To draw you must close your eyes and sing.

Truth is what's there before we ruin it by thinking about it. There is a fraction of a second separating presence and perception – that's where truth resides. What my teacher called the humour of the natural process. We are involved (connected) long before we become aware, and the task is to inhabit that mindless zone – The Before. Does practising mindfulness eventually get you there? Maybe. It's why young people take drugs – to venture beyond the conscious mind – to be free of consciousness and the dreary responsibilities it demands.

The human mind was designed to worship God not supplant him. We don't do freedom very well.

Since the human race took the technological turn (which started with the mesolithic, a long time before agriculture) we have striven to externalize rather than internalize. It's high time we reversed the trend.

I don't work from nature, I work like nature.

The human race is no longer God's answer, it is Earth's disease.

My 10 year old daughter suffers from morning nausea and stomach cramps. We discussed it recently and I suggested that it may be psychosomatic. She asked what that word meant (her first language is Hebrew) and I said: First in the mind, then in the body. She pondered for a while and said: Dad, it's totally psychosomatic! That brought to mind an event, over 30 years ago, when my teacher was trying, valiantly, to get us feeling each others energy skins. A sceptical student suggested that it may be psychosomatic to which my teacher retorted, with some vehemence: Everything is psychosomatic!

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

When I flew back to Tel Aviv from Gatwick a couple of weeks ago, the plane had a large contingent of Orthodox Jews: black-hatters as I call them, or Stamford Hill Cowboys as they're affectionately termed in Hackney. And, as is their custom on such flights, at one point a quorum of men gathered at the front of the plane to pray. Halfway through their prayers, the chief stewardess interrupted them and ordered them to the back of the plane. So they dutifully marched down the aisle, past us all, still praying, chanting, singing. And boy, were those guys in the zone! It was as though the rest of us didn't exist. They have been my constant inspiration (and companions) ever since.

When you love you lose. Lovers are losers. That's what's so beautiful about being in love. By investing in loss you enter a gift economy and thereby put yourself in the way of grace.

The first stage of Taiji is developing a root. What makes it so difficult is that there are no thoughts underground, just energy, so the student must first train her mind to listen to/for energy rather than thoughts/words. And, as my teacher never tired of repeating, there is only the first stage, constantly reiterating, eternally returning. Human beings don't have the capacity to go further. We must wait, to be reborn as cats or trees or whatever, to go to the next stage, whatever/wherever that is.

How deep is your love? 

Can it go deeper?

When people bore me by regaling the wonderful experiences they've had whilst meditating then all I know for sure is that they haven't made a habit of meditating – they don't practice – they just dabble (then babble) when they feel like it, when it suits them.

If I sit for an hour then I get some place. If I sit for two hours then I get some place else, and that place cannot be gotten to any other way. It all boils down to how much time I'm prepared to put in. Good teaching points in the right direction. Talent enables me to excel, but only over others, never over myself. For that I need hours, plenty of them.

A great teacher fills you with what used to be called fear of God before fear and God became dirty words and we started to design lives where we never had to confront either.

The difficulty with internal work is that its economy is completely contrary to the one we're accustomed to, and questions like What's in it for me? immediately indicate that the student is getting it wrong.

The average student blows hot and cold.