As we navigate life we gather maybe a handful of masters – life affirmers – whom we return to whenever we need to be reminded that we have a soul – that we are, first & foremost, creatures of spirit. These could be teachers, writers, artists, performers, friends & family even – people whom you can always count on for inspiration – the proverbial wake-up call.

Yin & Yang unite when the mind stops
This insight comes in flashes as you face fear
These flashes become a steady stream of light
You are truly blessed to know you have no choice
All is energy and everything is in its rightful place
I am with you out of time.

—John Kells

I have adapted this to use as a (silent) chant:

'Yin & 'Yang u'nite
'when the 'mind 'stops

'This 'insight 'flashes
'as you 'face 'fear

'These 'flashes be'come
a 'steady 'stream of 'light

'You are 'truly 'blest
to 'know you 'have no 'choice

'All is 'ener'gy
'in its 'rightful 'place

'I am 'with 'you
'out 'of 'time.

(Apostrophes precede a stressed syllable.)

Each line has three beats (triple time) or can be ended with an added silent beat to give common time. The first line of each verse is the in-breath and the second line the out-breath.

eschew a life
impoverished
by certitude

Montaigne puts not self-satisfied understanding but a consciousness astonished at itself at the core of human existence.

—Maurice Merleau-Ponty

We are hunters.
Hunting for spirit with spirit.

Work in such a way that action & passion are barely discernible.

always return with spirit

always return to spirit

on the edge
of your seat

THE JEWEL

There is this cave
In the air behind my body
That nobody is going to touch:
A cloister, a silence
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind,
My bones turn to dark emeralds.


—James Wright

Eventually, after half a lifetime struggling away, you realise it's all vanity & folly, and you're going to fail (miserably, joyfully – it's your choice) but you continue anyway because it's the only way to live – heroically, selflessly, impeccably – catching occasional glimpses beyond the mundane world.

always alive
to the
possibility

The secret of life?
Never stop delving.

When mind stops thinking it becomes an energy we call awareness.

Following the introjection of external emotions (atmospheres), the world appears neutralised and tragically devoid of all that pathically “moves” human beings; on the other hand, the soul, thus closed-off, turns into a black box from which the five senses escape always only “on parole”, testifying the outside world in a weak way.

—Tonino Griffero

Force is directed by the will
Energy is sparked by spirit

Meditation is the most effective & reliable tool to regain equilibrium & composure.

She was slowly straying from that zone where things have a set shape and edges, where everything has a solid, immutable name. She was sinking deeper into the liquid, quiet, unfathomable region, where mists hung as vague and cool as those of the dawn.

—Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart

Mankind's greatest technological achievement was not the plough or the wheel or the clock or the computer but the Ego. To pull the mind into the head and separate it from Mind-at-large (creating subject & object) was a bold move akin to Lucifer's withdrawal from God (was this Adam's Fall from Grace?) and I'm sure when we first learned to do it it was a temporary useful stunt. The trouble is the world it enabled us to create is so intoxicating that we no longer know how to slip out of Ego and back into Mind-at-large.

Mind is not in the body
The body is in the mind

Working mindfully – slowly, deliberately, intentionally – frees mind, body, spirit for real spontaneity & speed. One of the many paradoxes of Taiji. (Musicians understand.)

When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul.

—Émile Durkheim

Last week I gave an elderly gentleman a massage. His legs were very stiff so at one point I asked him to relax the left hip joint so that I could manipulate the leg. How do I do that? he asked. Just put your mind there, I suggested. He then asked, Is part of the brain down there? I chuckled and tried to explain that mind is not brain and neither is it thinking; it is simply awareness. Just try to be aware of the joint and the tension it contains. And surprisingly it worked.

the world we live in
is a revelation

walking

seeing

I do not search

I search for nothing

finding

—herman de vries

If a man from a previous civilization—an ancient Greek, let us say, or a Roman—suddenly appeared among present-day humanity, his first impressions would probably lead him to regard it as a race of magicians and demigods. But were he a Plato or a Marcus Aurelius and refused to be dazzled by the material wonders created by advanced technology, and were he to examine the human condition more carefully, his first impressions would give place to great dismay.

He would soon notice that, though man has acquired an impressive degree of power over nature, his knowledge of and control over his inner being is very limited. He would perceive that this modern “magician,” capable of descending to the bottom of the ocean and projecting himself to the moon, is largely ignorant of what is going on in the depths of his unconscious and is unable to reach up to the luminous superconscious levels, and to become aware of his true Self. This supposed demigod, controlling great electrical forces with a movement of the finger and flooding the air with sound and pictures for the entertainment of millions, would be seen to be incapable of dealing with his own emotions, impulses, and desires.

—Roberto Assagioli

Rationalisations:
lies we tell
to make ourselves
feel better

My teacher had a damning phrase for students who have yet to establish a daily practice regime: Not ready to begin. The real beginning is when you formally commit to a life dedicated to the teaching. The good student realises quite soon after starting their studies that this is their only chance and that everything else in life pales in comparison, including family and spousal commitments.

When I talk about mainstream culture, I am specifically referring to the “religion of science” (or dogmatic scientism), academic psychology (the cognitive-behavioral paradigm) – a New Age, Disneyfied doctrine (simplistic magical-positive thinking), traditional (monistic) religion, commercial media and social media culture (narcissistic histrionics or hypertransparency). In general, I am referring to all one-dimensional, mainstream thinking that flows from powerful organizations and the ways they wield power, all for their exclusive gain.

—Sergi Rufi

Break on through to the other side

Liang Tung-tsai, my teacher's first Chinese master, had a witty phrase for know-it-all students: Worse than a beginner. Yet in a way we are all worse than beginners because beginners really do have beginner's mind. So until we cultivate beginner's mind – the ability to repeat an exercise with the same enthusiasm and attention we gave it when we first learned it – then we too are worse than a beginner.

To all of us, I believe, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Roman Empire is like a mirror in which we see reflected the brutal, vulgar, powerful yet despairing image of our technological civilization, an imperium which now covers the entire globe, for all nations, capitalist, socialist, and communist, are united in their worship of mass, technique and temporal power. What fascinates and terrifies us about the Roman Empire is not that it finally went smash but that, away from the start, it managed to last for four centuries without creativity, warmth or hope.

—W. H. Auden, 1952

By all means think, but in images not words. Words are abstractions. The word tree is not a tree, and neither does it evoke a tree. Thinking in images is effectively imagining – developing the imagination.

Quiet mind
Empty mind
No mind

The teaching constitutes an attack on the Ego. Without persistent, concerted practice you will develop resistance to that attack and then the teaching won't be able to penetrate – you will effectively have become a poor student.

Depression is the result of turning a blind eye
(Eventually the past catches up with you)

The first book of Thus Spoke Zarathustra begins with the story of three metamorphoses: “How the spirit becomes camel, the camel becomes lion, and how finally the lion becomes child.” The camel is the animal who carries: he carries the weight of established values, the burdens of education, morality, and culture. He carries them into the desert, where he turns into a lion; the lion destroys statues, tramples burdens, and leads the critique of all established values. Finally, the lion must become child, that is, he who represents play and a new beginning, creator of new values and new principles of evaluation.

According to Nietzsche, these three metamorphoses designate, among other things, the different moments of his work, as well as the stages of his life and health. These divisions are no doubt arbitrary: the lion is present in the camel; the child is in the lion; and in the child, there is already the tragic outcome.

—Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche, 1965, included as final chapter in Pure Immanence, 2001

What do all civilisations have in common?

Unsustainability.

Anything worthwhile has a price & a risk

I've yet to meet a therapist capable of turning the therapeutic spotlight back on themselves. Yet without this the life is one of pure pretence.

The search for an equilibrium is essential for the artist, to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.

—Mark Tobey

Content is a glimpse

—Willem de Kooning

Unless you let gravity flow through you it will be a pall dragging you down.

When you make spiritual progress, the body, which always lags behind, often injures. Its way of saying: "Wait for me!" Just be patient and resist fearing you've done something wrong. Eventually, the chances are, one such injury will be the death of you. So be it. This is why those on a spiritual path don't make old old bones.

Refuse to be an accomplice.

—Simone Weil

an inner discipline : a search for truth

Clearly distinguish body, mind & spirit. Gravity pulls the body down. Levity lifts the spirit(s). Selfless attention expands the mind until mind is simply the space you operate within – the boundless field of consciousness. Thoughts & feelings are fleeting tightenings of mind within mind. They come & they go. When they linger too long you have obsession, indulgence, worry & narcissism.

To think about God is to the human soul what breathing is to the human body.

—Jacob Needleman

Practice stale & tedious?

Try reversing your circuits.

Often a change is as good as a rest.

Never stew in your own juices
(Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours)

When you move into a front-foot posture, imagine the master's hand on your sacrum, gently easing it forward & down. Then feel the thymus (upper sternum) reaching up & out.

All fear reduces to fear of death
All love aspires to love of God

A heavy heart will tip the body forward and then the bum will stick out (the cardinal sin of Taiji). A head full of worries (thoughts unrelated to the immediate situation) will do the same.

stones

water

mud

hands

days

symmetry

gravity

wellbeing
independence
opportunism
freedom
dreaming
happenstance

Once, feeling frustrated with my own stupidity – my inability to grasp the ungraspable – I asked my teacher what it was that he was really teaching, because it obviously wasn't Taiji. He said: I'm teaching weak men to survive strong women. He never could resist a dig…

Shaking is your long-lost home.

—Lawrence Shainberg

Energy tends to be a blanket term for anything that can't be understood or shouldn't be understood or will be ruined by any attempt to be understood.

B R E A T H I N G
Pull yourself together
Let yourself go
Repeat

The dantian is a door to the deep unconscious.

Solitude & silence are necessary before it will open.

Then it's like gazing into a restless volcano.

Fascism arises when opinion is taken as truth.

a shiver of silence up the spine

Transformation is a wounding;
a shedding of what went before it.

—Autumn Richardson

Language keeps us safe in the known world. If you have a desire to venture into the unknown then you will need inner silence.

Don't fall victim to your own nobility – develop a ruthless streak. Liang called it enlightened self-interest.

Happy the way things are

silence & insight

God breaks the heart again & again & again until it stays open.

—Hazrat Inayat Khan

When you find your true home you realise you've been living in exile.

The struggle with internal work is to stop struggling

The greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul.

—Josef Pieper

The imagination is a wellspring of images that bubble up from the unconscious when the surface language-drenched mind stops.

Yielding brings energy in from outside
& attack sends energy out from inside

both
quiet
&
intense

Softness dissolves boundaries

In cogitation the thought or attention flits aimlessly about the subject. In meditation it circles round it, that is, it views it systematically, from all sides, gaining perspective. In contemplation it radiates from a centre, that is, as light from the sun it reaches out in an infinite number of ways to things that are related to or dependent on it.

—Ezra Pound, 1909, recalling in his own words ideas from Richard of St. Victor

When I really see the Other
then I see the world
through their
eyes

Yin & Yang are one vital force – the primordial aura.

—Wang Yangming

Forgiveness frees me from the past whilst grace allows me into the future.

The present moment is where forgiveness & grace become one.

The Master is free of four things: He doesn’t have preconceived ideas or foregone conclusions, he isn’t overly certain of himself, he isn’t unyielding, and he isn’t self-centered.

—Kǒngzǐ

Abnegating to the point of erasure

If you're not uncomfortable on a daily basis, you're not making much progress.

—Robin Sharma

If you're in the habit of pleasing yourself, you'll learn nothing.

The good student understands that the teaching's disclosure depends far more on their preparation & receptivity than the teacher's willingness to teach.

Cheng Man-ch'ing's Form is beautiful but if you model your own on that you'll never learn spirit.

Nobility: the ability to selflessly regard the bigger picture.

Everyone wants to be special, and some are, but never the way they think they are.

—John R Kells

Alexander Technique has a practice called Inhibition – pausing before you act – having the presence of mind to catch yourself just before an automatic action and pausing to see if it really is necessary, and if it is, can it be done better – more relaxed, more efficient, more balanced. An example would be reaching for a cigarette. Is it really necessary to hasten your death? Or taking the next breath: catch yourself, pause and then take in that breath deliberately – relaxed, gentle, full – breathing in not only air but also light, warmth and God's love.

gnōthi seauton   γνῶθι σεαυτόν   know thyself

Beware a teacher that tells you what you want to hear

I'm not spiritual, I'm religious – totally bound to the path. I don't chose to practise, I practise because spirit won't allow me not to practise. The only person who understood this was my teacher.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately.

—Henry David Thoreau

The
next
stage
is
always
the
most
difficult

Live
subversively
:
dedicated
to
spirit

Apparently the English word religion has three possible etymological roots, all Latin:

1. Relegere "to go through again" – repetition – practice;
2. Religare "to bind fast" – duty-bound to practise;
3. Religiens "careful" (opposite of negligens).

For the artist the work is always infinite, unfinished.

—Maurice Blanchot

A poetry
uncluttered by
meaning

Stilling the mind we call liberating mind from the mind. Before we can tackle this we must liberate the mind from ignorance & stupidity, which means getting an education: acquiring knowledge, but more importantly, the ability to think clearly, rationally & critically. Having acquired these skills it takes an unusually deep soul to consider turning this tool against itself rather than merely using it to live a more comfortable, pleasurable & desirable life.

一日不做一日不食

One day not work, one day not eat

—Baizhang Huaihai

A touch
that opens up
the abyss

Mind & Nature: A Necessary Unity

Be still and know that I am God

—Psalm 46

It is not that I am empty but rather that Emptiness is I.

—Masao Abe

We live a life estranged from our true nature.

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 difficult 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)

There's no point helping others if they
then refuse to help themselves

There's no point listening if you then refuse to hear.

There's no point looking if you then refuse to see.

If you have a dominant ego then you are an idolater.

The big breakthrough comes when you're finally mature enough to admit your faults, own your faults, and do something about your faults.

It took me 25 years of Taiji to get to this point.

We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns.

—Andrei Tarkovsky

Inside each of us there's a little E.T. aching to go home.

Relax into destiny
into who/what/where
you really are

Keeping depression at bay by rushing around like a headless chicken is what therapists call active depression.

I am trying to find a truth beyond the perils of our extinction, faced with the unconditional love and trust in the eyes of my daughters.

—Joep Beving

toxic positivity

A useful concept being bandied around by therapists

Attention is thinking suspended.

—Eric Weiner

LIANG TUNG-TSAI'S TEN GUIDING PRINCIPLES

From my more than thirty years experience of learning and practicing T’ai Chi, I formulated ten guiding principles so I will know how to deal with people and myself:

1. Nobody can be perfect. Take what is good and discard what is bad.
2. If I believe entirely in books, better not read books. If I rely entirely on teachers, better not have teachers.
3. To remove a mountain is easy, but to change a man’s temperament is more difficult.
4. If there is anything wrong with me, I don’t blame others, I only blame myself.
5. If I want to live longer I must learn T’ai Chi and accomplish it both physically and mentally. To accomplish it mentally is much more difficult.
6. I must learn how to yield, to be tactful, not to be aggressive; to lose (small loss, small gain, great loss, great gain), not to take advantage of others; to give (the more one gives the more one will have).
7. Life begins at seventy. Everything is beautiful! Health is a matter of the utmost importance and all the rest is secondary. Now I must find out how to enjoy excellent health in my whole life and discover the way to immortality.
8. Make one thousand friends, but don’t make one enemy.
9. One must practice what he preaches. Otherwise it is empty talk or a bounced check.
10. To conceal the faults of others and praise their good points is the best policy.

As you work, the mood grows on you.

—Francis Bacon

If you find yourself in a fight then your Taiji has failed you.

All my life
all I've ever

really wanted is
to work in

such a way
I get drawn

ever closer
to God.

The best hours for meditation are between 3 & 5am when the world is sound asleep & dreaming. The hours either side are pretty good too.

The first thing the teacher does is introduce a new vocabulary.

Coming back to a feeling of destiny.

We all begin as mediocre students. Those that get into daily practice become good students, and those that refuse to practise become poor students. Those with good intentions remain mediocre, but as time goes on the chance they will start to practise becomes slimmer & slimmer.

The inevitability
of the return.

Like a trampoline.
Or a bungee.

The reality
we inhabit.

There is really only one choice: do the work or refuse the work.

頂精領起來

The energy at your headtop rises up

腰勁㩑住

The waist gathers the energy together

Only when there's a real risk of failure will success be transformative.

Glimmerings are what the soul’s composed of.

—Seamus Heaney

Put your back into it

Pull your weight

Now that we have lost both Nature & God and the Ego is fully ensconced, life for most is a long battle with depression.

In Taiji communication has little to do with the exchange of information. It's more like joining forces with the Other to generate good energy. Communion would be a better word.

A cat is approaching with its tail erect and you bend down to stroke it which it clearly enjoys. A simple exchange that leaves you both feeing better.

Take care this time of year – after the solstice – when it's a struggle to get going. The year needs to dig deep to muster the energy to rise.

Central Equilibrium : In Suspension

The Suspension of Disbelief

Make the Other an offer they can't refuse. Become so appealing, alluring, welcoming, inviting, enticing, even seductive, that communication is assured.

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.

—The Rambam

Where opinions abound

you're far from the truth

Develop a clear, intimate awareness for sacrum as centre of the structural body. Both keystone of the lower body and cornerstone of the upper body. Then the mind will naturally settle in the dantian.

Beginning is easy
Continuing is hard

A student that doesn't practice (study) is not really a student, they're a tourist.

Vows are a safeguard of continence.

Technology, especially digital technology (our current obsession), robs us of soul.

Practice: repeating the same, drills deeper

When I picture a perfect reader, I always picture a monster of courage and curiosity, also something supple, cunning, cautious, a born adventurer and discoverer.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, Why I Write Such Good Books, Section 3

So deep you disappear

Spirit is the energy of danger. It appears when we're in danger, and hopefully saves our lives when in danger. Spirit is always with the underdog – with the molecular rather than the molar, with the weak rather than the strong. Hence the beatitudes.

Practice: repeating the same generates difference

Life is a long slow process of learning to pray.

Happiness is not getting what you desire but freedom from desire.

Learning to be open in the open.
This is prayer.

At times the truth shines so brilliantly that we perceive it as clear as day. But our nature and habit then draw a veil over our perception, and we return to a darkness almost as dense as before. We are like those who, though beholding frequent flashes of lightning, still find themselves in the thickest darkness of the night.

—Maimonides

Social media is the externalization of ego.

Life evolves
(Make sure you do)

perseverence    ὑπομονή    hupomoné

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

—James 1:4

Live in obscurity

When I told my teacher about Nitsan's obsession with the Root, ever critical he said: You must get your inspiration from the stars, not the Earth.   True enough, but unless you have a damn good root (and everything that goes with it: selflessness, ruthlessness, probity, clarity) you'll never reach the stars.

Anything worth knowing is impossible to tell.
We must find out for ourselves.

rewild
remystify
resacralize
remythologize