Free time

I thought I'd reached port, but found myself thrown back into the open sea.

Leibnitz, quoted by Deleuze

Open what is closed

a sustained sensitivity for the exceptional and singular

We think, we feel, we give and take

Self-image is the thinking minds way of taking control.

A heart big enough to contain itself

Heart engulfs first the body. This is how big it needs to be. In fact the body acts as template for the heart – gives it shape and structure. Discontent, which is really just an inability for whatever reason to love, stems from a heart too small to contain (love) itself.

Metanoia denotes a change of mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transformation of outlook . . . and a new way of loving others and the Universe.

Mind out of time, and time out of mind

Tension indicates lack of faith

Heart expresses as much in the foot as it does in the hand or face.

In Tai Chi we strive to balance root and heart – form and feeling. Too much heart and I become carried away with emotion, too much root and I become heartless and unfeeling – detached from my humanity. This balance is not a cancelling out but a growing together in the sense that as one strengthens then so does the other, but also in the sense of entwinement. My struggle to keep root and heart always together pays off in the transformation of each: root softens and lightens and takes on an ethereal quality, and heart becomes gradually physical – almost concrete – in its insistence.

Extend a welcome: invite the other into the hospitality of the heart. The ensuing embrace is the receiving – the bringing in – the realization and acceptance that that moment of melting together is the whole moment – complete and full to overflowing. The excess spills into our future togetherness, and is largely responsible for the becoming – the renewal – of my own heart.

respect and wonder for the irreducible difference of the other