The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner 

                           attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

               -  William James

Here is the Short form for Saturday's class.

Photo from Michael in Toronto -beautiful.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter 

rises was often times filled with your tears. And how else can it be ?

- Kahlil Gibran

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

Mini Form for Monday morning class

I have been reflecting on how I love myself best.  For me , it means taking time to practice tai chi and to meditate. To have some silence in my day so I can tune in and feel what is going on inside. To notice the thoughts that are robbing me of my peace or my ability to engage fully with whoever I am with or whatever I am doing. This realization often comes later on reflection , then I like to do a Byron Katie worksheet  on my beliefs about that person or my beliefs about them or the situation , this usually shows me my mind ,my limiting beliefs, the ones that are keeping me stuck in judgement and separation. This is not to beat myself up but to compassionately care for myself to encourage that aspect of me that knows there is no need to separate myself from the Love  inside, which is always waiting for me to rediscover It.

More and more I am coming to realize that our most important work is to Love ourselves.
To learn be compassionate with ourselves at all times, this is not a cop out rather it is the road less travelled.
It is the journey within to find true unconditional Love for ourselves. It is a redirecting our attention from seeking Love and approval outside in the world to discovering what our own internal blocks are and working to let those blocks dissolve so we can truly Love ourselves. It means to stop postponing Loving until some point in time in the future when we have  ' worked it all out ' but to begin right here right Now to give ourselves total unconditional Love. Try it right now .  .   .  .  .  .
Notice any blocks  ( like I'm not good enough yet ) tell yourself this is just the thinking mind sabotaging your intention and go ahead and give yourself the Love you truly deserve. .  .  .  .  .   The Love that everyone everywhere deserves.
 Become part of a great Healing for yourself, this world and all of us sharing this incarnation together.
Join me and dedicate today to Loving ourselves for today , let's just do it one day at a time.

Tai Chi Warm - ups

Here is the first video  of the warm - ups as promised to my Tuesday morning class. Once you watch one the others will pop up on the screen and  you can access them there on vimeo.  Hope they are helpful.

The best approach to tai chi in my experience is to just practice each day and allow the practice to teach you.
John Kells  who introduced this form to Europe in the seventies would say
  " Never let high standards get in the way of your practice. " and he also remind us often that,
  " Your tai chi on any day is perfect for that day and that point in your life . "
 In other words we cannot go beyond our evolution, each time we practice it is just perfect for  that session.
  With this in mind give yourself whole heartedly to your tai chi and it will give you many blessings in return. You can enjoy, a greater sense of grace in movement , greater calmness of mind, more strength in your body, these are just a few of the benefits so give yourself the gift of practice you really do deserve to have time each day to be nourished from within.

Lesson 1 of the mini form for Monday morning's class

My mind is very seductive and mostly tries ans often succeeds in distracting me from being fully present to the immediate moment. It lures me off on some tangent and I find myself  ' figuring out some strategy ' until somehow awareness arises and catching myself lost in thought I'm back here and now. Again and again the play continues, some days it's easy to keep a soft alert awareness some days it feels like my mind is churning in all directions at once and being  present to that Self is almost impossible, but just by staying soft and watching the mind's antics it eventually settles down.  Somehow I finally let go of actually believing that it has anything worthwhile to offer and once again realise that the real wisdom comes from somewhere beyond my mind.
This is not another thought but rather a dropping away of thoughts , the peace that arises then is beyond any control of mine it is a pure gift for which I am eternally grateful.

                      Looking into the eyes

                            of others,

               seeing beyond one's mental projections,

                       judgements and fears,

            a presence is recognised that doesn't belong

                    to education, or race or gender.

                     It cannot be described.

                     It cannot be defined.

                         Once confirmed 

                     as our own Supreme Self, 

                         we cannot fail

                      to recognise It in all.

                                      Mooji

Response Vs. Reaction

When I was 19 and 20, part of what drove my urge to awaken was that we were still in the midst of the Cold War, and it looked as though we might imminently drop bombs on each other. I saw the insanity and violence, and it occurred to me that we were all waiting for someone to solve this problem for us -- waiting for our politics to change, for our leaders to change, for some grand leader to inspire us. And somehow I just intuitively sensed that there must be a change of perspective, something much more radical inside. This mantra came to my mind, and it fed my awakening: "If not me, then who? If not now, then when?" And this brought all of the energy back to me.

I started to see, from the standpoint of oneness, that when we look at the world around us and our leaders, it’s important to see them as our own self. And that can be shocking. If it’s all one, then the leaders we don’t like are our own self, our shadow side, which society is denying. Instead of owning these forces of division and violence within ourselves, we project them onto somebody else. We get angry. It’s sort of a noble anger, a noble hatred, a noble division, and it’s easy to justify. “I am right because I’m a peace activist or an environmental activist.” We miss that this anger, no matter how justified, is still inside the movement of division—and it’s only contributing to division. If the cause is wholeness or the cause is peace, then the cause is good—but the ends do not justify the means. Hate is hate; it doesn’t matter why we hate. Anger is anger; it doesn’t really matter why you’re dividing yourself against somebody. In the universe, it registers as division.

When we start to see that, we can see that we are not justified in our divisions. If we are harboring division, we are violent, and that violence will manifest sooner or later. It’s sobering to see this, but when you do, it takes away the justification for being divided.

That’s what I started to see at a young age. My concern drove me to a deeper place, this place that we’re called to when we speak of spiritual awakening. Now from that place, we can have a very active response to the world rather than a reaction against it. A response is inherently positive; a reaction is inherently negative and divisive. A great thing about coming to our own wholeness is that it’s not as though we just sit on our couch and see that everything is perfect. We do see that everything is perfect—but from that sense of perfection arise great love, great compassion, and a great response to the life around us. It’s a response that is undivided. As a whole, as a world culture, if there is going to be a salvation, it’s going to have to come from the human heart being undivided. And to get there, we all have to wake up.

-Adyashanti, in Quiet Revolution

Short Form from Monday's Class. Happy Holidays see you all in the Autumn.

There is ( in my opinion ) no end to the benefits of relaxation. By relaxation I don't just mean consciously relaxing each part of the body through various awareness exercises although this is important .
 The relaxation I'm referring to here assumes that you can already consciously relax. Once you are aware of the feeling of relaxation in the body then just keep relaxing through out the day , relax into each task as if there is nothing else to do in life except this task.
As you practice this, life will get simpler and easier you will begin to trust the relaxation more. The more you trust the relaxation the easier it will be to let go of worrying and trust life.
Join me in this practice and we shall lighten and relax our minds and the world around us.

Find a place inside where there is joy and the joy will burn out the pain.
                                                                          Joseph Cambell

Let your capitol be simplicity and contentment .

                                          - Thoreau

Just take a few minutes to relax and breathe.

 Feel the cool air as it moves in through your nostrils.

And feel the warm air as you breathe out through your nostrils.

Just give Yourself a few minutes of Your time to just breathe and realize

how simple it is to relax and BE.

Rollback Press and Push for Saturday's Class

 New Atoms Doing the Same Dance

 I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the
 rushing waves ... mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own
 business ... trillions apart ... yet forming white surf in unison.
 Ages on ages ... before any eyes could see ... year after year ...
 thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what?
 ... on a dead planet, with no life to entertain. 
 Never at rest ... tortured by energy ... wasted
 prodigiously by the sun ... poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. 
 Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till
 complex new ones are formed. 
 They make others like themselves ... and a new dance starts.

 Growing in size and complexity ... living things, masses of atoms, DNA,
 protein ... dancing a pattern ever more intricate.  Out of the cradle
 onto the dry land ... here it is standing ... atoms with
 consciousness ... matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea ...
 wonders at wondering ... I ... a universe of atoms ... 
 an atom in the universe.
 The same thrill, the same awe and mystery, come again and again when we
 look at any problem deeply enough. With more knowledge comes deeper,
 more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. 
 Never concerned that the answer may prove disappointing, but with 
 pleasure and confidence we turn over each new stone to find unimagined
 strangeness leading on to more wonderful questions and mysteries --
 certainly a grand adventure! [...] 

 This is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms
 of the brain to be replaced by other atoms, to note that the thing which
 I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance. The atoms come into
 my brain, dance a dance, then go out; always new atoms but always doing
 the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday. [...] 

 What, then, is the meaning of it all? What can we say to dispel the 
  mystery  of experience? If we take everything into account,

 not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today

 that they didn't know, then I think that we must frankly

 admit that we do not know. But in admitting this, we have
 probably found the open channel. 

--Richard Feynman, in Value of Science