The Road Less Travelled:
Making a difference.
Dear BEZA friends,
It was two years ago on the 2nd of September 2022 when BEZA welcomed our first 3 Apprentices for our opening training aptly named the Visionary Fire Module. Working with the energy of a new moon, the initiates gained entry to age-old methodologies and learned how to access inspiration, intuition, and heal generational wounding.
The Road Less Travelled
Making a difference
Dear BEZA friends,
It was two years ago on the 2nd of September 2022 when BEZA welcomed our first 3 Apprentices for our opening training aptly named the Visionary Fire Module. Working with the energy of a new moon, the initiates gained entry to age-old methodologies and learned how to access inspiration, intuition, and heal generational wounding.
This 2nd anniversary is a marker on our short journey. It is a moment to peek over our shoulders and see the less travelled road we had taken, and how it has made all the difference.
Without any budget, media platforms, name recognition, or desire for compensation, we opened the gates to BEZA’s online curriculum. With trust, a deep vow, open-hearted generosity, and a vision of merging two ancient spiritual lineages we began offering their conjoined wisdom.
Within 2 weeks of our launch back in 2022 I became a monk. This came with responsibility, empowerment and resolute faith to practice the first teaching I received from Seido Roshi at the ordination. Knowing little of what was before me, I asked Roshi for any guidance he had to offer…
“Open hands,” was his simple answer. And so, opening my hands, I let go of any expectation of what BEZA may become, and vowed to receive and serve the immeasurable perfection of the Buddha Way, the profundity of the Dharma, and the rare jewel of Sangha.
Since then we have been facilitating the homeward journey of over 120 awakening Buddhas in our steadily growing Sangha, 10 of whom have become formal students, two of whom are student facilitators. Together have planted over 300 indigenous trees – one for each who has come to taste the Dharma.
We continue to teach and learn with the cycles of the moon. As we approach the culmination of our second year of Apprentice Training, 16 apprentices will conclude the Medicine of Nature Module as they journey around the Medicine Wheel. Attendance in our daily meditations is regular and growing. Community Council has introduced the ancient art of the talking circle to over one hundred people. Since our birthing, we have had the privilege of performing over 200 divinations and 500 mentoring sessions for aspirants along the way.
Recently, BEZA hosted its first international student for a 21 day shamanic journey into the culture, landscape and spirituality of South Africa -an expanded journey is planned for November 2025. In May next year, a group of BEZA students and apprentices will travel to Japan and meet Seido Roshi at his international training monastery to receive the Buddhist precepts.
By the end of 2024, Born as the Earth Zen Academy will be registered as a non-profit.
Though we have only just begun, and as yet do not have our own land, BEZA is grounded firmly in the spirit of lineage. We take refuge in having received the baton from thousands of years of teacher-student transmissions and willingly carry this responsibility to share these sacred teachings with generations to come.
From no thing at all, BEZA, its Dharma and Sangha are blooming into flower. Noble seekers have come, received and offered gifts of generosity into a space created with, and for, well… generosity. The teaching of ‘Open hands’ is opening hearts. This spirit is materializing into substance, a new ground of abundance, where friends find new eyes and new pathways to horizons beyond the edge of what they thought was possible.
For all sentient beings, indeed for a New Earth, this is happening beyond any expectation.
May we each continue to water anuttarasamyak-sambodhi – the absolute ground of being, with love.
Honey in the Heart, 13 Thank-you’s.
Ekan Nangaku