One of the gifts of an otherwise very challenging year was discovering enlightenment intensives. My sweetheart introduced me to the practice/community (it’s been her spiritual path for the past 20 years) and I attended my first—a 6 day in person retreat—back in April, did 2 online intensives over the summer, and then another in person gathering in October and they have been absolutely life changing.
The methodology is quite simple—a structured dyad practice; the rest is in silence. Each dyad lasts 40 minutes, during which you are paired with a partner. Every 5 minutes the gong rings and one partner receives their instruction from the other—“tell me who you are” or “tell me what life is” or “tell me what love is.” This partner goes within to contemplate and then shares anything that arises as a result of their contemplation—it could be a bodily sensation, an emotion, a memory, an insight. Then they get across to their partner whatever has arisen for them, while their partner simply listens—without comment, without nodding, without smiling even. When the gong rings, the listening partner simply says “thank you” and then the speaking partner gives the listening partner their instruction and the roles shift as the second partner goes within to contemplate and then get across to their partner whatever has arisen as a result of their contemplation. There are 10 dyads per day—interspersed with walking contemplation, eating contemplation, sleeping contemplation where you stay with your inquiry in silence—so imagine being asked who you are 40 times a day for 6 days! For such a simple practice, the results are phenomenal.
Each round of the dyads serves to clear the mind of its clutter. Each time a communication is really received, it is then cleared so you can imagine how much unprocessed experience you can move through in 6 days! It is like doing 10 years of therapy in a weekend! Once the mind is uncluttered, one is more able to have a direct experience of the object of inquiry—the self, life, another, love. Having a direct experience is like the difference between thinking about myself, talking about myself—as though I were separate from myself—and being myself. Consider how much of our lives are experienced indirectly—mediated by the voice in our head because, as Michael Singer describes in The Untethered Soul, we are terrified of having an unbuffered experience of reality. But by steadfastly intending to have a direct experience of reality, and clearing anything that is not that, we can break through and finally see ourselves and life clearly. And this aha of awakening is completely transformative. Though the emotional state of bliss or aliveness may fade, once you’ve had a direct experience–I know who I am—that knowingness never leaves you.
For me personally, just the process is very transformational, regardless of the outcome. As someone who grew up with a borderline mom and didn’t really get to be with my own experience much, being invited to pay attention to my own experience over and over and over again is very healing. As someone who is nonbinary in a binary world and frequently seen by others as unintelligible, getting across to my partner whatever is arising in me and being received is very healing. The methodology is quite effective, I think, in working with trauma—as most of 2023 for me was full time trauma healing, perhaps my soul sensing that this would be the year that my mom would pass away. For 5 minutes you are deeply immersed in your own process—then the bell rings and whatever you were in the middle of comes to a close and you resource yourself to hold space for another. In the process of listening, your empathy is awakened and you can see your own experience with greater perspective through the sharing of another. And then you return to your own process, generally starting from a really different place—and back and forth, back and forth, raw then resourced, raw then resourced, truly witnessing how each moment is a new moment.
It is a form of spiritual practice and spiritual community that is immensely appealing to me in part because it completely aligns with all my values. It is very accessible—you can do a weekend online intensive for a couple hundred bucks (around the cost of 2 therapy sessions!). And there are numerous weekly online dyad groups, offered free of charge, where you can continue the practice and find community after an intensive. There’s no dogma that you have to accept. The teachings consist of spiritual encouragement in the form of Rumi poems and instruction on the contemplation/dyad technique. The simplicity of the practice is beautiful, as is its depth. It is egalitarian—fellow humans holding space for one another, each doing their own work, taking responsibility for their own experience, finding their own inner wisdom. And, as a Truth and Freedom loving individual, the practice is rooted in my core values: the process is about aligning yourself with Truth and the outcome of that is Freedom!
I’m currently in the training program for those who would like to lead such retreats and I look forward to my first opportunity to be of service hopefully sometime in 2024!
If you’d like to learn more about Enlightenment Intensives, check out these resources:
Snake Medicine 