The New Earth School for Embodied Enlightenment
“To be Born as the Earth is not the same as being born. It is to realize that these Mountains and Rivers and the whole Earth itself is your true human body.”
- Zen Master Daido Roshi (1931-2009)
Born as the Earth Zen Academy (BEZA)
Our Mission
With a vision to meet the imperative for a shift in human consciousness, Born as the Earth Zen Academy (BEZA) exists to transmit a tried-and-tested, practical spirituality to create a new human story. We are the first school on the African continent, based in Cape Town, South Africa, merging authentic Zen Buddhism and Earth-based wisdom. BEZA is a rites-of-passage initiation school for grounded higher learning. BEZA’s curriculums and offerings are donation-based. All training is experiential, hands-on, and co-operative. Students work independently, collaboratively, and at their own pace, facilitating long-lasting authentic transformation in themselves and their relationship with the communities of all beings.
Generational Healing
The Way of the Ancestors
Make the invisible, visible. Our connection to our Ancestors and Gaia’s Elemental Bodies stretch beyond the boundaries of time. We carry their memories, medicine, elemental and genetic imprints within us. Through this deep bond, we access ancient wisdom, and guidance for the repairing of wounds. Acknowledging and embracing this connection allows us to heal not only ourselves but also the generations that came before, and those that will follow.
Meditation
The Way of Balance
Meditation (zazen) instruction rooted in Zen Buddhism, providing you with guidance to unlock the transformative power of this practice. Our expert instructor will open the Way of Meditation and help you cultivate mindfulness, find inner-peace, and embark on a journey of self-discovery. BEZA is the perfect school to initiate and develop your meditation practice.
Mentoring
The Way of the Heart
Holistic, practical life remedies support the totality of your being. Practicing the Way of the Heart, the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical energies constellating in your being are grounded, releasing what blocks your inherent gifts. Your demons and angels become allies and as heart confidence and awareness grows a sacred ‘Homecoming’ to your True Self unfolds.
Shamanism
The Way of Medicine
Shamanism, in the lineage of African Nature-Based Indigenous Wisdom, is the first and longest expression of human spirituality. Learn the Way of Medicine where Nature’s transformational and spontaneous power reconnects you to your unconditioned, authentic self. Guided by an initiated elder and shaman, Nature’s gifts will become medicine tools for you to transform every-day practical actions into spiritual deeds.
Council
The Way of Story
At BEZA we train you in an essential ingredient in building and maintaining healthy community – The Way of Council. There is an immense need now, more than ever to slow down, to listen and speak with heart wisdom. To find solutions to our challenges as a collective we gather in Community Council to share our perspectives and stories, and to recognize and honour our shared humanity and interconnectedness.
Your Mentor
Ekan Nangaku Leisching
Ekan Nangaku Leisching, a student of Suzuki Seido Roshi of Tōshōji Training Monastery in Japan, is working with the first generation of students to establish a training center on the African Continent.
Nangaku, the founder of BEZA, is a Zen monk who has taken vows to liberate all beings. He is an initiated elder & shaman, meditation teacher, mentor, diviner and writer, and has studied with Zen masters, indigenous shamans, psychotherapists and mythologists for over 35 years.
Spiritual awakenings took Nangaku on a quest across the globe to find the golden thread uniting all spiritual traditions. While living in the USA he ran several environmentally sustainable businesses and founded BEZA. After returning to South Africa he began offering authentic spiritual training in the Stanford area of the Western Cape where he has facilitated the planting over 10,000 trees.
He has guided students in reclaiming their natural sovereignty. A lifetime of experience allows him to meet students at any stage of their journey and offer appropriate tools to birth their full potential.
Earthen Zen
The Elemental Journal
Ordination in Africa
South Africa is one of the most diverse nations on Earth. It is a complex matrix of many languages, traditions, religions, economic and societal history and trauma. While diversity and complexity are the foundations of healthy human ecosystems, oftentimes emphasis can...
The Ancient Art of Divination
Divination is an ancient healing craft which has been used for centuries to make the invisible world visible. To be a diviner, or seer, into other realms requires the Art of responsible Gatekeeping between the Worlds. Gatekeepers and diviners are shamanic practitioners whose function is to purify the energies they let in and out of their being. By attuning to, cleansing, and bringing these energies into balance, Gatekeepers become the Wisdom Keepers of the World.
A Moment of Celebration! BEZA is officially a Non-Profit Company!
Born as the Earth Zen Academy has been in gestation for the past two years. Supported by the heart of the BEZA Sangha we have been in a precious time of growth as we anchor our roots and deepen into creation with solid foundations. Now, like a stem of a young tree...