It's the root that pulls your bum in.

We spend a life avoiding the issue, especially nowadays when everything is chosen or planned or designed. It's rare to find someone who chooses the difficult path. The good student.

a sacred unity

Softness is the ability to melt

The fundamental concept in Taiji is Full & Empty (Yin & Yang). What makes this impossible to think is that both Full & Empty are endlessly changing into each other. The only way to manage such change is to stop the mind and surrender to it.

Soul is to be found in the vicinity of taboo.

—Thomas Moore

The name of the game (in a nutshell) is transformation – change. Everyone claims to want it but no one really does. If a person really wanted to change then they would. Yet everything remains the same, locked in place.

Meditation: contemplating the mysteries

And what could be more mysterious than life?

Humility, that low, sweet root,
From which all heavenly virtues shoot.

—Thomas Moore

sacred reciprocity

Weight training will change your energy in a way that Taiji could never do. With Taiji it's too easy to fake it whereas with weights it's impossible.

A relaxation
that opens up
the abyss

Meditation: sitting quietly and allowing the heart to fill with the smile of the Buddha

If the notion of God turns you off then instead think Destiny: a Truth both calling from afar and aching to burst forth from your deepest recesses.

The truth is precisely that which we are running from.

wúxin   無心   no-mind

wúwǒ   無我   no-self

If, despite all your work, there's little progress, then maybe you haven't taken the teaching to heart.

The conventional world puts a veil over your eyes.

—Sergio Larrain

Meditation: sitting quietly and waking to the bigger picture.

wúcháng   無常   impermanence

pistēs   πίστης   faith
elpis   ἐλπίς   hope
agāpe   ἀγάπη   charity

Meditation: from fullness to emptiness.

xin  心  heart-mind

It takes two to know one.

—Gregory Bateson

Śūnyatā   Kenosis   Fanā’
(Emptiness)