When students ask me what spirit is I just say FAIRY DUST and then point them to the scene from Peter Pan where Peter teaches Wendy and the boys to fly (still my favourite scene from the movies – always makes me cry).

Spirit is the magic ingredient that makes the impossible possible. And, when you think about it, what could be more impossible than LIFE.

Love is a state that I would like to exist in continuously.

—Nick Cave

We live in a culture that constantly bombards us with one message: Money solves all problems. As we get older we begin to suspect that this message is largely false and that the deep pressing problems can only be solved with LOVE. This is why the culture endeavours to keep us infantile – safely locked in as cogs in the machine. The only way to break free is to quiet the mind & open the heart.

There's a story of an Indian master visiting England in the 1930s and meditating in a house that recently had electricity installed. Afterwards he commented that it would now be impossible for people to quieten their minds.

Spend as much time outdoors, away from electricity & electronic devices, as possible. And this includes smartphones.

Work out of your work.
Don't work out of anybody
else's work.

Art, for the most part, is about
concentration, solitude
& determination.
—Richard Serra

For me the most radical & revolutionary work one can engage with is the urgent task of quietening the mind. If your mind is not quiet then it is captured by the machine – the workings of culture & society – all designed to rob us of our real vitality for the sake of baubles.

A little sparrow on the eave drainpipe
My heart flutters

—Jack Kerouac

When the mind quietens & the heart opens (which it will in time) a whole new world opens up: a world of connexion & energy where literally everything sparkles with spirit. We call this world LOVE.

Technology
produces
a godless
world

Or rather
the machine
becomes
the god

Some have to go back
before they can
go forward

The Kingdom of God is that which appears when the mind quietens. And remember: there's quiet & there's quiet.

In most spiritual traditions, otherworldly experiences (visions, out-of-body, universal merging...) are frowned upon until the adept is humble enough for the experiences not to go to their head.

Ea est autem prima humilitas, secunda humilitas, tertia humilitas: et quoties interrogares, hoc dicerem; non quo alia non sint praecepta, quae dicantur, sed nisi humilitas omnia quaecumque bene facimus et praecesserit et comitetur et consecuta fuerit, et proposita quam intueamur, et apposita cui adhaereamus, et imposita qua reprimamur, iam nobis de aliquo bono facto gaudentibus totum extorquet de manu superbia.

That way is first humility, second humility, third humility; and as often as you ask me, I would say the same. Not that there are no other precepts that could be named, but unless humility precedes and accompanies and follows every good thing we do—set before us for us to gaze upon, set beside us for us to cling to, and set over us to restrain us—pride will snatch the whole of it from our hands the moment we begin to rejoice in some good deed.

—St. Augustine of Hippo, Letter 118 (to Dioscorus)

Meditation cannot be rushed – the more anxious you are (about time) the longer it takes to relax & quieten. So if you don't have time then find time or make time, otherwise you're just wasting time.

Stop activity (quiet the mind)
Return to stillness (mind in dantian)
And that stillness will be even more active (heart opens)

Head builds Empire

Heart makes Soul

The eye should learn to listen before it looks.

—Robert Frank

FEEL IT!

As a teacher, this is the phrase I find myself repeating over & over.

What I really mean is: take it to heart rather than head – feel the tender ache of its truth – let it rip you apart or at least open – and definitely don't worry (about) it!

As my teacher once said, only half in jest: If you don't weep at the movies, you have no business being in my classes...

I am hoping to provide a space that visually & spatially
may help us remember or rediscover our inner selves,
our own individual thoughts, feelings & spirits.
—Stephen Antonakos

TRIUNE

Relax the body
Quiet the mind
Free the spirit

Earth
as sink
& source

My teacher used to say:

The most precious thing in the world is peace of mind, and anyone who tries to take it from you is your enemy...

And I always say:

The only thing we all have in common: we are all our own worst enemy...

If you have a noisy mind then
you definitely have
a tense jaw

To be happy is to love (your) life, & vice versa.

The thing we fear most
is nothing(ness)