No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.

become medium for energy

innocent & infinite

meditation: melting into the natural process – the flow of time

Your centre is still and dark and silent – certainly wordless. If words are present then you are not in your centre. At best loitering in the lobby.

The weaker consciousness and the power of reflection become, the more brightly the things reveal themselves.

softness is making space for the other

empty of words
fill with worlds

meditation: acquiring a sense of restraint

When we die: that's it, it's all over.
When, at the deepest level, we can admit that, then we're there.

Our ancestors lit candles in praise of the night.

talking to yourself is the first sign of madness
we are all insane

the spirit of emptiness

hood the eyes, the ears, the head

The more you advance down this path the more full-time it becomes. No longer about technique or skill or anything special but a continuous empty mind.

The opening closes in on us, the closing opens out of us.

under the cloak of darkness
things merge and become one

destiny: a sense of homing in

the teaching is a treasure any sane mind should covet

internal work is an acquired taste but once acquired impossible to give up

a live, intricately articulated, intense whole

with spirit comes courage and joy

meditation: attending the moment

lift yourself in steadfastness

softness comes to those who wake up to the astonishing fact that energy is far more interesting than they are

Poems spurn skimming.

the gods have flown
our work (arousing selfless spirit) calls them back

teacher knows best

it takes many thousands of hours over much of a lifetime so the only way it will happen is if you love the work

Listening to Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Final Tour (1960). Trane's irritation (he didn't want to tour but Miles persuaded him) is clearly audible in his magnificently angry solos. A perfect example of thymos.

For the one who yearned
the hint was enough, and hints are,
since long ago, the language of the gods.

we relax only when we stop identifying with our tension

the teacher uses words to stimulate you to practice rather than furnish you with understanding

we have meaning only to the extent that we have connexions beyond ourselves

Heart has two centres:

• Eros – the deep lower (female) heart – containing the spirit of gathering, connexion, unification.
• Thymos – the upper surface (male) heart – containing the spirit of parting, expression, freedom.

Eros gravitates toward belly/earth and thymos reaches up to head/heavens. Our job is to maintain a balance.

Thus the dark has its own limpidity.

taiji is corrective: correcting posture, energy and character

break the tyranny of language

listening in

the real (reality) is not so much the things of the world but their relationships – the vast web of connexion and connectedness

a certain body tone says the poem is happening

the incessant chatter in the head is there to block out the real – to avoid listening and responding – to shirk responsibility

we use the words poem and poetry to indicate heightened awareness

do you have it in your heart to keep a dream alive for the duration? 

When the mind stops a new world opens up – a world of power – of intense relationality where every thing touches and affects – each detail of utmost importance.

growth is a striving and reaching, an unfurling of oneself into greater openness

communication is energy exchange
nothing to do with words

getting worked up

poetizing is responding creatively to the world of connexion that opens up when the mind quietens

We train the mind not by cramming it with information and knowledge but by teaching it to be quiet. Only then can it really listen.

Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.

active in the sense of poetizing

scraping a living

when performing taiji
be in your element

stop holding on to the solidity you assume reality to be

en nattant les cheveux du silence

our problems stem from thinking we have a choice

unselfing

captivated & enthralled by the phenomenological richness of the moment

we don't choose who we love but that shouldn't stop us from loving

nothing sudden can appear without that preparatory work of preservation

the goal of practice is not proficiency or expertise or knowledge but beginner's mind

an old soul

softness softens and ensoftens

If teacher says you need to practice and you do not then you willfully mock both teacher and teaching.

. . . poetically man dwells . . .

a mind struck speechless by the phenomenological density of the moment

a listening that bristles