embrace the heretical imperative

it's impossible to predict the welling up of a song

Tell a student to do something and they'll do it but they'll do it wrong because they'll do it the way they've always done everything – carelessly, superficially, habitually. The student, to progress, must really look at where it's all coming from. What is the very nature of free spirit?

Whatever comes easy is unappreciated and so misunderstood and so probably wrong.

at an hower when ye thinke not

Any work that is not repentive is by its nature materialistic.

"Do you think I've an antisocial personality?"
"Sure, who hasn't?"

Success depends upon just how honestly you're willing to look at things.

If Dutch courage allows you to enter the joys of creation then so be it.

Plato admonished us to abandon the confines of our cave and venture out into the world. He meant a move from superstition – from standing over (in fear and awe) – to understanding. Unfortunately, with the corrupting passage of time, this amounts to a move from heart to head, from body to mind, from intuition and gut-feeling to mediation through language and mental formation. So life, which Plato hoped would become more real – more enticing and exciting – actually pales and shrinks away because our understanding makes us proud.

Let's face it, most so called internal work amounts to little more than posturing.

The only difference between getting it right and getting it wrong is the presence of spirit.

From unselfconscious immediacy to selfconscious reflection to compassionate presence – being in self, thinking for self, being for other.

Spiritual work starts – and generally falters – with quietening the mind. Without some success here everything is misunderstood.

A good student is in love with the work, for its own sake.

Purity of heart is to will one thing.

The test of true quietude is a vigilant and alert spirit. Otherwise you've merely fallen into a stupor.