Equilibria delicately poised.

Yield pronates
Attack supinates

Imagination is the ability to see things that are not there. Without it we only see what (we think) is there.

The vices most difficult to correct are the ones we see as virtues. Perhaps the worst of these is self-righteousness.

Look up to remember
Look down to think

And Taiji is all about remembering.

hermit   ἐρημίτης   desert-dweller
anchorite   ἀναχωρέω   in retreat

The good student is not the one regularly attending class or the one doing lots of practice or the one hanging on every word from the teacher's mouth but the one who is learning. John once said to me: You do realise that you only started to learn anything from me after Max (my son) was born? And I remember it well. Even though the added commitment meant I couldn't practice all hours as before, the birth of Max woke me up and charged me up and suddenly I was able to really hear what John was saying and then put it into practice. Learning, like everything else, is a matter of spirit.

The vice of sloth (ἀκηδία) is not necessarily laziness but a resistance to necessary work. It's most common manifestation is frenetic busyness (distraction).

Laugh at any master who does not first laugh at himself. 

—Zen saying

The body will only relax and the mind will only quieten when the heart is full of love. The best and probably only way to work on this is through some sort of prayer of adoration.

The older we get, the deeper and more total the work, until that's all there is.

Anyone on an Internal path craves real companionship. In a sense that's what this journal is all about.

When, at 16, it was time to chose A-levels to study at school, I was decidedly undecided. Expected & pressured to do three sciences and try for Oxbridge, I realised that my first love was poetry and my greatest talent was art. So I compromised and chose Physics, Maths and English Lit. And I must admit that the depth of thought I put into Shakespeare far surpassed anything at University, including the PhD.

The infant develops an Ego when it finds itself subject to forces preventing it from letting its energy out – forces that its spirit cannot effectively resist.

The only valid reason to miss practice is if someone you care for needs that time & energy more than you. The imperative here is: Be honest!

I always tell my students that the most important word in Taiji is LISTENING. 

But of course they don't hear.

Knowing the truth doesn't really help.
It must still be uncovered/discovered afresh each time.

It is the nature of Dao to remain a mystery. We cannot know it or understand it. Is all we can do is relax & soften and become a part of it.

Mobilising energy requires spirit.
Mobilising force requires ego (a sense of separation).

A necessary sense that during practice we are doing God's work.

the narcissism of reason

The conspiracy of life : the breathing together of the myriad creatures.

Grundtvig's Church, Copenhagen, Denmark

Realisation of Emptiness engenders Compassion.

—Milarepa 

Or, put another way: 

When mind empties, the heart fills.

The corollary is perhaps more useful: 

We cannot hope to quieten the mind if the heart is not full of love.

just sitting 只管打坐 shikantaza

If I quote liberally, it is not to show off book learning, which at my stage of life can only invite ridicule, but rather to bathe in this kinship of strangers.

—Yi-Fu Tuan

  ART 

 EAR 

HEAR 

HEART 

HEARTH 

 EARTH 

 EAR 

  ART

We are only as good as our practice.

Rather than the opinions in your head defining you, let it be the love in your heart. Meditation is simply time spent dwelling on this. Time well spent.

Torrential rain, even though the weather app says no chance of precipitation. Wonderful that nature still springs surprises.