Openness

The serious student is someone who is prepared to work hard and who is willing to receive correction. To do one without the other is avoidance. Working hard is your own business. It takes years to develop the inner sobriety and ruthlessness to put yourself through the rigours and solitude of the work. If the work was well-defined then it wouldn't be so bad, but this is the last thing it is mainly because of its transformative power: it changes itself and it changes us in its doing so our relationship with it and with everything else through it are constantly changing. Here we are trying to get to grips with the earth beneath our feet and yet the ground is always shifting, so much so that the last thing we possess is balance. And what about the person before you – aren't they more awesome, more alive and more difficult to yield to each time confronted? All signs of progress. We are working on and with energy, especially the vital lively energy that gushes into spaces as they open up. Openness is our prime requisite and it's what makes things – especially life – difficult. But it also makes life more interesting, more alive. Openness has a lot to do with removing constraints, especially those that enable us to settle into categorization – into the known. Openness, or opening, is an ongoing process – we can always be more open – it never ends – so how fortunate we are to have found something we can uncomfortably devote the rest of our lives to without fear of boredom or security ever setting in.