Dear All,
How are you? This weeks article focuses on one of the “three pillars” of Integral Meditation Practice, energy meditation. There are a lot of quite “formulaic” forms of energy meditation, but as I hope the article demonstrates meditating upon energy is something that can come very easily and naturally, and provide profound benefits, not least an increase in healthy pleasure, enjoyment and appreciation of both outer and inner sensuality.
Yours in the spirit of abundant and pleasurable energy,
Toby
Energy Meditation; Awakening to the Sensuality of Your Three Bodies
Energy body meditation can serve many purposes, amongst others it can:
- Increase our overall physical, mental and emotional health by increasing the flow of energy in our energy system
- Help us reduce conceptual thoughts and stress in our mind by reconnecting us to the experience of the natural sensuality and pleasure of our physical and subtle bodies
- Provide us with access to higher levels of consciousness by awakening our awareness to the energy bodies which support those higher levels of consciousness
- Sharpen your outer senses, making them more effective in daily life
- Sharpen your inner senses, thus enabling you to sharpen qualities such as your EQ (Emotional intelligence), Social Intelligence and SQ (Spiritual intelligence)
- Increase our natural compassion and empathy for othersYou don’t have to be someone special to start enjoying working with energy in meditation, you just need to have a basic understanding of what we mean by energy, and a simple technique to start to work with that energy, both of which this article aims to provide.
Three energy bodies, not just one
The first thing to realize with energy meditation is that we have at least three basic energy bodies, not just one. These three are:
- Your physical energy body, and the subtle qi/prajnic/bioelectric body that supplies that body with life-force
- Your mental energy body, or the body of energy that you possess that supports your activities of mind
- Your pure awareness body, or the very subtle and formless energy body that supports and facilitates the experience of awareness itself. This is also called the “causal body”, in the sense that is the ground from which our experience of the mental and physical bodies arises.
You can find these energy bodies in your direct experience now without too much difficulty:
- The energy you feel in your physical body now is your physical and bioelectric energy body
- The energy or “feeling tone” that supports the thoughts that are going through your mind right now is your subtle mental body
- The subtle spacious energy that supports your experience of purely being aware right now is your very subtle energy body
Meditating on your Three Energy Bodies
Step 1: Meditating on the sensuality of your physical body
Sitting or lying down, bring your attention onto your physical body, and simply try and feel it in a deeply sensual manner. As you breathe in and out, breathe your awareness into your skin, muscles, bones, organs, and body as a whole. Breathing and connecting with your physical energy body in this way is actually a deeply sensual and pleasurableexperience. Much of our life is spend chasing or longing for genuine pleasure, actually there is a deeply satisfying experience of pleasure that comes from simply being fully connected to and aware of our physical body!
Step 2: Meditating on the “feeling tones” of your mind
Watch your mind, and the thoughts that arise and pass through it. Become aware thateach thought has a feeling tone, vibration or subtle energy associated with it. These subtle feeling tones arise from the mental energy body that supports your mental activities. You can support the positive harmonization of your mental energy body simply by generating a thought with a positive feeling tone, and focusing on that feeling tone, allowing it to fill your mind like a musical note or beautiful colour.
Step 3: Meditating on the texture of inner space and silence
Notice the inner space and silence that surrounds and interpenetrates the thoughts in your mind. Notice the “feeling” of that inner space and silence; it’s very subtle and comfortable texture, a kind of “living emptiness”. That is the energy of your very subtle or formless energy body which supports your awareness itself. Learning to sit and rest in your causal body allows its regenerative energy to start to penetrate and regenerate both our mind (mental body) and body (physical body), healing unhealthy energetic patterns and creating potential for new positive and creative patterns in our body-mind.
As I hope you can see, basic energy meditation as described above can be performed in a very simple way that is enjoyable, beneficial and profound.
Energy meditation is in my opinion important for all meditators to have at least basic competence at, and this is the reason why I teach it as one of the three central pillars of my own “Integral Meditation Practice” workshops and courses. For me personally it has been a main way in which I have come to see that used in the right way, “bodily” feelings, sensuality, pleasure and enjoyment can be vehicles for inner growth and development, rather than impediments or distractions.
© Toby Ouvry 2012, 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
