next time you fancy an exotic break, instead of costa rica or iceland or laos just wake up to the uncanny strangeness in the familiar and local

ego is man's arrogance

in giving give cleanly otherwise you create problems for later

We are social creatures and we crave to belong. Club membership: family, nation, taiji school, friendship group. But at some point we must break away and go it alone. Only then do we begin to discover what it all means.

I have understood a writer only when I can act in his spirit, when, without constricting his individuality, I can translate him and change him in diverse ways.

endangered by openness

there must be risk otherwise there is no spirit

open the possibility of success by falling in love with the work

ego requires endless novelty otherwise it gets bored

this is why the practice is repetitive and samey

the jews have it right – it takes forty years

pharoah is the ego, egypt the human universe, moshe the teacher, desert is endless practice...

penetrate the blinding veil of ease and obviousness

spirit is a phoenix

it rises refined and purified from its own ashes

dead to the world

too clever for our own good

the only way to diminish ego is with discipline and self–sacrifice

what castaneda called impeccability

nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself

the natural part of us is the spirit

ego is not just unnatural, it is against nature

of cheerful countenance

when you become obsessed with letting go, madness is always a possibility

utilise the spirit to re-enchant the world

this is how we return the favour – the gift of life

what is wrong with us is our life as a whole

we must become so quiet, so sunk, so rooted, so centred that we can easily manage a semi-permanent state of awestruck astonishment

like being startled all the time without losing equilibrium

of blithe spirit

taiji is a practical philosophy

if you don't find yourself fiercely resisting the teaching then you are not really listening – you are hearing what you want to hear

the teaching should challenge on every level

otherwise why bother?

work on philosophy is actually more of a kind of work on oneself

it takes a lifetime of daily practice to unpack and unravel an internal teaching

depression is a natural consequence of stripping the world of spirit

undo self-mystifcations

practise what you've been taught rather than what you want

The world must be romanticized. In this way one rediscovers its original meaning. Romanticizing is nothing but a qualitative raising to a higher power. The lower self becomes identified with a better self. Insofar as I give the commonplace a higher meaning, the ordinary a mysterious countenance, the known the dignity of the unknown, the finite an appearance of infinity, I romanticize it.

fullness is a descending tightening spiral
emptiness a rising expanding spiral

the cost of safety and comfort is depression

lucifer drives a tesla

the next stage is only reached via illness or injury

something needs to break

I would sooner condone the harshest despotism (as a school for the flexibility of the spirit) than the humid tepid air of an age of "feedom of the press," in which all spirit becomes comfortable and stupid...

meditation rehearses the moment of dying – the final letting go

don't just move, become movement

true listening renders one speechless

the only way to succeed in internal work is to harbour the conviction that the work is more important than you

anyone who listens is fundamentally open

taiji starts not when you commence instruction but when you establish a daily practice

in taiji yielding always precedes attack and listening always precedes saying

otherwise there is no aptness and we cannot be anything but ugly

true listening always heeds what is heard

we tend to consider other cultures as inferior to our own, and this becomes an excuse not to listen

the other only has a chance of being heard if we assume she is superior

dao is right before your eyes but very hard to see

meditation is not about donning a mask of quietness or a mask of calm or a mask of mindfulness but of waiting patiently for all masks to fall away so that you can experience the world as it is – ever sparkling with spirit – rather than seeing only projections from your own mind

inhibit the desire to look down

that which can be known without ruin is not worth knowing

'bum in' means sacrum directly beneath the heart so that the legs can buoy it (the heart) up

posture is then a natural prayer of adoration

we teach estrangement in every sense of the word

The human universe has become so all encompassing that we never venture outside it. What is beyond is now the exclusive realm of specialists. Individually we have become more parochial and limited as we have developed as a species. And the heart, which is the prime organ for connecting with what is beyond, has become a site of feeble sentiment rather than the home of a fiercely active spirit.

we cannot seem to know a thing without ruining it

spirit transforms stress into stimulus

sinking energy droops the eyelids
rising energy lifts the eyebrows

like everyone I was born a land animal – but now I must become a sea animal!

a mind that observes rather than controls

god is an umbrella term

all things weird and wonderful

god-fearingness is an inner demand to be at my giving best regardless of how i feel and what i think

there must be an authority above the self and above social law

think of it as the voice of naked conscience

seeing things as similar and making things the same is the sign of weak eyes

let the other draw from you what they need rather than you giving only what you want

all things bright and beautiful

buddhism + daoism = zen

sit down and up straight

sitting down is the intent to practise
sitting up straight is the attent to practice

to ensure that you will always have a practice until you can practice no more, you only need one thing: dailyness

ego holds us together

to let go we must develop another anchor: peace of mind

meditation: sit still and let go

ego translates the stream of consciousness into a torrent of commentary

relaxation in taiji is simply letting go of control (of ego) so that all our component parts can separate out and come into their own

in daoist terminology it is allowing yin and yang to emerge from the greyness and play together

the compassionate mind is the arena of this emergence and activity
and dantien is the gravitational centre holding it all together

life itself, in its overflowing dynamic state of flux, resists and subverts as it unfolds as an auto-poietic force

bring a little heart and soul to everything you do and you will become a giver and will develop goodness

this is the most important thing in life

ego is full of itself

the urgent need to dismantle human privilege and exceptionality

both utterly streetwise and freely naïve

man knows nothing
till he knows how not-to-know

no time for practice?

life is a matter of priorities, and practice is prior to almost everything

a good teacher will ensure that you never lose beginner's mind

if this means forever telling you that you know nothing then so be it

listen sympathetically rather than critically

let your listening lead you to the source of what's being said

releasing tension isn't so difficult

what is difficult is finding the deep inner sobriety to permit such release

but if you want to breathe deep, sumptuous life
breathe all alone, in silence, in the dark,
and see nothing

what is it that makes life ordinary? ego

what is it that makes life extraordinary? spirit

it's your choice

poetry speaks of spirit: mystery, beauty and valour

so quiet you could hear a pin drop

the last thing people want nowadays is internal work

give them a few 'spiritual' experiences to supplement their bourgeois lives and they're happy, for the time being

Thou shalt acknowledge the wonder!

the world is full of charlatans: 'teachers' to tell you exactly what you want to hear

this hegemony of bourgeois values : a gentle stranglehold

a space divested of spirit we call a state of affairs

life does not exist in facts but in a flow

nothing will work unless you do

if it's socially acceptable, the chances are it's bad for the spirit, in the long run

a space invested with spirit we call a transcendental field

run sheer into the thick of battle

consider a children's playground with its swings, slide, merry-go-round and seesaw

all devices designed to give the child an experience of pure movement – of energy

and the poem, from its homeless home,
writes of blindsight and silence

start the day with caffeine and end the day with alcohol?

chances are you're addicted to uppers and downers

there's no excuse

the best way to give back to the world is to wake up to it

sensitive not only to the world's impact upon the self but to the self's impact upon the world

the flame of god is the soul of man

a sensitivity that attenuates consumption

an ever refining frugality

in the meantime

keenly aware of both ecology and economy

tending hearth & home

ego is the big know-it-all in us all

HAMM: Nature has forgotten us.
CLOV: There's no more nature.

meditation is where we can let our selves go without making fools of ourselves

bourgeois reality is so seductive that most don't bother to consider alternatives

when i observe my students it becomes clear that what holds them back is a lack of imagination – an inability to intuit alternative realities