“We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.” ― Meister Eckhart
Normally in meditative literature we are used to seeing ourselves being compared to children, and the Divine being compared to a mother or father figure. But what if we, as Meister Eckhart does in the quote above, reverse that and instead think of God or the Divine seeking continually to be born into the world and express itself through us?
What if we think of ourselves as the Mothers of God? How does this change our perception of who we are and what we might be capable of?
The question to then enquire in our meditations and contemplation’s for the beginning of 2014 and beyond is
“What is it that I feel within me that is seeking to be born and express itself through me at this time?”
Or alternatively “What will be my labour of love this year?”
Sit down for a few moments, see yourself as a mother of the divine. Go deep within yourself and see what the Universe has placed there there waiting to be born, wanting to be birthed.
The last official Integral Meditations newsletter for 2013. As I look back on the year one thing emerging for me has been a sense of the ongoing dance of being and becoming in life, and that is what this weeks article is about; how to begin working with this idea through image, contemplation and meditation.
Yours in the spirit of being and becoming,
Toby
The Dance of Being and Becoming
“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” ― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
One simple way of understanding meditation is that it is any practice that enables us to rest, focus within our sense of being-ness and prevent us from being stuck in “doing” mode all the time. Done well, meditation will not only enhance our sense of being-ness whilst we are sitting, it will also give rise to greater fluency and creativity when we do actually get up and start doing something or becoming someone. Ideally meditational awareness creates a complementary dance between the experience of stillness and the experience of activity/becoming in our life; stillness enhances and emboldens our becoming, and the activity of becoming enriches and informs our stillness.
Getting stuck in either extreme To engage in the dance of being and becoming means avoiding two extremes:
Becoming over-attached to stillness and tranquility, as some meditators do
Becoming over-attached and even addicted to over-activity like much of the rest of the world does!
If the being and becoming in our life is to become a beautiful dance, then our being and becoming need to become like dance partners; each aware of the other, responding to each other’s energy and mood, working together, not against each other.
Dancing into the new year As a meditation image over the coming days, you might like to see the sense of being and becoming within you as being like two dance partners. Together they create a beautiful sense of movement and energy in your life, but within the centre of the movement there is always a point of stillness, balance and stability. In your daily life, see your activity as a dance, a perpetual moving across the ever present landscape of stillness and being-ness.
Beginning Sunday 19th January, – Meditation and Mindfulness for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention – A 5 week online course
Wednesday 22nd 7.30-8.30pm – Meditation training session for advanced/intermediate practitioners with Toby
Special Coaching offer at Integral Meditation Asia for December 2013-January 2014!
This is a great opportunity to get some very personally focused coaching for a great price. The only condition is that the three sessions must be completed in the month that they start, so start in December the sessions must be completed in December, likewise start in January the three sessions must be completed in January.
What happens when you throw a boomerang away from you? Of course we all know the answer, it comes back to you. The mystical aspect of practicing deliberate kindness, compassion or any other related positive act is that it tends to come back to you in unexpected but consistent ways. The upshot of this is that if you want to have kindness and compassion expressed toward you, the best way to achieve this is go out there and start practicing it yourself to others.
You might think of it as a form of enlightened self interest where we are creating a win-win situation;
Fulfilling the happiness of others by practicing kindness and consideration for them and,
At the same time helping ourselves create the cause to receive similar treatment now and in the future
Perhaps the most important time to pick up this practice is precisely the time when we feel least like doing it; when we are feeling hard done by, upset or alone or uncared for. If at this time we can remember the boomerang of practicing kindness we can make the effort to go out and express caring for others and ourselves, send something positive out into the world so that we are inviting similar energy to come back to us.
Often an act of kindness has an immediate positive effect upon us; the act of caring itself makes us feel better, or invites a caring response from someone else. It also seems to work in more general ways. For example as a bouncer on the Student Union for three years during my University days I was generally calm and caring. As a result I found myself rarely in fights or trouble, and the punches and head-butts that did get thrown at me always seemed to ‘miss’ (and this was not because I was any good at fighting!)
Another example is I have a tendency to leave my wallet, phone and watch in public places (yes, I know, I’m a mindfulness teacher, I shouldn’t’t be leaving things around all the time!); the toilet in Starbucks, dropping money behind me on the pavement, in the changing room at the sports center and so on…yet they always seem to come back to me in the hand of some kind person.
Of course there is no guarantee that tomorrow I won’t have my wallet stolen and get beaten up in the process, but I do have a strong sense of how my own positive intention actively protects me from the worst that life can throw.
Practicing the boomerang of kindness
So, if you want to take this practice up for the week, just imagine that you have the boomerang of kindness in your hand as you are going about your day. Whenever you have the opportunity, throw it at people. Do it as much as you can, safe in the knowledge that every time you throw it out kindness, consideration and compassion will come back to you some way, somehow.
This is a great opportunity to get some very personally focused coaching for a great price. The only condition is that the three sessions must be completed in the month that they start, so start in December the sessions must be completed in December, likewise start in January the three sessions must be completed in January.
Dear Toby,
I don’t know about you, but for me the run in toward Christmas has been a busy one, and I feel my body and mind a little fatigued as a result! With this in mind in this weeks article I thought I’d share one of the very simple healing meditation forms that I use to keep me pepped up and invigorated through challenging times
As you can also see below I’m also putting out a special coaching offer for December and January, so if you have been wanting some really intensive coaching focus on your life-journey and meditation practice, this is a really good opportunity to take advantage of! The coaching can be done face to face or via skype.
Yours in the spirit of healing and wellbeing,
Toby
On Healing and Meditation
Traditionally meditation was and is associated with the quest for enlightenment, and for contact with God. More recently it has drawn attention for its capacity to relieve stress and promote inner calm, but what about its capacity to heal the mind and body of sickness and ailments?
There are various traditions of healing meditation, from Qi gong meditation and the Tantric traditions in the east, to the Quaballistic (Tree of Life) and nature based spiritualities of the west, to the tribal Shamanic traditions that you find across the world.
The meditation that I outline below is a very simple healing meditation that I use quite extensively myself. The technique is simple, but the depth at which you are able to practice it depends upon your capacity as a meditator. It can be very effective if you are a beginner, but as you grow and become more advanced, you will find this technique will grow in power and effectiveness as you grow.
A Basic Healing Meditation Form
Sit on a chair with the soles of your feet comfortably on the floor. Take a few moments to focus on your breathing, calm your mind and bring your attention into the present moment.
Focus on the Earth beneath you. See and feel within the heart of the Earth there is a huge ocean of light and energy. See two streams of this energy rising up and connecting with you through the soles of your feet, filling your whole body with light and in particular forming an intense ball of light and energy within the centre of your chest.
Now focus your attention upon the sky above you, feel light and energy from the stars, sky and universe flowing down into your body and filling your whole body from top to bottom. In particular see it gathering in the centre of your chest so that you now have a very bright and intense ball of light and energy in the centre of your chest filling being fed by the energy of the Earth below and the sky above.
See and feel this ball of light and energy as being alive and pulsing with energy.
Optional: Bring your hands up to the level of your chest with the tips of the fingers a few inches apart, palms facing inward toward the ball of light. Use your palms to ‘hold’ and focus the ball of light, increasing its intensity.
See and feel the ball of light in the centre of your chest ‘pulsing’ energy out into your body, filling the organs, muscles etc from the centre of the body out to the skin with healing light and energy.
If you have any particular organ or area of the body that needs healing, or where you are aware of fatigue or blocked energy, see and feel the light going into that area.
Begin by doing this just for 5-10minutes at a time, build up to 20.
If you’ve been under stress or upset recently, you’ll know how strong the feeling is to say or do something to get yourself out of that painful situation as quick as possible. However, often our impulse reactions make things worse rather than better. This weeks article explains by analogy how we can most effectively and quickly get ourself out of our mental and emotional pain by first becoming still.
…the best thing that you can do first of all is to stop struggling. This stops the thorns digging into your skin, thus preventing the short term pain, and enables you to see carefully what you need to do in order to free yourself one by one from the individual branches, eventually becoming free from the thorn bush and the pain altogether.
When we are in a thorny mental and emotional space, the instinct can be for us to keep struggling and struggling, trying to find a way to free ourselves from the pain. Actually, the best thing you can do in such a situation is to first still your mind, create some inner space and perspective from which you can start to move yourself out of the situation, step by step.
From lose loose to win-win
Feeling pain and conflict in your mind often results in you feeling compelled to act, often unwisely and non-reflectively. These unwise actions in turn create more friction and pain, which in turn compels you to act once more in an unwise manner. A vicious cycle is established between your busy, uncomfortable mind and inappropriate, unhelpful actions.
A habit of stilling your mind and body when you are in pain and simply watching/observing for a while creates a space for your natural intelligence and wisdom to start functioning. This in turn enables you to see what needs to be done clearly so that you can act in ways that are actually going to solve your issues. This creates a virtuous cycle where the stillness of your mind enables you to act wisely, solve your challenges and thus create more peace of mind.
So, the next time your mind feels painful, busy, uncomfortable think of yourself as being in a thorn bush; relax, pause and then when you are ready slowly and mindfully remove each of the branches from around you, one by one.
If you look at my website, articles and workshops, you’ll see there is quite a lot of material on transforming difficulties, re-directing negativity into positive energy and so on. Who taught me all this? Well I had a meeting with a rat 14 years ago that set me on the right track…
Yours in the spirit of fur and claws,
Toby
The Way of the Rat
When I first came to Asia as a Buddhist Monk in 1999, I stayed for 6 months or so in Johor Bahru at a small Buddhist Centre, whilst making regular trips into Singapore to explore the possibilities of setting up a meditation center there.
Over the 2-3 days of new year period 2000-2001 I was at this small centre, pretty much all alone, and at the time having doubts about my capacity to do the work that I had been asked to do. The meditation center was an apartment on the top story of a shophouse, with the stair well being the only way in and out.
During this period of aloneness and self-doubt, a large rat ran up the stairs from the street and disappeared under a cupboard before I could scare it back out. Realizing I was stuck with it for the night, I shut my bedroom door firmly before bed!
The next morning I was sitting meditating on the floor in the main shrine room, deeply relaxed, when suddenly I felt this pressure on my knee. I opened my eyes and this big rat had crept up on me and now had its front paws on my knee and was staring up at me inquisitively. He only had half of his fur, and was clearly a bit worse for wear! I had actually been in quite deep meditation, and so having a big rat suddenly leaning on my leg and staring up at me really shocked the cr**p out of me! I jumped up very quickly with a yell and he then ran off and hid in my bedroom.
I never saw him again. After checking he had moved out from my bedroom, I left front door open that night, with the metal gate shut, and I think he must have just gone down of his own accord when he found there was nothing much to eat!
Qualities of the rat
My encounter with the rat was the beginning of a series of experiences where I became aware that chance meetings with animals were actually playing and active part in my spiritual path and journey. This was a time in my life where I had really been thrown back on my own resourcefulness and capacity to survive, persist and problem solve as intelligently as I could. What better a companion, example and object of meditation could there be for me than the rat, an animal that survives and thrives in the most difficult, dirty and persecuted of circumstances?
Looking out for animals in your life
If a dragonfly flies through your window and spends a couple of hours with you while you are cooking dinner, or you go for a run and see a snake in the path, it’s worth just exploring what the qualities of the animal are and how its virtues and strengths could be applied to the challenges that you are going through right now. You may find it surprising how quickly your mind can free-associate a tangible and useful meaning between the qualities of the animal and what you need to do.
Re-awakening to our intimacy with the animal kingdom
For our ancestors living close to nature it would have been natural to feel close to animals (to both love and fear them), and to see spiritual meaning in their interactions with them. I think contemporary society has numbed our sense of intimacy with the natural world, but looking out for the coming and going of animals in your life in the way described above can be a first step toward re-awakening our own intimacy with, care for and support from wild creatures, even the dirty ones that live in our drains!
Inner silence is often spoken of as one of the main goals of meditation, but how can you go about getting there? In this week article I talk about something called the “sound of silence” as an object of meditation that can really help enhance our capacity to move into a space beyond thought without too much difficulty.
In the spirit of silence,
Toby
Meditating on the Sound of Silence
When I was young I can remember sitting in my bedroom, or lying on the bed and becoming intensely aware of in inner ‘ringing’ in my ears that became louder and more prominent the quieter my surroundings became. I used to enjoy just listening quietly to this sound and allowing my mind to become free from thought almost effortlessly as a side effect of listening.
Now that I am an adult and a meditator, I find that this inner “sound of silence” makes a very pleasant object of meditation; it is constant, relaxing and, with a little practice you can learn to ‘hear’ it even when there is quite a lot of sound around you. Because it is constant and continuous, it is has a natural relaxing effect on the mind, which gently encourages us to enter into a state of non-thinking.
One way in which you can encourage a greater sense of stillness and silence as you are listening is to focus on your brain and try and find the inner space or cavity in the middle of the brain that the Taoists call the “cavity of original spirit”. This is an actual space in the centre of the brain where, if you place your attention there you find that there is no mental activity whatever, it is literally a silent space that you can find by exploring and finding it using your own awareness. It is in the area where the thymus and hypothalamus are located in the brain, but you really don’t need to know too much about the brains actual anatomy, if you just go into the middle of your brain and explore, you’ll find that there is a specific place where, if you place your attention there it has a naturally quietening effect upon the mind.
Meditating on the sound of silence:
So, a basic meditation on the sound of silence would look something like this:
Sit down somewhere reasonably quiet and focus on listening. After a short while you will start to become aware of a gentle high pitched sound within the ear that is ever present, but that becomes especially prominent when everything around is quiet. Once you have found the sound of silence, simply focus on it gently and allow your mind to relax into the experience.
If you want to, you can then enhance the depth of the silence by combining your focus on the sound of silence with deliberately locating your attention in the central area of the brain, or “cavity of original spirit” as explained above.
Remain focused in this way for as long as you wish, it makes a great short three minute meditation, but you can also use it as a way of moving to deeper, expanded states of consciousness in longer meditations.
Once you have finished the meditation, do take time to ground yourself fully into your physical body and environment, particularly if it is a longer meditation!
This weeks article focuses on practical Zen exercises based around more or less well known quotes that are in the spirit of Zen. The nice thing about all of them is that they are great simplifiers of the mind, and realeasers of our natural intelligence.
Yours in the spirit of Zen,
Toby
Four Zen Meditations
This article is simply a set of four quotes in the spirit of Zen (note, not all from Zen sources, but nevertheless in the spirit of Zen practice), together with a focused contemplation to go with each.
“Knowledge is learning something every day, wisdom is letting go of something every day” – Zen Proverb
We all know that feeling of being overwhelmed by the amount of information coming our way in modern day life. Whilst we definitely need to keep increasing our knowledge, in order to make sure that our wisdom also increases in proportion to our knowledge we also need to spend time dropping our knowledge and resting in a state of simplicity and conscious ‘forgetting’. This means not just once every few months, but once a day!
“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God whilst one is peeling the potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes”- Alan Watts
Pick one or two activities each day where you are focused on a non-conceptual experience of the activity itself, with the amount of conceptual thought kept to a minimum.
“The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method?” – Confucius
It’s very easy to over think and over-complexify when it comes to the things that we need to do in our life, and the motivations with which we do them. Practise pairing down and simplifying your actions so that they are simple, direct and appropriate responses to the demands of the moment. Don’t over think it!
“Only the hand that erases can write the true thing” – Meister Eckhart
Ultimate truth is a non-conceptual phenomenon. The only way you can get to it is though direct observation, penetration and experience of what is right in front of you. Practice erasing your thoughts and just looking at what is there.
A little further practical Zen tid-bit:
“The only Zen that you find on top of a mountain is the Zen that you bring with you” – Robert M Pirsig
Dear Integral Meditators,
Meditation and the development of expanded states of awareness always needs to go hand in glove with psychological development and maturity. This weeks article looks at one method I use in my coaching practice to help people (and myself, I do use it myself!) to develop a more mature psychological vision of what they are experiencing.
An alternative title to this article might be “How do you coach psychological insight and growth?” In my coaching with people, one of the main ways in which I help people to increase the quality and power of their mind is to help them increase the number of points of view from which they are able to look at their life circumstances and challenges.
Normally we think about out life challenges mostly from one point of view – our own, occasionally interspersed with how one of the other people in the situation might be feeling or thinking. Not surprisingly, as a result our vision of our life and the circumstances remains very limited and partial.
The aim of the exercise that I will be explaining below is to turn the way you view a life challenge from a partial vision to a more integral or integrated vision. An integral vision is simply one that is able to take many perspectives on the situation, each of which will reveal a certain part of the REALITY of what is going on. The more points of view you can take in, the more “whole” and integrated your understanding of what is happening will be.
Developing an Integrated Vision on One of Your Life Challenges:
This is an exercise that I sometimes do with clients. You can simply do it mentally as you are reading through it if you like, but it really starts to take off as an mind development tool when you do it as a written exercise.
Begin by selecting a situation or life challenge that you wish to process. Think of it clearly in your mind, or write it down.
Then ask yourself these eight questions, write freely and quickly without over-analyzing:
1) What is my personal experience and perspective of the situation?
2) How might the other person/peoples involved be experiencing the situation?
3) What does a 3rd person or objective experience of the situation look like?
4) What might a “spiritual” (spiritual in your own terms) interpretation of the situation be?
5) Describe the situation in purely sensory and physical terms
6) How would you describe the principle feelings involved?
7) What are the economics of the situation?
8) Of the people involved, who is looking to gain what from the situation?
Now consider what you have written or thought about with each question, considering each one in turn.
Then, finally ask:
9) Taking into account all of the perspectives I have considered above, what might be the wisest way to positively move forward in the situation right now?
The first eight questions are designed to give you an integral or fully rounded vision, or set of perspectives about what is actually happening in your life challenge. This gives you your “integral vision”. With all the insights you have gained, question eight then asks you to make the all important step of turning your vision into action.
I’m a great believer in power napping, in fact I am quite a believer in napping in general! This is not just because it is a good way of relaxing, from a meditation training point of view a nap offers a great opportunity to bring the experience of our ordinary everyday mind together with states of deeper, formless awareness. The article below offers a simple technique for making greater and more effective use of a power nap.
Just in case you missed it, here is the link to the Shadow Meditation free audio recordings that I sent our midweek, they are simple and effective ways to start developing an experience of working with your shadow.
Shifting Down the Gears – On Meditation and Power Napping
Let’s say you have ten minutes for a power nap during your day. The problem is that, by the time you get to the end of ten minutes your mind only has only just started slowing down fully enough for you to become truly relaxed, so the amount of actual fully rested time you get is not that substantial.
The following technique is one that you can use to slow down your mind in order to achieve a state of mental and physical deep calm and lucid resting relatively quickly. The key is not to try and go from active mind to totally still mind in one leap; rather it needs to be done progressively in stages.
Once you are lying down or sitting comfortably simply become aware of the current activity in your mind. Think of this natural activity and momentum as being like a car in fourth gear cruising along the road at say 50 kmh.
After watching the activity in your mind for a short time, deliberately try and reduce the amount of momentum/activity in your mind just slightly, as if you were shifting down from fourth to third gear in a car, and reducing your speed from 50kmh to 30-35kmh. You can use the exhalation if you like; as you breathe out feel the pace of your mind gently reducing…
Once you are in “third gear” then after a minute or so take the pace of your mind down another increment, like going from third gear to second gear, or from 30kmh to 15kmh. Again, use the exhalation of you like as a way of doing this.
After another minute or so of “second gear”, take your mind down another incremental level, down to first gear, or 5kmh or so. Again use the breathing to do this, or just mentally “reduce speed” just slightly.
Now you are down in “first gear”, your almost at a standstill, the mind is slow and relaxed. When you are ready try and let go of all activity in the mind and simply move into a state of deep, still resting. Stay there for the remainder of your power nap. Even if you can’t keep your mind totally still for the rest of the time, the state of relaxation that you will have achieved by this progressive “winding down” of your mind will still be deeper than it would otherwise be.
“We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.” ― Meister Eckhart
The Way of the Rat
Shifting Down the Gears – On Meditation and Power Napping