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 an intimate feeling for sacrum as centre of the structural body. Both keystone of the lower body and foundation stone 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