A willingness to sacrifice shows the student is serious.

I remember my physics teacher at school telling us that toward the end of the nineteenth century scientists really thought they had everything sewn up - just a few loose ends but apart from that, done & dusted. And then Einstein came along and blew everything wide apart. I feel the same with the modern bourgeoisie - they think their lives pretty much sorted and that a little meditation class on Tuesday evening and things would be perfect. But if they really embraced the meditation (or the Taiji or the Yoga) then everything would change, not just the way they feel but their whole value system and world outlook.

Feel it rather than think it

We are all in the same boat. We are all asleep, avoiding the issue. The difference is one of intent.

“Stinking thinking” is the universal addiction.

—Richard Rohr

Too much of a good thing upsets the balance & eventually leads to depression. This should be obvious.

The sacred principle at the heart of bourgeois life is private property. Now we know that the bourgeoisie have everything topsy-turvy so the sacred principle at the heart of the spiritual life must be the commons – commonality – what we share, not just with each other but with all of life – what cannot be owned – S P I R I T !

The courage to remain open

Teacher as significant other

In this noisy, overcrowded world, the most precious commodity is silence.

consistently

vulnerably

patiently

openly

The good teacher doesn't just give you exercises, forms, principles, insights.  She teaches you how to follow your nose.

One principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all.

—Plotinus

Meditation: disappearing into the bigger picture

Back in the late eighties I taught a short introductory course at a classy gym in the Barbican.  I knew they already had judo, karate & taekwondo so I asked the director what they would like from me.  I'd like you to put the art back into martial art,  he replied.  Since then I've always thought of Taiji as an art, and myself as an artist.

not
obsessed
but
possessed

Don’t worry about cool,
make your own uncool.
—Sol LeWitt

Principle: an elemental aspect of a craft or discipline

to be conscious
is to love God

Perhaps the easiest way to become energetic (of energy) is to stand up, raise your heels & bend your knees.  To maintain balance in this posture you need two things: attention & spirit.  When you get these two together then you get energy.

The Daoist Fourfold:

EARTH    HEAVEN    MAN    DAO

Taiji celebrates a conscious working connexion with each element:

EARTH:  gravity, sinking sacrum, bent legs, humility;
HEAVEN:  levity, lifting sternum, light heart, joy;
MAN:  mortality, morality, yielding, spirit;
DAO:  yin/yang, energy, principle, the bigger picture.

This is also prayer.

Consistency is key

Bum-In is one of our treasured principles and one of the easiest to get wrong. It does not mean pulling your tail between your legs like a whipped cur. Imagine the master's hand on your sacrum, heel of the palm just beneath the mingmen (命門) and fingers pointing down the coccyx. The heel of the palm pushes down & forward, driving you deeper into the legs without altering the inclination of the sacrum, and also providing a subtle lift to the thymus (upper sternum). This is the stimulus that moves you forward.

I used to meditate until I learned to stop thinking.
—Agnes Martin

My paintings are about merging, about formlessness
A world without objects, without interruption

The miracle of the figure of eight is that it brings things together and keeps them apart at the same time.

We are born with baggage. The aim of spiritual work is to die lighter than we were at birth.