We’ve changed the format of the Spring Retreat. In the New Spring Retreat we now start with the famous ENB and two other consciousness workshops, ending in a week of the Art of Effortless Power and Body-Being, followed by the option to continue with more weeks in the Art.
Consciousness Workshops
We moved the most central and indispensable consciousness workshop of Cheng Hsin, Experiencing the Nature of Being (ENB) to both the spring and fall. It is the foundational, must-do workshop that can be repeated several times. It is the workshop that most closely relates to the material expressed in The Book of Not Knowing. Following the ENB is Transforming Your Experience of Life (TEL) and The Insight and Enlightenment Workshop.
Too often, the work of understanding ourselves amounts to little more than exchanging one set of beliefs and opinions for another. Many give up, thinking that they have exhausted all possibilities of encountering a truly powerful, transformative event. These workshops represent such a possibility.
As always, the month-long format provides a comprehensive study of interrelated facets of the Cheng Hsin work. If you’re unfamiliar with Cheng Hsin, you may well wonder what martial work and mind work have to do with each other. The significance of this connection is implied in this axiom of effective interaction:
Effective response requires an accurate perception of the circumstances.
The beauty of the consciousness work is that it offers a means to investigate the very process by which we perceive. The beauty of the martial work is that it is unmatched for providing crucial feedback about our patterns and limitations in thinking and learning.
In such a concentrated environment of continuous learning, students not only have the chance to investigate at much greater depths, but the effects of their study will accumulate exponentially.
The Art of Effortless Power
The practice and study of this Art goes beyond learning about skillful interaction and effortless power, it deepens one’s consciousness and awareness of their own body and improves how the body functions. We will spend a week laying a strong foundation in the Art of Effortless Power, studying Cheng Hsin Body-Being principles, and doing a little Cheng Hsin T’ai Chi.
In a new approach to teaching Ralston also intends to use the Art as a means to reveal limits in the students’ experience and to create new openings for experience outside these limits.
After this study you can go on to train in advanced studies for another week or more, if there is interest.