Progress

Disciple: How can I keep from regressing?
Bankei: Abide in the Unborn Buddha Mind. When you do, you won't need to bother about advancing or regressing. In fact, when you abide in the Unborn, trying to advance is to instantly regress from the place of the Unborn.

Till now we have worked from the outside on what is within; now we tarry in the centre and rule what is external. Hitherto it was a service in aid of the Master; now it is a dissemination of the commands of this Master.  The Secret of the Golden Flower

Our advance in the practice of spirituality is the gradual increase of the habit of living in the spirit, not in the flesh -- that is, identifying our real self with the 'point of the soul', not with the emotions and imaginations.  Dom John Chapman

The whole of the spiritual life is lived backwards. There is no visible progress henceforward, no room for self-congratulation; only more and more distrust of self and confidence in God.  Dom John Chapman

I know full well that the more the soul sees of God, the more it desires him.  Julian of Norwich

And when all footholds disappear, you must know how to climb upon your own head: how could you climb upward otherwise? Nietzsche

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