The problem with living in a culture built on chutzpah is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find anything of real depth and refinement. Internal progress is, as my teacher once put it, a series of going-back-to-square-one's, and this requires a humility and a patience that only comes with long sustained application to a work that appears thankless and unprofitable.

If you have to understand in order to proceed then you'll never get where you need to go which is always beyond the mind.

A real teaching will take you to deep horrible places you'd rather not go, where you've unconsciously hidden your irrational fears. The teacher reassures: all the masters before have had the same ordeal.

Scorch the ego by ignoring it.

A life and being structured by heart rather than mind.

Silence is the most potent form of work.

The real test of a yielding surface is not only it's softness but it's ability to return energy – it's elasticity.

Our terminology is somewhat misleading. Double-weighted means being locked into a static, forceful (non-energetic) unity whereas single-weighted means becoming a Taoist binary: full/empty, up/down, internal/external, body/spirit.

To access the heart simply relax the mind.

Admit that you're bored rigid with the closed loops of self, and allow the spine to ever extend, top and tail.

Learn to rest naturally in God rather than self. It all hinges on this.

The point to be grasped is this, that Heart means the very core of one's being, the centre, without which there is nothing whatever.

Without a spirit fired by transmission, a mind honed with strict discipline, a body conditioned through pain and discomfort, and a soul yearning for union, the work simply serves ego rather than demolishes it.

Make sense through use rather than thought.

The willful misinterpretations of the mediocre student.

Abide in the heart and surrender your acts to the Divine.

It's a fine line between sensibly looking after your energy and pampering yourself stupid. Until the spirit is well awake you'll need a teacher to demark it for you.