T'ai Chi Workshop in Blackrock Community Centre this Saturday Long Form 10.30 -11.30 Short Form and Partner Work 11.30 - 1.30 Beginners Lesson 1-2.30

The flute of interior time is played whether we hear it or not, 

What we mean by “love” is its sound coming in.          

When love hits the farthest edge of excess,it reaches a wisdom. 

And the fragrance of that knowledge!

It penetrates our thick bodies,

It goes through walls—

Its network of notes has a structure as if a million suns were  arranged inside.

This tune has truth in it.

Where else have you heard a sound like this?



~Kabir, Robert Bly Translation

  

  



Summer has Arrived !

T'ai Chi Workshop in Blackrock Community Centre this Saturday Long Form 10.30 -11.30 Short Form and Partner Work 11.30 - 1.30 Beginners Lesson 1-2.30

                Holding your attention

              inside the Heart of silence,

                   even the world   

                becomes the Unmanifest.

                          Mooji









PLAY GUITAR for Monday's Class

T'ai Chi Workshop in Blackrock Community Centre this Saturday Long Form 10.30 -11.30 Short Form and Partner Work 11.30 - 1.30 Beginners Lesson 1-2.30

Relax

I am coming to realise that relaxing is a great practice (probably the best one ! ).

I can hardly believe I'm writing that considering how much I like to train and work.

Relaxing is simple but don't be fooled, real relaxation is not easy. At least not for me. As soon as I begin to really relax and let go , my mind takes off with lots of reasons why this is not the right time. "I haven't got there yet, I'll get lazy,",
or sometimes even just a general feeling of unease comes over me as if there is something pressing that has slipped my mind !

These thoughts and sensations are what make relaxation difficult and also paradoxically what make it such a powerful practice. When I persist in spite of these thoughts and sensations, slowly they unravel, I begin to see that they were illusory, my mind's attempt to keep control. My mind's attempt to keep me from trusting life's wisdom and letting life direct my processes rather than figuring things out in my head.

Persisting with relaxation is allowing me to experience how life is looking after me.
It is teaching me how to trust in a greater wisdom than my mind.

Ward Off Left for Blackrock class and Lifting Hands for Wednesday Evening Class

               Think of yourself,  and 

        a subtle image is formed inside the mind.

                  You are not this,

              nor any image or thought.

                 You are the silent

               and formless Awareness,

          Within which innumerable impressions

                 appear and disappear

                     without trace.

                             Mooji



 

             The Supreme is That in which

                even space is perceived.

           Therefore,  You are subtler than space.

                  Contemplate this. 

Mini Form for Monday Morning Class

No class in Blackrock Community Centre Tonight

         Love is always Loving you.

         Without this Love you cannot breathe,

         as without air you cannot live.

         Love is Meditation, Meditation is Love.

         Heart has no frontiers;

         Meditate on This.

         You are this Love, You are That.

         Simply be Quiet and stay as such.

          Papaji

Monday's Lesson Brush left knee and push

       You do not need to leave your room ... 

       Remain sitting at your table and listen.

          Do not even listen, simply wait.

       Do not even wait, be still and solitary.

 The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.

                 It has no choice.

         It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

                            Franz Kafka

Making Friends with the Present Moment

Some months ago, for three successive nights, I was awakened by three insights that came to me – persistently and repeatedly – one per night. The first night's message was: "Only the present moment is real." The second night's message was: "You can trust the present moment." The third night's message was: "Make friends with the present moment."


How do I surrender the primacy of my conditioned mind and egoic will, and allow – moment-by-moment – space for stillness and the arising of my natural state of awareness? Doing so, for me, involves a certain amount of rational insight to initially coax the thinking mind from its constant daydreaming in the foreground into letting go and taking a secondary position in the background. This shift is facilitated by the first night's message.

With the mind's move into the background, my body comes alive, my hearing clears and ambient sounds are bright. I'm alert but feeling a deep peace…I'm fully here, having taken a "backward step" into the present moment. Staying here, however, is a real trick – an all-or-nothing opportunity. One thought – indeed any mind intrusion – and I'm instantly back in my ego identity.

Allowing my ego to step aside requires trust – not only that a larger intelligence is holding me, but that it's capable of actively engaging in my practical affairs. This slow building of trust is assisted by the second night's message.

Some days, when I am especially calm, I can ease into the present moment for longer periods…successfully relaxing into this friendly – indeed loving – universe. Slowly, I'm making friends with the present moment, with being, in accordance with the third night's message. Making friends with the universe is very, very enticing. Like a moth to a flame.

My goal is to abide in presence, allowing being to inform my doing. It entails a fundamental shift of my identity, of who I take myself to be. Am I the ego? Or, am I the consciousness that is observing – with equanimity – from behind the drama? To the ego, simply being sounds dangerously disengaged. But now I know – gradually gradually – that being fully present is radically transformative and just the opposite of passivity, allowing one to be responsive rather than reactive, and in service to the need at hand.

Ultimately, I can think of no higher aspiration than to become an instrument through which larger creative and healing forces of a friendly, loving universe can come into the world. This can only happen in the present moment, with complete trust. Gradually gradually.

-Alan Zulch

Single Whip Part 1 for Wednesday's Class

Warm up exercise : Stepping like a cat.

Silence is helpful, but you don't need it in order to find stillness. Even when there is noise, you can be aware of the stillness underneath the noise, of the space in which the noise arises. That is the inner space of pure awareness, consciousness itself.

You can become aware of awareness as the background to all your sense perceptions, all your thinking. Becoming aware of awareness is the arising of inner stillness.

* * * * *

Pay attention to the gap -- the gap between two thoughts, the brief, silent space between words in a conversation, between the notes of a piano or flute, or the gap between the in-breath and the out-breath.

When you pay attention to those gaps, awareness of 'something' becomes -- just awareness. The formless dimension of pure consciousness arises from within you and replaces identification with form.

* * * * *

True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.

* * * * *

Is stillness just the absence of noise and content? No, it is intelligence itself - the underlying consciousness out of which every form is born. And how could that be separate from who you are?

The form that you think you are came out of that and is being sustained by it.

It is the essence of all galaxies and blades of grass; of all flowers, trees, birds, and all other forms.

* * * * *

Stillness is the only thing in this world that has no form. But then, it is not really a thing, and it is not of this world.

* * * * *

[...] What is wisdom and where is it to be found? Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.

--Eckhart Tolle, from "Stillness Speaks"

White Crane Spreads Wings for Monday morning mini form class

Practice, gradually, you will return to yourself, having learned a new respect for your heart, and the joy that dwells far within slow time.

-John O'Donohue

Ward Off Left for Saturday's Beginners class

Role Back Press and Push, Lesson 4 for Wednesday's Class

T'ai Chi Workshop in Blackrock Community Centre this Saturday Long Form 10.30 -11.30 Short Form and Partner Work 11.30 - 1.30 Beginners Lesson 1-2.30

The mind tells us that the love is outside, it keep us busy looking outside.

When we quieten our minds (even for short periods ) we discover the love inside.

Paradoxically when we find it there it overflows and we find it everywhere we look.

We are love that is all there is.