Gatekeeper Student Training
Gatekeeper Student Training
“When the student is really ready the teacher will disappear” – Lao Tzu
Born as the Earth Zen Academy (BEZA)
A Rites-of-Passage School
BEZA is a rites-of-passage initiation school for grounded, higher learning. We are created to facilitate authentic transformation in you and your relationships to others and the community of all beings.
With a vision to meet the imperative for a shift in human awareness and way of life, BEZA teaches a tried-and-tested practical spirituality to create a new human story.
Our model of training is experiential, hands-on, and co-operative. Apprentices / Students work independently and collaboratively and at their own pace.
With a focus on Zen Buddhism and Nature-Based Wisdom, the curriculum is deep, broad and evolutionary.
Gatekeeper Student Training
Although apprentices are supported and encouraged to engage their inquiry into themselves, their entire journey is a self-motivated and directed one. As an apprentice, you are not pushed or pulled by any of the facilitators along the way. The depth and degree of attendance, participation and self-realization as you journey around the Medicine Wheel is managed by your own interest and will. Though the necessary tools and opportunities to connect are provided, your shadows, patterns, and conditioning are entirely yours to discover, clear and heal.
Becoming a Student is a significant next step as it is essentially an explicit commitment to undertake a sincere study of the self. Engaging a Student-Teacher relationship with Ekan Nangaku could be a profound next step for you on your path.
As a student you benefit from the following:
- All of The 5 Gates offered in the Guest Track
- All of the Apprentice Track
- Additional one-on-one mentoring sessions
- Shikantaza Meditation Training
- Zen Buddhist Study group
- Zen Buddhist Dharma talks
- Zazenkai (ZZK) – an all-day, online silent meditation
Gatekeeper Apprentices who have completed at least two modules (approx. 4 months / 160hrs) may request to become a formal student of Ekan Nangaku. Apprentices who have shown a commitment to deepening their Zazen practice and expressed a keen interest in learning more about Zen Buddhism are invited to write a “Letter of Asking” where they express their reasons and heart’s call to enter a formal, spiritual relationship with the teacher. Upon acceptance, a short, online ceremony takes place where existing students welcome you into the Student Sangha. A student invites deeper connection with the teacher and sangha where we all get to polish each other in community. Integrating the practice of zazen into your daily life, you are held accountable within the sangha to support each other’s healing and realization. Through dedicated study of BEZA’s Medicine Wheel, the Four Agreements and 7 Protocols of Council, the Buddhist Precepts and various supportive texts, Ekan Nangaku will engage you in a focussed and inspiring manner, challenging you to verify, embody and role-model the teachings you receive. Holding up a wisdom-mirror, he will unconditionally and lovingly support the reclamation of your authentic self.