Being Real in Your Body

This weekend non-residential retreat will focus on embodying presence and essence, on being real in our bodies, in life. 

Many of us have spiritual experiences, in which the real nature of things, our depth, the truth of what we fundamentally are, is felt as presence. We might feel it in a certain teacher, at a sacred site, or at a birth or a death. You may have recognised it in the atmosphere at the end of a yoga class, or in a communal ritual. Or perhaps you access the presence of this deeper dimension through a particular practice.

For many who have these experiences, the beauty and significance of this presence is obvious. And then perhaps you find yourselves asking How does this relate to my life? What does it have to do with me personally? Or How do I live this? How do I feel it more deeply? How can I embody it?

In the teaching of the Diamond Approach these questions point us to the need for awakening, opening and developing the belly centre, sometimes called the hara, and which we call the kath. The kath centre, like the heart centre, has unique capacities. It is a centre of embodiment and action.

As it develops, we start to sense presence in our own bodies. We feel more grounded and substantial, less tossed around by outer circumstances and other people. And we begin to be able to experience presence directly in our own bodies, and to express it in our own actions.

This retreat will explore presence and the belly centre, and its importance for this path, which is oriented to toward living a full human life in the world, while knowing what we are beyond all that. 

We will teach a meditation and awareness practice for developing the kath.

This retreat will be  taught by Ashley Wain.

On the Diamond Approach and the New Aotearoa Group

Every spiritual path deals with our common human situation, and each path deals with it differently. The Diamond Approach is a relatively new path, for people living a full human life in the world, who want to know who and what they are beyond their usual stories and ideas about themselves. It uses a range of powerful practices, as well as modern psychological knowledge, to help each person to explore their own experience in ways that bring deeper understanding, as well as the gradual revelation of our spiritual nature, in its vast rainbow of qualities and dimensions.

The Diamond Approach has been taught in New Zealand for over a decade. There is a large, established group that has developed over that time, which is now closed to new members. Diamond Approach New Zealand is now in the process of forming a new group, for those with a sincere interest in inner work and spiritual discovery. 

We are offering in person retreats open to all in 2023 and 2024.

Retreats normally involve meditation, a teaching, experiential exercises in pairs, threes, or small groups, and opportunities to ask questions, share experiences and inquire further with a teacher. 

Times 

Friday       6.30-9.30pm

Saturday 9.30-12.30

                    2.00-5.00 

Sunday.    9.00-12.00

                     1.00-4.00

End times are approximate. 

Cost: $435

DANZ1 students repeating material pay $175.