Perhaps the most important word in my teacher's lexicon is Natural, or, as his teacher put it: 'Natural way best way.' The notion that what is being taught is simply what would happen naturally if it wasn't for an almost violent willfulness, what Robert Creeley aptly called a 'magnanimous cruelty,' exercised by the student against the teacher, the teaching and what these represent, namely the death of ego. If this simple word – Natural – can make you look at this state of affairs and plainly see your own mean-spirited part in it for what it is, then that one word will save you years of chasing your own tail.