the soul's radical innocence

Light head-top : lifting & shining. Brain must rebalance, away from frontal lobe toward cerebellum. Tip of tongue on roof of mouth, projecting through pineal to head-top.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

learning to be perenially cheerful
this is the work
our first responsibility

no one escapes responsibility

endlessly unravelling into the world
coming undone

When the mind quietens, your centre shifts, and everything changes. Then no place to dwell but the real.

rituals performed in private
change the face of the world

ego is your very own personal fetish

full of feeling
empty of emotion

the freedom to change

When teaching, guard against flights of fancy – extravagant extrapolations of the indulgent mind.

The self says, I am;
The heart says, I am less;
The spirit says, you are Nothing.

when practising try out (test) everything that crops up

ego is the ultimate false idol

real change requires a complete dismantling

BREAKFAST 

1/2 tsp each of various powders (spirulina, matcha, moringa, cocoa, ginger, cinnamon...) 

3 tsp each of seeds & berries (chia, pumpkin, flax, sunflower, sesame, cranberries, blueberries...) 

mix together well

add enough soya milk to cover & 1/2 tsp honey 

stir well so everything wet 

leave to sit until solid (30 mins) 

add tahina, peanut butter, oils (olive, avocado, flax, hemp, pumpkin, coconut, milk thistle...) 

beat into a sticky disgusting mess

eat slowly, chewing well

For better or worse, it is the human kingdom that now reigns on earth, threatening to cut the very roots of the Tree of Life.

dervish whirling
flesh flung outward
centrifugal

spirit gathered
around a hearth
centripetal

we practise to change
to stand more revealed

choosing not to see won't make it go away

Daoism: nature / spirit
Confucianism: man / mind

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

making a voyage of the heart

from vague to certain
and back again

new sights, old sounds: exotic destinations, same old shit in the head

With a good vertical posture (chin pulled in lengthening the neck and sacrum hanging heavily lengthening the lumbar spine) then the three dantiens (belly heart head) are on a line from the crown of the head to the perineum.

language is a device for taking the mystery out of reality

don't take sides
very difficult when one side is your own

the movement of return

re-enchant the world

Taiji (yin/yang) is not a dialectic, not two opposing principles, thesis & antithesis producing a synthesis, but two complementary processes, each producing the other. Excess of yang produces yin, and vice versa. An easy example is night becomes day then day becomes night.

Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. Persons appear by entering into relation with other persons.

When a journalist asked Gandhi to sum up the secret of life in three words he said: Renounce and enjoy!

ego: the great mediator

wandering & wondering

It is telling, is it not, that the rise of the ego in human history coincided with the switch from matriarchal to patriarchal societies.

Philosophy is the act of interrogating the most familiar to reveal it as the most strange.

if you must think then think the unthought – think the unthinkable

juggling the principles

Belly seeks Earth. Heart seeks Heaven. In meditation it is the hoop of the linked arms that contains this conflict of interests. Yielding: unifying opposites within containing roundness.

If only I'd been taken under the wing of wisdom. I suspect we all think this at some point as we approach the end. But that wing was always inside and not outside – inside the heart. If you come to this, on your own, then, I suspect, you are saved.

in my younger days, my name
was wild apricot tree in a fertile field

Every experience, no matter how trivial or mundane, contains a jewel. We have to live with such faith otherwise we waste a life.

unset the jaw

it's not your thoughts that define you but your energy – the unique quality of your spirit

Next time it's time to practise, cast your mind back to how it felt to be consumed by mad passionate love. Then bring a cast of that passion to your work. This is a positive use of mind. Recollection. Remembrance. À la recherche du temps perdu.

the art of obtaining freedom from the fundamental human disability of egoism

as wonder brings thought to a halt so quietening the mind should plunge one into wonderment

interstices between the pigeonholes

visualisation is thinking in images rather than words

Observe the physical tensions involved in formulating thoughts. Tensions that maintain a distance: keeping the world where it belongs: safely at bay. This is how we maintain the illusion of control.

What is Zen? Simple, simple, so simple. Infinite gratitude toward all things past; infinite service to all things present; infinite responsibility to all things future.

find inspiration (poetry) everywhere

trial & error

a slow but steady war of attrition (against ego) is the most we mortals can muster

The teacher provides the means to progress. We still have to do the work. But without their guidance, that work is hit & miss at best.

Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

absorbing energy through deep breathing

formless & essential

become an open window to the divine source

To begin with we learn a Form. This must be practised asiduously to get it as close to your teacher's as possible. Always working from basic principles; always coming back to those principles. Eventually the Form is so internalised that it becomes second nature. Then the real work starts: practising the Form to take you back to your first nature. This requires a judicious breaking of principles to come to a deeper understanding of what they really mean. Somehow coaxing the energy to take you deeper than your understanding. Using Form to reach the formless. What Ueshiba called using spirit to transcend form.

To be modern is to destroy nature.

we only improve the world by improving ourselves

become a better person – a bigger heart

prayer keeps a channel open

We repeat (the Form) not to produce identical copies but to generate variations (differences) some of which may strike a chord and warrant further investigation. This is the nature of practice / progress.

sheltering the daydreamer and encouraging charged stillness

once on the downhill slope we need to attend to three things: flexibility  balance  emptiness

jolted out of my stupor

demystify the arcane and remystify the mundane

The teacher should feel that she has no choice but to teach. This means that the student needs to be so empty that their very presence sucks the teaching from the teacher. This is extremely difficult especially as we get older – more full of ourselves and therefore more stagnant.

The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human is medieval.

the next stage is always the most difficult

practice & patience go hand in hand

practice prepares you for the other

An internal teaching has little to do with acquiring information or knowledge. It teaches an immediate & intense engagement with reality, which requires a dismantling of your world (the buffer that inevitably builds up to protect the self from reality). This, of course, is purely the realm of spirit.

Happiness is not found in things you possess, but in what you have the courage to release.

it's not the things you chose to do that make you a better person but the demands thrust upon you

practice requires solitude

internal work is all about dealing with karma by breaking habits

There is a world of difference between working for love of self (health, fitness, pleasure, fulfilment, longevity) and working for love of God (passion, spirit, intensity, creativity, yielding).

the world, lacking closure, requires ongoing imaginative and interpretive efforts

practice prepares you for the other

nature : yin

nurture : yang

quietening to maintain an open channel

For an internal teaching to reveal itself conditions must be just right. Teacher inspired & willing. Student attentive & prepared.

Truth is a relational process.

the good teacher practises what she teaches

taking a leisurely stroll

the good teacher should be an even better student

Imagination becomes reality. My teacher despised this apothegm of Liang's but, for me, it gains daily.

those great oaks whose roots reach the center of the earth and whose branches touch the heaven

if you want the crown chakra to open to heaven then the root chakra must first open to earth

it's all about winning the fight
the fight with your own self

an intensity that wakes you up to a world others cannot see

Our quiet mind is not only free of thoughts (empty-mind), it has abandoned the ability to think (no-mind). Such a mind, being real (eminently natural), encounters a world of wonderment, a world teeming and sparkling with spirits.

It is only the things we don't understand that have any meaning.

until the student has established a daily practice regime they are not really a student

taiji is for life not just for Christmas

meditation: an intense & radiant form of life

If the posture is right then prayer (lifting heart & mind to God in the absence of thoughts) is entirely natural. The levity that balances gravity.

the curse of mankind, that which keeps our manhood so little and so depraved, is its sense of selfhood, and the absurd abominable opinionativeness it engenders

practice: trying to find the right switch to flick then plucking up the courage to flick it then gathering the strength to keep it on

wise & simple alike

meditation becomes prayer the moment you forget self

Feel the universe as an infinite array of connecting threads. Prayer opens up to such a thread and allows cosmic energy to stream through you. Prayer reconnects to god, the universe, destiny, the bigger picture, the infinite. It requires openness & surrender.

getting past oneself in order to wake up to a reality outpacing one’s intentions

depression is a luxury & indulgence none of us can afford

true meaning is always beyond us

spiritual work endeavours to break the karmic cycle
this requires lots of faith, patience, compassion and humility

We all want to be loved. But to be loved (by anyone other than mummy) we must become lovable. And the sure way to become lovable is to learn to truly love. It's all very simple. Really.

Europe is overpopulated, the world will soon be in the same condition, and if the self-reproduction of man is not rationalized... we shall have war.

attending to the world as if for the first time

instances of hard-won balance & poise

always at risk : without guarantees

The nicest thing ever said to me was from a stranger who, upon watching my Form, said: "It looks like you've been doing Taiji since before you were born."

maybe being powerful means to be fragile

conscience is the closest most of us get to the voice of God
an inner, if not innate, knowing that hasn't been learnt

nothing more lonely than being in wrong company

like an artist 

you cannot 

not work

As an artwork is an avenue into the artist's soul, so is your Taiji. It should expose & reveal the real you as nothing else can.

We are too alive to die, and too dead to live.

a living teaching generates its own material but there's no way you could tell anyone about it except maybe in verse or song

ego is obsessed with thinking 

at the expense of feeling & being

inspir(it)ed

Being is becoming. The basic message of Buddhism. Interconnexion. Interpenetration. Everything connected. Everything bleeding into everything else. We must feel this as a reality rather than think it as concept.

I stand before a tree. I behold that tree. I allow my being to receive an impression of that tree and thereby I become the tree. I am impressionable. And as I behold (become) the tree so the tree beholds (becomes) me. I both behold and am beheld (and thereby beholden). This is what connexion means and is perfectly natural. 

The internal monologue prevents this process. It protects us from becoming the world. This is understandable since the world we have made for ourselves is largely ugly, boring and demeaning, and this is why it is imperative that we encounter the natural world regularly. Otherwise we forget what it means to be really alive.

I allow myself eddies of meaning:

it all went wrong when we learnt to lie

learnt to overrule heart with head

basic & beautiful

A conviction that you work from divine command rather than choice, and to neglect the work would offend the gods.

When I used to work with my teacher, very occasionally, maybe twice a year, in the heat of a really intense moment, my legs would buckle beneath me and I would collapse. It would happen very suddenly, but I would always get the sense that it was a terrified response to an immensity that had suddenly appeared, and then as quickly disappeared. I now realise that that was Reality – a total openness – and the work is all about becoming strong and sober enough to live in that realm (or at least very close by) permanently.

Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

Charming, enchanting, bewitchingly so, to secure connexion, then incisively ruthless. Yield & attack.

the knowledge that you know nothing

the work cuts through mood to reveal energy

Instead of 'attack,' think of pouring into the world.
Instead of 'yield,' think of containing the world.
This is our thinking: intending rather than worrying.

There is no Space or Time
Only Intensity!

most spiritual work I've encountered lacks one vital ingredient: spirit

bristle with attentiveness

Spiritual work starts when the mind stops. I've said this before and, I dare say, I'll say it again.

Consider a seed patient in the earth. Rain triggers growth. The seed's first act is to send a root down, gathering nutrients, so a shoot can thrust up. Gravity doesn't do the work. Gravity simply allows the seed to tell up from down. 

In the human body it is the same. Dantien/mingmen is the seed. Our root actively drives down from here so our spirit can thrust up. Gravity won't do the work for you. It assists but you still have to actively drive down through the legs and into the ground. Only then can a free spirit reach up the spine for the stars.

God is Reality without actuality and we are actuality without reality.

present tensions & conflicts worldwide are an inevitable result of overpopulation – it's only going to get worse

most qigong I've encountered lacks one vital ingredient, namely, qi

we use mind for meditation intuition belief rather than thinking

Keep to a yielding mind: ready to yield rather than already having yielded. Proceed by melting into flow: open & reaching out like an amoeba.

down he goes, as if / dreaming gravity’s smoothest dream

afterworld: the biggest picture

high arousal

the most radical position nowadays is to be without opinion

I'm basically lazy: I love (more than anything) just sitting there (here) – doing nothing.

Poetry is not the record of an event: it is an event.

in meditation, posture is everything

ego never listens

let yourself go
go to pieces

Prayer opens a channel between the heart and God. God is a sense of something beyond what I can possibly know. Something for which, in my quietest moments, I realise that I long to rejoin.

I was born with a divine jewel
Long since filmed with dust.
This morning, wiped clean, it mirrors
Streams and mountains, without end.

when mind settles in dantien
and heart opens & yearns
—for god, for love, for home—
then head becomes a starburst

shrug off that chip on the shoulder

keep posture fluid: maintained by the flow of energy through it rather than a held stiffness

When you listen do you hear only what you expect to hear or do you dare to hear what's there?

All’s harmony, yet everything is separate.

slough that chip on the shoulder

ego assumes it knows

the sage cannot take sides : endlessly navigating the space between

mind empty of thoughts 

heart full with longing 

spirit a flickering flame

All feeling has been civilized out of me.

like a river about to burst its banks

religious about practice
suspicious of theory

pumped: filled with energetic excitement and enthusiasm

Part of you adheres religiously to a system whilst another part of you dreams of breaking free.

The important thing is that your work be something no one else could do.

nothing corrupts posture as a heavy heart

making drudgery divine

the gradual effacement of oneself

Forcing the world to a rational image goes against spirit. It may bring order for a while but will ultimately be a disaster.

We must travel in the direction of our fear.

something that simply exists without ego or intentions

zìrán  自然  nature

feel cranium sacrum sternum as composite – each made of parts – and let the parts move play dance – if only a little

Most have an overactive mind and a heart hidden beneath rigid layers of fear – conditioning and comformity. Spiritual work endeavours to bring a settled stillness to the mind and a repining restlessness to the heart – a longing for home.

The world is not what I think, but what I live.

instead of incessantly talking to yourself and reinforcing ego rather talk to god and ask for help

no borders

wúxiàn  無限  infinite

spiritual is the yearning heart
reaching for god
for home

free of desire we see subtleties
not free we see only things

ego is the fearful mind
reducing everything
to me & mine

patience is the ground of maturity

an arduous journey from head to heart; no distance at all

Do your homework otherwise the teacher will get bored, and the teaching/learning process will grind to a halt.

Man is ruining the pleasant earth & man.

the student's readiness makes the teaching tumble forth

speculation is for idle minds

far better practise wrong than not at all

Karma is Newton's 3rd law of motion (for every action there is an equal & opposite reaction) playing out over time.

I do not understand; but I believe.

little clues everywhere if only you pay attention

the work both matures and renews

feet like limpets

Civilisation, by pushing away nature, Earth's and our own, cows the spirit into submission. We think our modern lives rich and diverse, full of reasonable choices, but in actuality we are weaker, more limited and more dependent than ever.

nor petrify live miracle by our indifference

timeliness & timelessness

come out to play

a spiritual life simply places god (dao dharma) centre-stage instead of self

When, during meditation, you begin to look at it, you realise that the internal monologue is an indulgence in self-pity.

I am like a tree in a forest, full of leaves, blossoms and fruit. Birds come to eat and nest, and animals seek rest in its shade. Yet the tree does not know itself. It follows its own nature. It is as it is.

mind must become quiet & still so that energy can build up and start to move of its own, directed not by you but by spirit

touchy-feely

stillness ἡσυχία hesychia
spiritedness θυμός thymos

Stillness. Mind in dantien. The stillness of my mind. But the reason I become still is not to retreat and disconnect from the world, but so my listening can probe into the world.

If I am anything at all, I am
the instrument of the world's passion and not
the doer or the done to. It is to feel.
You, also, are such an instrument.

everything done tactfully – as though with touch

dantien draws into itself

ripples up & down the spine

Talking silently to oneself is akin to self-abuse – masturbation. It stagnates energy and corrupts posture. Nothing at all like talking aloud with the other.

Virtue is a pre-requisite for concentration.

our work stokes the inner fire and enflames the spirit

assuage with touch

vision: outlook & insight

Whenever we touch something then energy flows both ways across the interface. Feel this intimacy, and cultivate a mind that encourages the flow. This I call enthusiasm.

Pain is intense sensation, and sensation is nothing but reality perceiving itself.

reality is my intense engagement with the world
a living, ongoing, process of transformation

meditation as incubation

on your mettle: no time to think, reason or argue

Ego, whenever it gets the chance, will bask. In it's own glory or it's own misery, it make no difference.

Although I have worked hard to decolonize my work and heart, it is a work in progress.

more like a feeding animal than a rational human being

without taking a risk you won't reach the edge

before we can move on we must pass through zero

The last thing emptiness is is empty. Full of potential, ambience, energy, atmosphere, plenitude. Just empty of me.

Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

an active mind keeps the world out
an active heart welcomes the world in

always poised for action

taiji: a machine for reconnexion

The taiji teacher's job is twofold: 

• use their spirit to awaken your spirit 
• teach a form which you can use to maintain and develop that spirit.

'meaning' is the refuge the human mind seeks as a safe harbor within infinity

beware resting on your laurels

meditation: back to ground zero

meditation:   0 = ∞   (taking self out of the equation)

A good Christian doesn't just believe in Christ, she endeavours to become Christ.

Where are we really going? Always home.

we improve by facing & embracing difficulty

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