European Nondual Teacher and Therapist Training
July 1, 2010 - March 20, 2011 in Paris, France
This course is taught in English. Click here to download the brochure.
About the Training
This 10 month Nondual Teacher and Therapist Training is designed for people who wish to expand and refine their capacity to offer nondual awareness as a component of their teaching, coaching or psychotherapy with individuals or groups.
The Nondual Teacher and Therapist Training is based on the synthesis of Asian nondual approaches that has been developed by Peter Fenner. Peter’s approach has been refined and tested over 35 years by thousands of people in workshops, courses and retreats. His synthesis draws on the most powerful aspects of traditions such Madhyamika, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen and Advaita. These are woven into a form of space creation and facilitation that is refined, minimalist, smooth, and very efficient in the delivery of the pure nondual contentless transmission in an interactive group setting.
A dynamic learning environment
The Training is unique in bringing together people from diverse nondual traditions and lineages. Together we create a synergistic dynamic that radically enhances everyone’s capacity to embody and share nondual awareness within their clients, communities and beyond. The framework for the Training is based on the form of nondual transmission that has been developed by Peter. This framework provides a model and set of distinctions for discerning the subtleties of nondual transmission. The framework is elaborated in a 320 page book prepared for the Training.
The Training is not limited to this framework. You will share and demonstrate your own experiments and learning with others in the Training. You will refine your capacity for nondual transmission through fieldwork in which you share nondual awareness through dialogs and contemplation with people outside of the Training. You will learn through your own active engagement and focused feedback from Peter and other participants. The Training is thoroughly experiential. Together we create a depth of immersion in nondual transmission that is unparalleled.
This training is for:
* Therapists and mental health professionals who want to explore the contribution of nonduality in individual therapy and group work.
* People who have a solid grounding in a nondual spiritual approach such as Dzogchen, Zen or Advaita and
* are ready to share their wisdom with others.
* Meditation teachers who wish to introduce a nondual dimension into their practical guidance and dharma discussions.
* People who give satsang who wish to enhance their capacity to share nondual awareness and expand the reach of their transmission.
* Graduates of the 9 month Radiant Mind course who wish to facilitate practice groups based on Radiant Mind resources.
The themes of the training include:
* Presencing nondual awareness within oneself as the basis for all nondual transmission.
* Discovering your own style and process for nondual transmission.
* Learning to distinguish and reveal the a temporal, impersonal, unconditioned dimension through dialogue and silence.
* Deconstructing yourself: working with your own conditioned identities that can arise in nondual facilitation.
* Not getting lost in personal experience: your own and others.
* Resting in, and responding from, nondual awareness in high intensity situations.
* Recognizing and learning how to work at the result level; from the place where there is no time lag between communication and realization.
* Conversations for bringing awareness into the here and now: the present moment where nothing can be missing and everything is taking care of itself.
* Working with questions and concerns around choice, ignorance, love, motivation, and integrating the nondual into daily life.
* Functioning beyond comfort and discomfort.
* The creative function of ambiguity and the conversion of confusion into objectless awareness.
* Removing concepts: tracking and managing the gradient of the non-conceptual transmission.
* Reducing slippage: not getting caught in theories, explanations, advice, recommendations or techniques.
* Learning how to talk from within the state of unconditioned awareness, and how to use this ability as a tool for inducing this state in others.
* Listening to, and silently engaging with, the dynamic field of nonverbal conversations that invariably arise in nondual group work.
* Discerning different qualities of silence: sensing if people are in deep meditation or protecting their beliefs.
* Creating the conditions for natural contemplation: the effortless unfolding of deep meditation in nondual awareness.
* Allowing silence to emerge in an uncontrived manner.
* Not conditioning the space: being in the place where everything is possible in the next moment.
* Pure listening and speaking: beyond interest and disinterest, beyond validation or invalidation.
* Correcting the oscillation between polarized beliefs: gently moving people into positionlessness.
* Nothing to defend or avoid: working with the misconception that nondual awareness bypasses the relative.
* Letting things be: noninterference and the auto-liberation of thoughts and feelings.
* Giving people nothing to think about: creating a foundation of alert serenity.
* Observing the tendency for people to experientialize the state of nondual awareness.
* Nothing is wrong (or right): not making problems out of problems.
* Inclusion and differentiation: subtleties in the use of “I”, “you” and “we.”
* The nondual use of “I” and “you”: being no one having an identity.
* Learning how to identify if someone is: talking from within nondual awareness; talking from a past recognition; or talking from concepts.
* Nondual dialogue: creating bridges to the unconditioned.
* Dance steps—easy methods for moving out of the mind into nondual awareness.
* Recognizing the soft spot in a construction.
* Nuanced inductions: gaining spontaneous access to a rich palette of interactions for deconstructing points of reference.
* Talking about nothing: learning how to produce coherent conversations that have no subject matter.
* Easing people into contentlessness by listening for the four main ways through which the nondual is expressed.
* Playing in the paradoxes and absurdities of nondual awareness.
* Using checking questions to determine the purity of the nondual state and emptying the space of conceptual residues.
Structure of the training
The training is built on:
* Three four day retreats, one at the beginning, one in the middle, and another at the completion of the course.
* A comprehensive 320 page workshop manual.
* Eight teleconferences with Peter and other participants.
* Four individual coaching sessions with Peter.
* A vital and supportive training community.
* Working with the training materials in your own practice or community.
* Optional coaching is offered to participants who need support in establishing practice groups.
Requirements
Acceptance into the course is through an online application form. If we have any questions about an application, we will arrange a telephone interview. In the Training with a group of your own. This can be an informal group of friends you bring together on a regular basis to engage in nondual work. It could be a select group of clients who are ready for nondual transmission. It could be a group of professional colleagues who work together to explore the parameters of nonduality in therapy. It may be a sangha or community you are already guiding in meditation, dharma or satsang. If you don’t already have an existing group we will help you establish this.
Our invitation
If many of the themes outline above make sense to you, you may be well prepared for this Training. If you feel that this Training is the next step in your own evolution, the next step is to complete the online Application Form.
You are also welcome to contact us to answer any questions and give you more precise details. Places in the Training are limited to 25 so we recommend that you apply without delay.
Registration
Upon acceptance into the Training you will be sent a Registration Form by email. Your place in the Training will be secured upon receipt of the Registration Form and a deposit of 500 EUR. If you cancel your registration one month prior to participation in the Training you deposit will be refunded less 75 EUR processing fee. Deposits are nonrefundable for registrations canceled less than one month prior to the commencement of the Training. Payment details will be included with on the Registration Form.
Dates
Workshop 1: July 1-4, 2010
Workshop 2: November 18 - 21, 2010
Workshop 3: March 17-20, 2011
Location
Centre Parisien de Zen (Ecole Zen Kwan Um) is located at 35 rue de Lyon in Paris, a very peaceful and convenient location surrounded by many public transportation means. It is near Metro stations: “Bastille”, “Gare de Lyon” or “Ledru Rollin”. Here is the link to the Google Map.
Once your application has been approved by Peter Fenner you will be sent an invoice by email.
Fees
2100 EUR - if payment is received in full on or before April 30, 2010.
2250 EUR - if payment is received in full after April 30, 2010.
Payments in excess of the full fee will be gratuitously received and placed in a scholarship fund to support participants who are unable to afford the full fee for the Training.
Partial scholarships may be available to qualified participants who are unable to afford the full fee. The level of support will be determined on a needs basis and the size of the scholarship fund.
For more information
For information about this training visit nondualtraining.com.
Please do not contact the Centre Parisien de Zen for information on the training. For information about this training (or to pay your deposit and tuition) please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with a phone number and a good time to call you.