Nature is first a pageant to us, and then a process; until at last we perceive it to be, in Goethe’s words, the “garment of God” — and withal, the enveloping mantle of man.

the measure of softness is in the touch
the ease and grace with which we slip through the air

responding to touch

quiet & quick

Head is overactive because heart is underactive. (Worry is never an expression of love.) Heart, more than anything, trusts. Head hedges (its bets). Heart is the site of unconditionality. Head qualifies everything.

I am everything because I am only the stream of life, free of accident. I am immortal because all deaths converge in me, from that of the fish to that of Zeus; gathered in me they once again become life, not individual and particular but belonging to nature and thus free.

all the teacher wants is students keen enough to study (practice)

the ravenous ego

compassion roundens
aggression straightens

At school, back in the early seventies, we got a new science teacher. In his first lesson he gave us a little introduction, to himself and to the subject. I remember him stressing that scientists think they are investigating reality whereas in actual fact they are merely investigating models of reality, and never touch reality itself.

Hubris against the essential divine order of nature would be followed by its appropriate nemesis.

like a sun: held together by gravity (integrity, discipline, concentration) yet endlessly beaming life-giving energy

before images form
before words arise

without forgiveness we never let go

The fundamental tension we are trying to release is the self. A thick cloying shell enclosing a kernal of true enlightened self, maintained and reinforced by the constant chatter in the head.

Our method of release is to simultaneously relax & concentrate. Focus the conscious mind onto a point (lower dantien) and release outwards from that point. Centripetal / centrifugal.

The catastrophic event that gave rise to modernity is the loss of the soul of the world.

meditation: stripped to simple heartbeat, counted breath; overwhelmed by being