Mindsight Intensive

While the content varies every year, the methodical trajectory we follow is always the same:

‍

1. We begin with a detailed exploration of the foundations and principles of mindfulness practice. What participants may have learned in the MBSRX program gets reviewed in much greater detail.
   ‍
2. We then explore the territory of the field of consciousness - the nature of our ordinary waking consciousness we wake up to every morning. Here we find ourselves exploring the familiar world of the conscious and unconscious mind, the psychological connections between our childhood and where in life we happen to find ourselves, and the many ways we try to live our best life possible, often with limited satisfaction. This is the stage of psychosomatic integration.
   ‍
3. Slowly we begin to sense the limitations of this mode of consciousness and gain access to an expanded capacity for awareness that reaches more deeply into existential questions we sooner or later all face. Assumptions and certainties characteristic of the field of consciousness begin to crumble. We discover a dimension of reality that has always been there but remains hidden by the prison of our limited field of consciousness. The vast spaciousness of the field of nothingness opens up a profoundly transformative awareness mode that further deepens our ability to decrease daily suffering. This stage focuses on existential integration.
   ‍
4. As we become not only comfortable with, but consistently inspired by the ways the field of nothingness purifies the field of consciousness, a further, most integrated awareness mode arises as the foundation of everything. This field of emptiness reveals itself to be the integration of existence and non-existence, object and process, and ultimately also left and right brain functioning. The most profound release from suffering happens at this level of growth, often referred to as spiritual. This is the domain of spiritual integration.
    

Students are invited to first memorize and internalize the necessary meditation techniques until they become second nature, so that navigating the complex, and sometimes challenging weathers of the internal energy flow of mental states becomes manageable and fruitful. Throughout the learning process, students are encouraged to be radically true to their own uniqueness and modify their practice according to their individual needs. Special emphasis is put on skillfully adapting their journey to their special needs, especially when dealing with trauma requires one to work in a trauma-informed fashion. Knowing how to embody a resource-based mindfulness by mobilizing the necessary internal resources to meet the challenges we encounter on the way, is a central skill that is being taught.