Each one of us has his own line of the universe to discover, but it is only discovered through tracing it.

real perception participates directly in the creation of what it perceives

Man will rise above earthly things only if a powerful equipment supplies him with the requisite fulcrum. He must use matter as a support if he wants to get away from matter. In other words, the mystical summons up the mechanical.

Positivity is the natural rise of energy throughout the body that manifests when I sink and relax into correct posture (one with the sacrum in correct alignment – "bum in"). This rise gives a delicate lift to each and every cell, supporting and suspending, so that each cell relies less and less upon its neighbours for support, and can thence relax its sticky connexions and learn to vibrate of its own – sing its own tune. Such an energized body – an intense humming multiplicity – is better able to yield – to dissolve and become appropriate to the events that befall it. Negativity is anything that blocks, prevents or resists this rising energy and its creative potential.

the identity of the self is lost to the advantage of an intense multiplicity and a power of metamorphosis

Let the earth become lightness

a play of traces

Shoulders sink
Armpits rise

glimpse : a point of view that by its brightness excludes the purview

sails & veils
furled & unfurled

I stand in the midst of the surging of the breakers

only in moments of pure engagement do we become all that we can be

the violent urgency of the here and now

to express naturing Nature

Fidelity regulates connexion, and vice versa

trust only in the infinite

fidelity to spirit

Truth plunges us into the unknown.

Taiji, on one level, is about the process of actualization: the principles governing being and becoming: how things appear from the void and disappear into the void: how the future spews into the past – the External. In this sense taiji is a means to investigation – it enables us to better understand the world and its workings. For me it is a far superior method than any offered by the usual channels of education (university in particular) because it appreciates that for one's understanding to deepen one's energy must strengthen and refine, and so that becomes its main concern – energy work. On another level however taiji is (or contains) an ancient ritual practice passed down through the ages from master to student, a practice designed to tune the adept directly into the workings of the Tao (to use our terminology). This is the Internal aspect of taiji and in many respects it is the opposite of its external counterpart. The Internal doesn't aim to clarify or to understand but simply to connect and stay connected. It has no interest in clearing the air to better see but instead draws a veil or cloak over the external world  –  a gentle mist  –  in order to foreground that connexion. This connexion is pure heart and is out of linear time.

we who are sustained by the indiscernible truth

The Other offers the possibility to escape the desolation of Oneness.

The Other is forever beyond Self – unattainable. When we practice we touch the Other but we never possess it. This is the beauty of touch – its transience. Only through touch do we really savor time, thereby breaking through to something eternal. Namely connexion.

Truth does not structure or maintain reality but breaks it. A whisper from another time, another plane. Destiny. Hence "The important thing is not to understand but to attain the true." Truth is not of Mind but of Spirit.

Sacred time – time set aside for and consecrated by the Other.

Yin and yang spring from the Void. Taiji from wuji. Two from Nothing. One is nowhere to be found, except in our heads. Any attempt to conceive God as One and Eternal is simply creating an image of our own Ego.

When you touch something, you are that thing,and you are not that thing. That is the whole tragedy of the loving caress.

truths are woven from extreme consequences

a mode of communication that exceeds language

The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates spaces

A heart so large the chest barely contains it.

This is an absolute law: obligation and reciprocity are insurmountable.

Arms issue from the heart, and return to the heart.

Cast away illusions, prepare for struggle.

Each individual life unfolds on two levels, in two dimensions – history and destiny – which coincide only exceptionally.

When the mind repeats something it will struggle to better conform, whereas when the body repeats something it will, if empassioned with a little spirit, find a new way of doing it.

Presence is not enough. I must be present for the Other. Which means I must first forget self, because self is always false – THE big lie – and always splits me off from that which it is not – from Otherness.

When the student of taiji gets serious and settles into a daily practice regime, life takes on a new dimension. Taiji, when done seriously (regularly, selflessly, with life-long commitment), opens up a relationship with the Tao, and the student enters a new world of energy, spirit and destiny. All other relationships draw one into the world with all its things, thoughts, feelings, events, successes, failures. The Tao has nothing to do with this; it is pure mystery, and anything that exists, whilst on one level being an expression of the Tao, is far more an expression of separation from or resistance to the Tao – its very existence means that it is no longer party to the mystery. The problem for the serious student is to somehow live a life constantly juggling the world and the Tao. We cannot live without the world – we must nourish and be nourished – but equally we cannot live a true life without the Tao. There will always be conflict, not least because, in our wisdom, we have built the world largely to deny the Tao.

The mind struggles to perceive itself as a unity in order to make sense of the world. The ego is one.

In taiji we wrest ourselves out of the mind and back into the body. When I am in and of my physical body I reside in my dantien – belly and lower back – and every action I make starts there. When in my mind I live in my head, and this will always inhibit and upset the working of the body – like putting a stopper or cork in a bottle – whatever's inside can only circulate within and so nothing comes out, except in dribs and drabs.

Giving must be sacrificial – for the sake of giving – for the inevitable return to be singularly above and beyond any possible imagining.

Destiny comes to us from the other. Each is the destiny of the other. There is no individual destiny.