23 June 2010

belief
in being
understood

22 June 2010

And so forth
objects are
compensatory
substitutes

21 June 2010

Just relax.

If there is a secret to Tai Chi and to life then this is it. A relaxed state is one unconstrained by the strictures of habit.
take care
practice
looking
deeply

20 June 2010


Photo: Hettie Moore
create silence
no
matter
what

19 June 2010

human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love

Plato
As I learn to relax, the fundamental fact of my being is no longer identity (objectness) but energy; and not just the energy that gathers and flows through me but the energy all around that influences me. Gradually I become a servant to energy by falling in love with the principles of energy – the first and foremost being Central Equilibrium: for energy to move I remain still.
on a path
to something
painful

18 June 2010

If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
rock bottom
outside
impinging
inside

17 June 2010

I think that the artists of the twentieth century who resist our understanding are the ones to whom we shall continue to be grateful.

John Cage
Tension is defensive – aggressively so.
ocean
mast
attention

16 June 2010

If we don't know how to preserve our freshness, then we suffer

Thich Nhat Hanh
pure & simple
touching
magical
beauty

15 June 2010

Separateness, then, is the fall – the fall into division, the original lie.

Norman O Brown
The courage to be happy
The wrong sort of strength is a bigger problem than weakness. Correct strength is intrinsic – supports energy. Incorrect strength is extrinsic – supports the illusory – edifices built on fear.
there is
always
the risk

14 June 2010

When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
utter simplicity
Spirit whips up an extending spine and flares in the eyes.
tangible
feeling
a garden

13 June 2010

freshness of feeling
Spirit activates and animates. Without it things are at best correct but never alive.
inroads of the irrational
hands
reflect
the flower

12 June 2010

Any art worthy of its name should address 'life', 'man', 'nature', 'death' and 'tragedy'.

Barnett Newman
properly staffed & equipped
always with awareness
experiment
and make
mistakes

11 June 2010

With slow, soft steps leaving the mountain's steep.

Shelley
Thinking plugs the extending spine – both ends.
Sangha : side by side
two
gather
together

10 June 2010

Patience waits, perseverance continues.

Patience: the calm abiding of the issue of time
Persevere: to continue staunch or constant   OED
My desire was not to "compose," but to project sounds into time, free from a compositional rhetoric that had no place here.

Morton Feldman
Mind is pure expansive extension which I shape not with thinking but with body. My bodily presence is a positive interference in the field – a meaning. And its movements, when internally still, dance with spirit and flow endlessly. No beginning and no end, just a soul becoming free as it sheds all ballast – external and internal.
mountains
or forest
stable heart

09 June 2010

Become the process
We go now to the once-called primitive – to the bush man, the child, or the ape – not to read what we were but what we are.

Robert Duncan
Face up to it
reasons
need
mothering

08 June 2010

Growth is the security of organic life. The security of the imagination lies in calling, all our lives, for more liberty, more rebellion, more belief.

Muriel Rukeyser
Health & equanimity
The thinking mind muddies the waters : the non-thinking mind clears the way.
recover
the lost
memory

07 June 2010

Man distinguished himself as a thinking being and removed himself from the perfection of God's creation. Having left the non-thinking state, he strives by means of his perfected objects, to be again embodied in the perfection of absolute, non-thinking life.

Kazimir Malevich
Little by little erode the stubborn stone in the heart.
no reasons
no
hitches

06 June 2010

Suffering is not being able, for whatever reason, to fight.
But, on the whole, I think pupils prefer to feel that teachers do not have this urgent need to teach . . . to keep at arm's length their own personal difficulties.

DW Winnicott
a gradual return
simple acts
taken for
granted

05 June 2010

between the extremes
a strong sense of swing and a penchant for the snare
a chance
to practice
together

04 June 2010

what looks like a mirror is meant in fact to be passed through: transparency marks a divide

Peter Cole
transition
moments
sembling

03 June 2010

to have or to be
Flow like a flower : flourish like flowers.
make a vow
before turning
the mind

02 June 2010

Let go and sing, and the walls will crumble.
Dismantle the mental
sooner 
or later
the zest

01 June 2010

earth of mind
sun the essence
sky and duty
strength is knowledge
Heaven people
awareness in practice
each person
in touch
that's enough