“Basically then, to sit down in your personal firm with ‘tantric shallowness’ means to narrate with feeling of heat friendliness (self-respect) towards your self, and a confidence in your basic efficacy or adequacy to life”
Expensive Integral Meditators,
Wy is it so troublesome to sit down within the current? In my earlier article on ‘Making it easier to focus deeply‘ I take a look at one side of this. Within the article under I proceed that exploration.
For those who benefit from the article, do pop down both stay or on-line to the Tuesday or Wednesday evening meditation class, the place we will be exploring this theme experientially.
Within the spirit of presence,
Toby
On meditation & ‘tantric shallowness’
The issue: To be current means to change into extra self-aware
One of many challenges that we face with meditation is that it makes us extra current, which in flip brings us right into a extra acutely aware relationship to ourself and what’s going on inside ourselves. After all, that can be the profit and alternative of meditation. However, in the event you don’t have an awesome relationship to your self, and if there are issues about your self within the second (physique consciousness, ideas, feelings) that make you uncomfortable, then attempting to be extra current usually turns into the very last thing that you just wish to be! Far more enticing to be lost in thought, distracted, not present.
So, in a way the artwork of meditation begins with getting snug with your self within the second.
The attribute of fine high quality shallowness
Who feels snug with and by themselves within the second? One reply to that is somebody with wholesome shallowness. What does that imply? Here is a working definition of self-esteem from Nat Branden:
“Regardless of the abundance of books, research, workshops and committees dedicated to the topic of shallowness, there may be little settlement about what it means. Shallowness has two important elements:
- Self-efficacy: Confidence within the means to deal with life’s challenges. Self-efficacy results in a way of management over one’s life.
- Self-respect: Expertise oneself as deserving of happiness, achievement and love. Self-respect makes attainable a way of group with others.
Shallowness is a self-reinforcing attribute. When we now have confidence in our means to assume and act successfully, we are able to persevere when confronted with troublesome challenges. We succeed extra usually than we fail. We type extra nourishing relationships. We count on extra of life and of ourselves.
If we lack confidence, we surrender simply, fail extra usually and aspire to much less. We get much less of what we would like.”
Basically right here then, to sit down in your personal firm with shallowness means to sit down with a sense of heat friendliness (self-respect) towards your self, and a confidence in your basic efficacy or adequacy to life.
Tantric shallowness: Sitting ‘as if’
Tantric follow in meditation is actually to behave ‘as if’. You employ your creativeness to convey the specified consequence into the current. On this case we’re involved with shallowness, so in meditation we sit down and change into current to ourself ‘as if we already had wholesome useful shallowness’:
- As we sit and change into current to our body-mind within the second we lengthen heat, pleasant, respectful emotions to ourself, as if we deserved a wholesome diploma of fundamental pleasure and wellbeing
- We sit with ourselves as if we have been siting with somebody we trusted and whose basic functionality we really feel assured in
If we sit on this manner, then the current second, and our consciousness of ourselves turns into a cushty, enticing place to be. It’s a place the place we really feel secure and welcome, as if within the firm of a very good buddy.
Carried out on this manner, meditation turns into a lot much less effortful as a result of our resistance to the current is far diminished, it’s a spot we wish to be fairly than have a vested curiosity in avoiding!
Observe
You may attempt it for a couple of minutes a day, simply sitting and respiratory with your self and your tantric shallowness. For those who can familiarize your self with this sense and expertise, then you’ll begin to discover it turning into a traditional a part of the way in which you relate to your self. This isn’t simply in meditation, however in your every day actions, your manner of going, being and interacting with the world.
© Toby Ouvry 2023, you’re welcome to make use of or share this text, however please cite Toby because the supply and embody reference to his web site www.tobyouvry.com
Saturday 11th February, 9am-12.30pm – Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership workshop
In a sentence: Learn to work creatively with uncertainty, imperfection and life’s inherent messiness to understand your management and self-leadership potential. Handle stress and nervousness higher utilizing mindfulness together with the sensible philosophy of Wabi-Sabi.
Wabi-Sabi is among the definitive aesthetic actions to emerge from Japan. With origins beginning within the early 15th Century and influenced from Zen Buddhism, Wabi-Sabi turned an aesthetic discovered within the arts and crafts akin to ceramic, flower arranging and inside design. It additionally turned a sensible philosophy and lifestyle. Precept elements of Wabi-Sabi embody:
- An appreciation of the great thing about the impermanent, the imperfect and incomplete
- A recognition of the worth of humility
- A willingness to interact with the unconventional
Mindfulness is the artwork of consideration coaching and presence….read full workshop details
All upcoming lessons and workshops at IMA:
Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule
Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)
Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)
Ongoing – Introduction to Integral Meditation & Mindfulness Practice – An eight-week course
Saturday eleventh February, 9am-12.30pm – Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership workshop
Saturday February twenty sixth, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat
Integral Meditation Asia
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