“Whenever you feel scattered, sit in your mandala of presence, & feel the return of your basic sanity”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article explores the idea and practice of a ‘Meditation mandala’ that can be used in various ways to improve the elements of your practice, enjoy!
This week’s Tues/Weds meditation session is on “Envisioning & presence, climbing the mindful mountain”,
And this Saturday at 30th 1700 SG time is the Engaged mindfulness & meditation online class on the subject of the three C’s of engaged mindfulness.
In the spirit of presence,
Toby
Tues & Weds 26th & 27th Nov, 7.30-8.30pm, Integral Meditation class (Live & online): Climbing the mindful mountain; intention & your life-design
“Envisioning involves visualizing with hope, optimism and appropriate ambition a goal that you want to achieve in the future, being specific about what it looks like”
This is a meditation class about:
- How to connect what you do each day to the life you want to manifest
- To link your medium and long term goals to your everyday actions.
- To enjoy this process and build Confidence in yourself as you do it
Article of the week: Your basic mandala of presence – The four trees
We can consider our basic meditation state as being the following:
Not lost in thought, not falling asleep, in the present moment, and aware of an anchor, or focus point in the present, such as the body and breathing
Once we have a sense of our basic meditation state, we can expand the definition a little, just to refine and deepen our sense of presence:
Basic meditative presence is not being lost in thought, not falling asleep, in the present moment, and aware of an anchor, or focus point in the present, such as the body and breathing. Furthermore it is not being absorbed in the future, and not living in the past.
These definitions give us a blue-print for building meditative presence, that we can then use as a basic ‘space’ within which we can place any other meditation practice that we may wish to develop,
- If you want to place basic vipassana or witnessing meditation in there, you can
- If you want to focus on mantra yoga in there, you can
- If you want to do sports visualization you can
- If you want to practice therapeutic mindfulness you can
You get the idea; you can use it for other meditation practices. Equally you can use it as a meditation practice in itself. I like to do this by creating what I call a ‘Mandala of presence’:
Imagine yourself sitting in a peaceful place between four trees, one is in front of you, one behind, one to the left, one to the right. See them as being maybe 2-4 meters distance away. Now simply use your body & breathing as an anchor for your awareness in the present moment, and stay there. The trees are your boundary-points:
- Going beyond the left-hand tree means getting lost in thought
- Going beyond the right-hand tree means falling asleep
- Going beyond the tree behind you means living in the past
- Going beyond the tree in front of you means being lost in the future
Notice you can be present to thoughts without being lost in them. You can also feel a little sleepy without falling asleep. You can be aware of a thought about past or future without living in the past or being lost in the future. So, it is quite a broad, forgiving space that you can hang out in and build stable, good quality, increasingly deep meditative presence.
A simple way to enhance the practice is to breathe as follows:
- Breathing in, breathe your energy into your body, into the present and feel the fullness of that presence
- As you breathe out, relax into the freedom of your awareness in the present
Build your sense of both freedom and fullness of presence as you meditate, dropping gradually deeper and deeper into meditation.
This is a practice I use not just in formal meditation, but also informally. Whenever I feel a little scattered, I bring my attention back to the here and now, sit between the four trees for a while, and return to my basic sanity.
Related reading:
The foundational pillars or ‘goal-posts’ of meditative presence
Finding Your Spiritual, Physical Home
Making your physical awareness balanced & whole
Sky & sun, freedom & fullness© 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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