you know that feeling when you're meditating and if only you could let go a fraction more the heart would open for good and the spirit would fly upward and that would be it?

hearing in the sense of hearkening and heeding is a transposition of hearing proper into the realm of the spiritual

faith connects us to a source 

hope to a destination or future 

and love to a giving present

all a-tremble

we think our godless human universe so large and rich and true, yet it is smaller, poorer and falser than it has ever been – suffocating

the noisy mind is largely worry and anxiety – a closed masturbatory loop 

open it up and reach far beyond the self

One way of looking at paradox is as an indicator that we are dealing with two apparently valid world-pictures which yet do not concur.

ego – like most of our maladies – is largely a circulation problem

spirit is a natural instrument of critique

it cuts through everything divisible

spirit of vitality – the life force — élan vital

The mysterious aspect of the teaching is what is known as The Transmission. An injection of spirit from the teacher which awakens and rewilds your spirit. It means that a tiny but significant part of you is no longer domesticated or broken. With practice this seed grows and slowly takes over. Consumed by the gentle fire of an untrammelled spirit.

One can think of romanticism as the discovery that the everyday is an exceptional achievement.

a certain energy can only be produced

in conditions where people work together

reciprocity is the golden rule

if you desire to get back to nature (and who doesn't) then work on spirit

it's the only part of us remotely natural

beginner's mind is innocent, enthusiastic, eager, apprehensive, and above all, uncritical – it lacks experience against which to measure and judge so it swallows everything the teacher says

the ordinary is precisely not what is obvious, but rather that which passes in the normal run of things unnoticed and untouched, though it sits in plain view before us