Walking the WayAccessing our inner world starts with connecting with this ‘me’ that we rub shoulders with each moment of our daily life without truly paying attention to it. Knowing what this ‘me’ is about is not an easy affair because of the well-established beliefs and the control that they have on our capacity to move and be in life.
The fear of the unknown together with the fear of reconnecting with old wounds plays an important part and often counterbalances our willingness to move forward in order to free ourselves from this invisible veil that inhibits our life force.
The first step on the Way is about regaining trust in ourselves and in our capacity to recover a full use of this life force which is supporting and driving us and for this a Warmhearted approach is needed.
Regaining this self-trust, regaining our integrity and with it the full spectrum and enjoyment of our life force is the aim of this stream of courses for all.
This first approach is organized in a progressive way to enable the connection with different aspects of our personality in order to know and understand better this ‘me’ who is conducting the dance of our life.
Through working with the Inner Child concept – since it is during childhood and more specifically during primal childhood that all our beliefs and behaviour patterns, our ideas about life, others and ourselves take shape – it will become easier to understand our ways of functioning, to recognize them in ourselves for what they are and express them within a safe environment. It will also help lifting the holding back that is often active on the expression of feeling and emotions; they will gain in fluidity and spontaneity.
When waking up to the various aspects of this ‘me, it becomes possible to regain authenticity, integrity and innocence; hence the possibility to live a daily life in a more truthful way, in a more authentic way with ourselves as well as with others.
Within the 10 Bulls of Zen iconography, this stage is referred to as: Riding the bull home. It corresponds to being established in an authentic ‘me’, in what some traditions name ‘a noble strength’ or: ‘having a spine’.
It is a construction as well as a letting-go phase. It is the necessary basis for the following step, the self-enquiry phase, a dismantling phase of what we think we are, a letting go of our identifications.
« Mounting the bull, slowly I return homeward.
The voice of my flute intones through the evening.
Measuring with hand-beats the pulsating harmony, I direct the endless rhythm.
Whoever hears this melody will join me. »
Chan master Kakuan, excerpted from: The 10 Bulls of Zen
Going beyond this incarnation that we are, questioning our beliefs, questioning the authenticity of this: ‘me’ whom we identify with, in order to move towards who we are and what we are, is the purpose of this second phase with the Awareness Intensives retreats.
These Awareness Intensives have been created for the unique purpose of bringing the participant, via using self-enquiry questions such as: ‘who am I?, for instance, to move beyond this ‘me’ and re-discover his source, his true nature also known as: ‘the Self’ or: ‘Buddha nature’.
This approach is challenging for it is more intense, intense due to the structure within which it is held, that of a silent retreat; intense due to the repetitiveness of the self-enquiry process used. And last but not least intense due to the endeavour required for being in a ‘yes’ to what is.
This approach calls for willingness and courage as well as trust and determination. Willingness and courage to open trustingly to what the present moment brings; knowing that this present moment is the door leading to directly experience relaxed awareness; the sole intention of these intensives.
« Too many steps have been taken returning to the root and the source.
Better to have been blind and deaf from the beginning!
Dwelling in one's true abode, unconcerned with that without
The river flows tranquilly on and the flowers are red. »
Chan master Kakuan, excerpted from: The 10 Bulls of Zen
Individual sessions can be a privilege time frame that we can choose to give ourselves. Whether stand alone or complementary to the different proposed courses, they are also stages on the Way. Within a dedicated space they are an opportunity to expose an issue or a confusion which calls for clarification or resolution.
They can also be a time for sharing and understanding where we are at on the Way; a possibility of: ‘reviewing the situation’.
Individual sessions allow this intrinsic need of being listened to, heard and recognized to take place without judgement and with full acceptance of who we are in that moment.
« There are things that we never want to let go off.
However, bear in mind that letting go is not the end of the world.
It is the beginning of a new life. »
Zen Teaching