Zen Coaching Advanced Training: A Deeper Trust – Surrendering to the Mystery

Mundekulla, 9-16 May 2020 (Saturday-Saturday)
(Starting with check-in at 17:00, ending at 3.30pm)

Osho said: Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.

And Hafiz, the Persian 14^th century poet, said:

O wondrous creatures,
By what strange miracle
Do you so often
Not smile?

How can we explain, rationally, what the reason for our existence is, or how it is possible that we exist at all?
That galaxies, atoms, the sun, the earth, flowers and rocks and sky and animals and humans exist? That Essence, Being, Love, Joy and Freedom exists? Or, for that matter, that anything at all exists?

The truth is: We cannot.
Life, Existence, Being, Essence, the universe and everything else is fundamentally a mystery. Existence has ‘Mystery’ as one of its fundamental properties.

And this can, when we are open enough, be experienced as a profound, beautiful, amazing mystery, full of adventure, joy, wonder, love, meaning, freedom, peace, and much, much more -- endlessly so.

And yet life and existence is, for most of us, also often a big challenge. It can be experienced as very painful, full of suffering, anguish, fear, loss, sadness, anger, separation, meaninglessness, confusion, conflict, drama, and more. And even when we don’t experience life as a big challenge, there is still often a chronic sense of background or underlying lack and wanting, a sense that something fundamental is missing, acknowledged or not. This is what the Buddha named as the first noble truth, the truth of dukkha: a basic, restless dissatisfaction, the underlying pain and suffering of normal, conventional existence.

But the Buddha also taught the fourth noble truth: that there is a path out of dukkha, out of suffering. This is the path of non-attachment, of letting go of the idea of existing as a separate entity, and of being in an open, mindful, conscious and compassionate YES to this moment, exactly as it is.

This letting go of a separate self, and of being in a YES to the moment, is a form of surrender – the surrender to life-as-it-is-right-here-and-now, the surrender to BEING THIS MOMENT, in its mysteriousness and impermanence.

From one perspective, all of life can be seen as a big School of Surrender.
Surrendering is about letting go of trying to be in control, of seeking external security, letting go of saying NO to challenging emotions. And of saying YES to life as it is, of devotion, of celebration, of trust, of acceptance, of adventure, of openness.

And this shift from NO to YES can happen in an instant. In fact, it always happens in an instant: the instance of NOW. It is always NOW that we have this great opportunity for surrender.

But how, HOW, does this surrender take place? That, too, is a mystery, a mystery to be contemplated, to be explored, to be surrender to.

In this retreat we will explore the nature of surrender, of mystery, of saying YES to life, of acceptance, and of the Adventure of Now.

And we will explore, through inquiry, coaching, meditation and many different exercises, the many obstacles and obscurations that keep us from fully surrendering to the present moment as it is.