the present moment enables us to empty of all the complex thinking and inner noise that our mind is overburdened or overfilled with. We access a sense of ‘empty’ pleasurable inner spaciousness.

Enough, not not -enough – The ‘I am not enough’ script is one of the most common ones that individuals suffer from psychologically. Training to be aware in the present gives us access to a feeling of enough-ness, a sensibility of sufficiency not insufficiency. We can learn to identify with this primary feeling, and meet life from this feeling of ‘enough’, which then becomes a sense of ‘I am enough’.

Strong, not weak – becoming more consciously aware and present leads to a sense of being more gathered and undistracted. Awareness itself is always in the present moment, so focusing upon it leads to less of our energy being dissipated by distraction and thoughts about the past or future. The result of this is a feeling or sensation of being strong in the moment, not weak, and of being centered, not off balance.

Free, not limited – In our mental and physical environment we experience all sorts of limitations,  some external, some internal. In the experience of awareness itself, there is absolute freedom. The choice to be aware is the one thing that no one can take away from us.
 
So, then the practice here is simply to practice being aware of awareness, in the present moment, noticing that when we do so a very basic primal set of pre-cognitive, non-verbal experiences become available to us. We have a sense of being:

  • Full, not empty
  • Empty, not full
  • Enough, not not -enough (sufficiency, not insufficiency)
  • Strong, not weak
  • Free, not limited

If we cultivate these, then we now have a range of pre-psychological, pre-thought building blocks that we can use as a secure base for our sense of self as we think and navigate the world from day to day. This sense of strength, fullness and freedom can accompany us more and more, as our capacity to be aware of awareness grows though our meditation and mindfulness practice.
 
Related readingAwareness, attention, intention – The holy trinity of integral mindfulness
The freedom of awareness

© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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The mindfulness holy trinity, & the engaged mindfulness book & training

“The skill of mindful awareness is actually a pre-skill, meaning that if you are good at it, you can use it to develop any other skill or capacity relatively easily.”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article is on the foundational components of effective mindfulness. If you enjoy it, feel free to join us for the Tuesday or Wednesday meditation class, where it will be a focus point. 

It will also be a focus point of the Engaged mindfulness online class this Saturday 13th July @ 5pm Singapore time. 

I have now expanded my first book Engaged Mindfulness to an ‘Engaged Mindfulness Project’. On this page, you can:

  • Download the PDF copy
  • Buy a hard copy of Engaged Mindfulness
  • Follow the links to the training pages with guided meditations based upon the book, & the online live meditation classes.

Do visit the page, & stay tuned for more details!

In the spirit of engaged mindfulness,

Toby



Awareness, attention, intention – The holy trinity of integral mindfulness
 
This article is designed to encourage people to understand some primary elements of integral mindfulness practice, and to get practicing!
 
Component one – Awareness
Mindfulness is essentially awareness training. Awareness is what is called in objectivist philosophy is called an ‘irreducible primary’. “An irreducible primary is a fact which cannot be analysed (i.e., broken into components) or derived from antecedent facts”. The quality of awareness or consciousness is something that we experience directly, and that cannot be broken down into smaller parts, hence primary. To be alive is to be aware, our only choice is whether we are consciously aware, or unconsciously aware. Thus the first task of mindfulness is to make the choice to be consciously aware, and to sustain that conscious awareness. Put another way:
“Mindfulness is the choice to be consciously aware as we go through life, rather than unconscious, and to direct our awareness consciously and skilfully.”
The skill of mindful awareness is actually a pre-skill, meaning that if you are good at mindful awareness, then you can use that awareness to develop any other skill or capacity relatively easily. Lacking the skill of awareness impairs the development of all other capabilities and skills in life. The capacity for mindful awareness sets you up for success in any given area of life. Lack of awareness impairs that potential.
 
Component two – Attention
The second foundation is conscious attention. The aim with mindfulness practice is to develop the capacity to direct your awareness where you want it to go, using your attention. “What am I trying to focus upon? And where do I need to focus my attention?” Are two fundamental mindfulness questions. Exactly where you need to focus your attention optimally is going to vary from task to task, but good quality mindful attention generally consists of a balanced combination of focus and relaxation. This combination is what I call the mindful-flow state, where we practice the skill of holding our attention on our chosen objects/activities with high quality, relaxed, focused attention.
 
Component three – Intention
Component three is intention. Like awareness and attention, we have an intention present within our mind almost all the time. This intention can be conscious or unconscious. The idea with integral mindfulness is that we become as mindful of our intentions as possible, and are generating them purposefully. ‘Why am I doing this?’ is a fundamental question, mindfully speaking!!
There are an infinite number of specific intentions, but a good place to start is cultivating three general levels of conscious intention with regard to self, other and the world. Underlying all of our other intentions, we hold the intention to:

  • Be of benefit to ourself
  • Be of benefit to our community
  • Be of benefit to the world

These three benevolent intentions can be the guiding light for most of our actions during the day.
 
So, putting these three together then gives us a kind of ‘holy trinity’ of integral mindfulness. All integral mindfulness trainings are designed to improve your awareness, attention and intention. These in turn are fundamental pre-skills that enable you to develop any other skills, and meet your life challenges more effectively.
 
As a practice to get started, simply take as your object of conscious awareness your breathing as you find it. Focus upon it with focused relaxed-attention (mindful flow), with the intention to:

  • Benefit yourself by calming and centering
  • By calming and centering, be of more positive influence to your community
  • By influencing your community in this way, being of benefit to the world

And there you go; you are practicing the holy trinity of integral mindfulness.
 
Related reading: Page 4 of Engaged Mindfulness that you can download as a free PDF of purchase as a hard copy

© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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 meditation sessions & workshops with Toby 


Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Starts Tues /Weds 25th & 26th June, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series:  Meditations for cultivating your inner guidance & guru

Saturday 13th July 5-6pm Singapore time – Engaged mindfulness & meditation online class : An introduction to the art of engaged mindfulness

Saturday 27th July, 5-6pm – Mantra yoga meditation classThis month – Healing meditation with the Medicine Buddha


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Mindful speech, inner chatter, inner power

“If it isn’t true, useful or funny, don’t say it! You can create your own guidelines for your mindful speech practice, but this one is a fun one to get started”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article is on the relationship between your inner power & mindful speech. If you enjoy it, feel free to join us for the Tuesday or Wednesday meditation class, where it will be the subject of the session. 

The workshop I am offering for July is the Psychic & Psychological Self-defense half-day WS, if you are interested in it, let me know and we can look for a time that works for all who want to attend. 

New events this month include the Engaged mindfulness class, and the mantra yoga meditation. both are online, click the links for full details.

In the spirit of mindful speech,

Toby



Mindful speech, inner chatter, inner power
 
Speech and your inner power
At a wedding a few years ago, I met a nun who had been one of my teachers back in the 90’s when I was a Buddhist monk. Asking here about her current practice, she said that she was really enjoying her mantra meditation practice, finding new insights and growth through it. She followed this up by saying that she thought that particularly these days, people dissipated the power of their speech by talking too much, and talking meaninglessly. I think this is worth reflecting upon. When you talk, it is essentially your mental, emotional, and physical energy combining to create the sound vibration. If you are talking too much, and without much meaning then essentially you are diluting your energy, your life-force and its power. Too much of this obviously isn’t great.
Of course, you can also speak meaningfully and powerfully in a way that grows your inner power, creates meaningful connection, and expresses authenticity. So, it’s not about simply speaking less, but speaking consciously and with meaning. Of course that meaning can also be playful, light, fun as well as serious, but not just mindless, impulsive babble!
 
Not just physically silent
The reason we often speak to much and without direction is because it reflects our mind. Our mind is busy talking all the time, full of inner chatter. If we simply don’t say things out loud, that doesn’t solve our energy dissipation problem, because we are still dissipating it through over-thinking! So, like our physical speech, a principle around our mind-chatter should also be something like ‘Think less, think better’.
 
Listening and watching
A good mindfulness practice for reducing your inner and outer chatter is simply to listen more. When you are with others, really try and listen to and make space for what they are saying, and what lies behind it. When you are with yourself, spend time mindfully observing your inner chatter, listening to it, rather than ‘being’ it. Let your energy gather into your inner-listener, rather than being dissipated by your inner chatter-box!
 
Noticing silence
If you practice mindful listening in this way, then amidst the noise, you’ll also start to notice the inner and outer silence. Amongst other things this silence is a place where you can gather your inner power and energy, centering it in the moment, rather than weakening it. Centering around silence means that when you do speak, you speak from your center, with power and purpose.
 
Other people’s chatter
All of the above are helped by editing the quality and amount of distraction you expose yourself to during your day. If you’re filling your mind with information from your phone, the internet, and social media, then it’s almost impossible to talk, listen or be silent mindfully. So, patches of non-doing in your day really help.
 
Below is a short anecdote from Anthony Del Mello’s ‘One minute wisdom’. If it isn’t true, useful or funny, don’t say it! You can create your own guidelines around mindful speech, but this one is a fun one to get started.
 
 
SPEECH
The disciple couldn’t wait to tell the Master the rumour he had heard in the
marketplace.
“Wait a minute,” said the Master, “What you plan to-tell us is it true?”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Is it useful?”
“No. it isn’t.”
“Is it funny?”
“No.”
“Then why should we be hearing it?”
 
Related reading: The way to silence

© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Your headless supermind

“Going headless is designed to radically cut out the internal chatter of your ego, enabling you to sit in relative silence, encountering whatever comes into you awareness without the usual inner commentary”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article focuses on an integral form that I have been using a lot myself recently. If you enjoy the article, then you are invited to this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday class where we will be exploring it in practice. 
 
In the spirit of integration,

Toby
 



Article: Your headless supermind
 
This article offers two meditation techniques, putting them together simply into one where they become mutually enhancing. It is also currently one of my own main practices, so I also thought to share it as an insight into what my own practice looks like right now. Although it is very profound, you can practice it on the level you are at and still get some big benefit pretty quickly! Here is a brief outline of the two practices:
 
Headless-ness – is a practice of imagining that you have no head. As you sit or stand, simply imagine that where your head used to be is a luminous empty space. Your head (and the strong sense of you as an ego that goes with it) is simply not there. One of the things that this is designed to do is to radically cut out the internal chatter of your ego, and enable you to sit in relative silence, encountering whatever comes into that space simply ‘as it is’, without the usual inner commentary.
The technique was originally made well known by Douglas Harding in his book On Having no Head.
 
Supermind – in this context, supermind means simply the ability to witness our life in a multi-perspectival way, and therefore to see much more than we ordinarily would by just looking at things from one or two perspectives. In my previous article on supermind I outline five main perspectives. In this article we will simplify to four, what something looks like from:

  1. Your first person ‘I/me’ space
  2. Your second person ‘we/us’ space
  3. Your third person ‘it’ space
  4. Your ‘integral perspectives’ space

 
Getting started:
 
Firstly, go headless – settle into a comfortable sitting position, relax for a few breaths, and then imagine your head dissolves away. You can see the lower half of your body, and your arms and hands, but they extend from an empty space where your head and shoulders used to be. If initially you find this a bit abstract, simply focus on relaxing your physical brain as much as you can, so that your rate of thinking drops.
 
Then practice supermind – you can either do this with whatever is coming up for you in the moment, or around a particular aspect or challenge in your life. For example, if I take a family dilemma:

  1. My first person ‘I/me’ space – how I am thinking, feeling, and experiencing the situation?
  2. Your second person ‘we/us’ space – how/what the other family members may be experiencing
  3. Your third person ‘it’ space – Viewing the situation as an outsider, an observer or a ‘fly on the wall’ or scientific-objective perspective
  4. Your ‘integral perspectives’ space – put the three above perspectives into a whole, or a totality, where the information from each are interacting and complementing each other

You can also add another perspective or two to the mix if you like. I always like to ask “what is good about this situation?” As a way of bringing a positive spin to my experience. With these 4/5 perspectives, you feel as if you are experiencing the situation and/or yourself in a way that is multi-perspectival, integrated, more complete. This is what we mean by supermind.

Back to headlessness – From your supermind position, then go back to experiencing the situation, but now as a headless person. This means just placing the different elements of the situation into a space where there is no ‘experiencer’, you just let things appear as they are, as if they were doing themselves.
 
This dual approach is designed to:

  • Let you drop out of personal perceptions and experience things as they are through headlessness
  • When considering things as a self-in-the-world, creating a rich , multi-perspectival approach, rather than just being stuck in a monosyllabic I-space all the time

A finishing question for you: What is the difference between the ‘things as they are’ perspective of headlessness, and the above mentioned ‘fly on the wall’ perspective of a third person ‘it’ space?

 
Related articleMindfully enhancing your psychological development
 
Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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 meditation sessions & workshops with Toby 


Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing – Exploring your hidden maps of consciousness –mindfulness meditation for growing up

Tues 18th/Weds 19th June – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Mindfulness for emotional intelligence masterclass – Saturday 22nd June, 2-4pm

Wednesday 26th June, 7.30-8.15pm
 – Free event: Wisdom of Awakening meditation webinar

Starts Tues /Weds 25th & 26th June, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series:  Meditations for cultivating your inner guidance & guru


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Integrating reality & symbolic reality

“Much of what we take for our reality are just mental symbols about reality. Reality itself is something different, something that must be experienced directly”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

There are two ways in which you can use the article below. The first is by reading it and using the example as a way of exploring it in meditation. The second is, having understood the basic idea simply ask yourself the question:

“What do I notice about the inter-relationship between my symbolic reality & reality itself?”

Then just watch your experience mindfully for a period of time & see what you start to notice.
 
Between this message and the article is the events list for June, starting with this weekend’s stress transformation workshop.
 
In the spirit of integration,

Toby

 


Meditation sessions & workshops with Toby in June: 


Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule
 

Saturday 8th June, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Workshop

Tues 18th/Weds 19th June – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Mindfulness for emotional intelligence masterclass – Saturday 22nd June, 10am-12noon

Start
s Tues /Weds 25th & 26th June, 7.30-8.30pm – The Wisdom of Awakening Series:  Meditations for cultivating your inner guidance & guru


Article: Integrating reality & symbolic reality



 
Thinking – the manipulation of symbols
What is thinking really? There are several ways of answering this, I’d like to focus here on thinking as essentially a way of creating and manipulating symbols about our reality. Thinking is not reality itself, but arrangements of symbols representing reality. That’s worth reflecting upon, because when we do, we immediately start to realize that a lot of what we take for our reality is actually just thoughts, or symbols about reality. Reality itself is something different, something that must be experienced directly. This is a main point of meditation, to move beyond our mental symbols, encountering our reality directly, as it is. As the Zen saying goes, “Reality is not what you think!”
 
Integrating symbols & reality

Using symbols to think about reality can either be helpful for us to expand our sense reality, or it can narrow it. One way in which I like to work with mental models or symbols is to take 2-4 mental models of reality, and then cross-reference them. Each model reveals something different and complementary from the other models. When we put them together, you get a richer, more whole and integrated sense of what is be there.
 
A practice involving three models of reality

What I am going to do now is take three models of reality itself from a western religious, Hindu spiritual and Taoist philosophical perspective. Then I will describe how to put them together in a process of mindful enquiry into our experience of reality itself.
 
Model 1: Reality as hierarchical, God at the top, wo/man at the bottom – from a western Christian, (or Hebrew or Islamic) perspective, reality is a hierarchy with God/ Spirit at the top, and humans/earth at the bottom. Our relation to God is that of a servant to a King, and western/middle-eastern religion organizes and expresses itself accordingly. If you think about the Sistine chapel, God is on the roof, man is below (With only hell beneath!). This model can see archaic, but if you look at the way reality organizes itself, it is substantially hierarchical.
 
Model 2: Reality as a drama – in the Hindu & Buddhist model, the world is more like a drama. At the core of every living being is the One Self, or our Buddha Nature. Our outer appearances are like masks in a drama, each personality and aspect playing a role in a drama. Reality is seen as a play of the illusion created by spirit, for the entertainment of spirit.
 
Model 3: Reality as an organism – The Taoist model (the Tao is often described as “the way of nature’) is reality as more organismic in nature; no particular hierarchies, no one thing in charge of creating the rest. Reality is conceived as a network of interrelated parts, moving into and out of balance according to the principle of the Tao (the way) and of yin & yang.
 
So, if you consider each of these three models in turn, you’ll get a sense of the aspects of reality it is trying to describe. Crucially, none of these models are reality itself. Nor are any other approaches, scientific, artistic, sociological, economic etc…Reality is always itself, always a direct experience that we encounter each day.
If you sit quietly with each of these three symbolic representations of reality, cross referencing them with each other, and then with your actual experience of reality, you start to get a rich sense of the wholeness and integration between them, and the relationship between those symbols and reality itself.  If you take a ‘both/and’ rather than an ‘either/or’ approach, the reward is access to an overall sense of wholeness and integration in your life, one that helps us counter the often-pronounced sense of fragmentation and disconnect that characterizes our experience.
 
Related articleMindfully enhancing your psychological development

 
Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Mindful transitioning – Your life as meditation

“Effective mindfulness & meditation is not just about learning to hold particular states in a focused manner, equally importantly it is about the skill of making the transition from one state of mind to another smoothly and ergonomically”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article looks at making transitions in our consciousness as a practice in itself. There is a huge benefit in getting good at this if you take the time to!

In the Tuesday & Wednesday Meditation class this week we will be meditating on our ‘other & we space’; the capacity to see things from another persons point of view, and also become sensitive to the space that lies between people in couples & groups! 

If you know anyone looking to get their meditation practice started, or if you want to get your own practice rebooted, then I recommend this Saturdays session:Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever
And also this Saturday those of you interested in Mantra meditation & spiritual healing will enjoy the Medicine Buddha Healing meditation, 11am-12.15pm.
 
In the spirit of mindful transitioning,

Toby


Mindful transitioning
 
Effective mindfulness and meditation are not just about learning to hold particular states in a focused manner. It is also, and equally importantly about the skill of making the transition from one state of mind to another smoothly and ergonomically.
 
What is the best state of mind to be in?
During the day we do many different activities, each of these requires a different state of mindful attention. For example:

  • The optimal state of attention when at dinner with our partner or date is very different from the state of being focused on work at our workstation. One is more functional and quantitative, the other more open and qualitative
  • Being with children requires a different state of mind from being with adults
  • Singular focus on one task is very different from being in a meeting and ‘reading the room’ with our awareness

So, during the day, in order to be mindfully effective, we need to be able to transition from one state or awareness to another appropriately. If we get stuck rigidly in different states, then we are going to struggle to bring our best to the different things we do, perform to our potential and enjoy each activity. It’s a little bit like martial arts or sports; the movement between shots or punches or single-moment activities is as important as the shots themselves!
 
The basic transition & practice
The basic transition that I like to teach in formal meditation is the one from field awareness to single-pointedness. It looks a bit like this:

  • Field-awareness: For five minutes or so take the position of the observer in your field of awareness, and practice watching the totality of what you notice there. This is like moving a camera to the ‘wide-angle’ position of the lens, so that it takes in the whole of the landscape. Practice mindfulness around the ‘big picture’ in this way
  • Then transition to single-pointedness, focus on one thing within your field of awareness in as singular a manner as possible. Obvious examples would be the breathing, or the weight of the body, or the sounds you hear. This is like closing the aperture of your camera lens so that it zooms on just one thing in the landscape of your mind. Practice building that singularity of focus, editing everything else out for five minutes, before transitioning back to field-awareness

If you meditate for twenty minutes, then you would practice transitioning three times, as well as enjoying the benefits of the actual states themselves. If you brought the time down to changing every two minutes then you would really get better quickly at the transitions.
 
Bringing this into daily life
During the day, I transition from field awareness to single-pointedness many times, and the feeling of doing so combines both personal enjoyment as well as a sense of the day running smoothly and effectively.

  • This morning, I took my daughter to school on the bus. On the ride there I was practicing field awareness, keeping an eye on her and her friends, getting of at the right time etc..
  • On the bus back by myself I zoomed into single-pointedness and did a few energy-mantras in a short five minute meditation, transitioning to a ‘just one thing’ state of mind, which was refreshing.
  • At the beginning of the work day, I go into field awareness, looking at the totality of the day and all that needs to be done. Having assessed the order of the day, I then go into single-pointedness on the next task, in this case my weekly article, which I am twenty minutes into and now nearly finished!

To make my life a ‘working samadhi’ or life as meditation, I need to make the transitions described above smoothly, skilfully and appropriately. If I do that, then my life is literally mostly a meditation! When I arrive at my formal daily meditation and sit down, I’m already very close to meditation, so it’s easy and natural to drop into meditation from daily life. Trying the practice described above (field to single-pointedness) for a few minutes each day can really make a radical difference to your transitioning skill, I really recommend it.
 
Related readingIntegrating field-awareness & single pointedness
Working samadhi

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Integral Meditation Asia

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