Yoga: From the bestselling author of THE ADVERSARY

The misery we’ve all experienced when, sitting on the crapper in the cold, yellow light of a sleepless night, we think about the noble image we desperately try to convey to others, and the horrible truth of what really dwells within us, in the secrecy of our hearts and our crappers. Fear, shame and hatred: the grand trinity. That’s something we all

There’s a sentence by Schopenhauer that makes me laugh a lot: ‘The best way to think smart things is not to think twaddle.’

also watched a documentary about Ram Dass on Netflix. Ram Dass, whose real name was Richard Alpert, was an apostle of LSD in the 1960s, along with Timothy Leary. Later

yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.

Mr and Mrs Térieur had two boys, twins. What did they call them? Alex and Alain. I love that joke. In French Alex Térieur means ‘on the outside’, and Alain Térieur means ‘on the inside’. And with every book I write, there’s always a moment when I think it could be called The Brothers Térieur.

Meditation is sitting silent and motionless. Meditation is everything that happens in your consciousness while you’re sitting silent and motionless. Meditation is creating a witness inside you who monitors the whirlwind of thoughts without being swept away by them. Meditation is seeing things as they are. Meditation is detaching from what you call

‘If you’d known, what would it have changed?’

Glenn Gould’s maxim, which I’ve copied so often into so many successive notebooks: ‘The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.’

suddenly interrupted by Paul’s stunned, almost shocked voice: ‘Emmanuel, what are you doing? How are you typing?’ I look up, not really following. ‘Tell me it’s not true: are you typing with one finger?’ ‘Yes, I’m typing with one finger. I’ve always typed with one finger.’ ‘Now wait a minute,’ Paul goes on with growing amazement, as if he was gradu