Gatekeeper Apprentice Training

The Enso symbol at BEZA’s Zen Academy in Cape Town, South Africa, representing mindfulness, Zen meditation, and the journey toward spiritual awakening and wholeness.

Gatekeeper Apprentice Training

The Enso symbol at BEZA’s Zen Academy in Cape Town, South Africa, representing mindfulness, Zen meditation, and the journey toward spiritual awakening and wholeness.

“When the student is ready the teacher will appear” – Buddha

Gatekeeper Apprentice Training

Journey around the Medicine Wheel composed of 5 Elemental Bodies – Fire, Water, Earth, Nature, & Stone.

The Academy Medicine Wheel at BEZA’s Zen Academy in Cape Town, South Africa, used for spiritual growth and healing, integrating mindfulness, Zen meditation, and Shamanic practices.

BEZA’s Medicine Wheel

Apprentices devote their activity and attention to the power of one of Mother Earth’s Elemental Bodies over a two-month period.

Each Elemental Body has particular energies or “medicines” related to every manifestation of mind, body and spirit – thoughts, emotions, aspirations, abundance, sustainability, health and freedom, etc.

  • Each Elemental Module – 80hrs
  • Apprentice Gate (by application) – all 5 Modules = 400hrs
  • All of The 5 Gates offered in the Guest Track
  • Zen & Elemental Meditation Guidance Training
  • Advanced Circle of Connection Training
  • Personal Divination sessions
  • Regular Mentoring sessions
  • Personal development within a spiritual community
  • Integrative training supported by student facilitators
  • Schedule designed to accommodate the working parent
  • Spacious time between modules for Integration
  • Modules track 2 moon cycles (approx. 56 days of assimilation and dissemination of illumination)
  • Inclusive of supportive embodiment modalities: meditation, mentoring, talking circles, divination, yoga, qigong, breathwork, creative arts, movement, non-psychoactive medicinal plants
  • Valued at over R10,000 / €1500 (not change) per Module – all for your DANA Payment of R3000 / €450
  • Scholarships available (to be completed with Gatekeeper Apprentice Application)

Gatekeeper Apprentice Training

Journey around the Medicine Wheel composed of 5 Elemental Bodies – Fire, Water, Earth, Nature, & Stone.

The Academy Medicine Wheel at BEZA’s Zen Academy in Cape Town, South Africa, used for spiritual growth and healing, integrating mindfulness, Zen meditation, and Shamanic practices.

BEZA’s Medicine Wheel

Apprentices devote their activity and attention to the power of one of Mother Earth’s Elemental Bodies over a two-month period.

Each Elemental Body has particular energies or “medicines” related to every manifestation of mind, body and spirit – thoughts, emotions, aspirations, abundance, sustainability, health and freedom, etc.

  • Each Elemental Module – 80hrs
  • Apprentice Gate (by application) – all 5 Modules = 400hrs
  • All of The 5 Gates offered in the Guest Track
  • Zen & Elemental Meditation Guidance Training
  • Advanced Circle of Connection Training
  • Personal Divination sessions
  • Regular Mentoring sessions
  • Personal development within a spiritual community
  • Integrative training supported by student facilitators
  • Schedule designed to accommodate the working parent
  • Spacious time between modules for Integration
  • Modules track 2 moon cycles (approx. 56 days of assimilation and dissemination of illumination)
  • Inclusive of supportive embodiment modalities: meditation, mentoring, talking circles, divination, yoga, qigong, breathwork, creative arts, movement, non-psychoactive medicinal plants
  • Valued at over R10,000 / €1500 (not change) per Module – all for your DANA Payment of R3000 / €450
  • Scholarships available (to be completed with Gatekeeper Apprentice Application)

Grounded EARTH Module

Way of the Heart

26 June – 10 August 2025

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

Remain centred during periods of powerful transformation. Be available (no matter the situation) with ever increasing love while a truer, anchored you emerges. Learn about grounding; abundance and karma; cycles; healing power of Love; and divine masculine & feminine.

Not yet Ready for Apprentice Training?

Intro to Shamanic Training

(No Application Required)

Listen live into 4 x online Nature-Based Wisdom (NBW) talks in each Module (12 hrs of Elemental Teachings)
Create and perform your own customised transformational rituals alongside Apprentice and Student Gatekeepers

Valued at over R6000 / 300

All for your DANA Payment of R2000 / €100

(Add-ons: Mentoring, Divination, Meditation Training and Talking Circle Training)

CLICK HERE for schedule

The 5 Gates

Enter BEZA’s Gateways through any of our daily, weekly, or monthly offerings:

Student Gate

by invitation

Facilitator Gate

for committed students

Who are the Gatekeepers?

Gatekeepers are shamanic practitioners whose function is to purify the energies they let in and out of their being.

By attuning, cleansing, and bringing these energies into balance, Gatekeepers become the Wisdom Keepers of the World. 

Gatekeeper’s are initiates of the 5 Elemental Bodies of the Medicine Wheel. We are the body of Mother Earth from whom we originate.

A Gatekeeper upholds integrity and responsibility in all relationships – professional and personal. They serve the transformational power of love for the benefit of all beings.

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

Lead 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 Sōtō Zen training center on the African Continent.

Nangaku, the founder of Born as the Earth School, 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 Earth School. After returning to South Africa he began offering authentic spiritual training in the Stanford area of the Western Cape where he has planted 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.

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

Apprentice Mentor

Raine Waring

Since July 2021, Raine has worked closely with Ekan Nangaku in the creation of BEZA. Supported in her student relationship with Nangaku she has embarked on a path of spiritual awakening and transformation. Raine has travelled deeply into her medicine gifts. Having journeyed around BEZA’s Medicine Wheel several times, she is honing her awareness and embodiment of each Elemental Gateway. Marrying her inner- and outer-landscapes, she is committed to practicing an integrated, holistic life of truth, sustainability and oneness.

Raine offers a grounded, open-hearted and generous hand. Holding BEZA’s ethos and guiding principles in her core, and supported by her study of End of Life Companionship, She weaves death practices into her facilitation work, guiding people through the important process of grief, loss, and letting go. Through movement, embodiment and creative practices that focus on authentic, creative expression and storytelling, her 10 year career in Performance Art provides the skills needed to return people to the sacredness of their bodies.

Raine carries her responsibility as a Student-Facilitator with reverence and care. Guided by love, intuition and sensitivity, she is honoured to devoutly support people along their own path to liberation.

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

Apprentice Mentor

Gill O’Sullivan

Gill has a deep curiosity about the interconnectedness of emotional, physical, and spiritual health, and has delved into various personal growth and healing modalities, including studying psychology, aromatherapy, homoeopathy, embodiment, dance, and PSYCH-K.

Her meditation journey began 25 years ago, and she has deepened and expanded her practice since joining Born as the Earth Zen Academy in January 2023. Gill has always had a close connection with nature, and believes that her health and healing and the health of our beautiful planet are interconnected and intertwined. Her Gatekeeper Apprentice training with BEZA has fostered a greater understanding of the natural elements, and she is inspired to continue her training and deepen her connection to nature and, in this way, herself.

Gill is committed to this journey of mindfulness, self-knowledge, healing, growth and sustainability, and feels privileged to be mentored by Nangaku and the Born as the Earth Zen Academy community.

Topics covered on your journey around the Medicine Wheel

Transformation of Self

Discover your true potential and regain sovereignty over your spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical intelligence.

Buddhist & Indigenous Wisdom

Learn timeless practices passed down through generations from an initiated elder, Buddhist priest and shaman.

Connection with Nature

Reconnect with the essence, diversity of expression, and limitless wisdom of Mother Earth. Open the gates to the natural guidance of your innate wisdom.

Elemental Mastery

Remember deep insights into the five elemental bodies of the Medicine Wheel, unlocking profound wisdom and understanding.

Zen Buddhism

Through the Buddhist teachings of the 4 Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, Precepts and Zazen Meditation open to the infinite enormity of your particular originality and immediacy of presence.

Shamanic Practices

Experience transformative and holistic shamanic practices through ritual, initiations, community council, practical spirituality, ancestral healing, and divination.

Energy Purification

Learn to purify and balance your energy and the energy that surrounds you and become a Gatekeeper of these sacred teachings and their healing potential.

Upcoming Elemental Modules

Every 12 months we complete and restart a cycle of apprentice training around the medicine wheel.

Medicine of NATURE Module

Way of Medicine

21 August – 5 October 2025

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

Read the signs around you. Meet unpredictability with authenticity and curiosity. Trust your medicine to meet revolutionary moments with truth. In this Module we study medicine gifts; transformation; the trickster; authentic expression; transformation; shapeshifting and truth.

Creative STONE Module

Way of Story

23 October – 7 December 2025

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

How to effectively communicate – teach, lead and create the systems necessary to connect with others. Express your life’s purpose and build supportive networks. Work with communication; power structure; manifestation; motivation, goals & quests; and story keeping.

Visionary FIRE Module

Way of the Ancestors

2026

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

Work with what inspires – your dreams, aspirations and passion for life. Transmute all that stands in the way of your spiritual potential. Channel your purpose into realities that align with your truth. In this gateway you work with light & vision; alchemical illumination; dreams & myth; divination; and ancestral healing.

Compassionate WATER Module

Way of Balance

2026

Born as the Earth Zen Academy | BEZA | Elemental | Zen | Mentoring | Meditation | Generational Healing | Ancestors | Divination | Shamanic | Shamanism | Gatekeeper | DANA | Community Council | Buddhism | Spirituality | Nature | Mindfulness | Enlightenment | Awakening | Daido Roshi | Consciousness | Holistic | True Self | Wisdom | Medicine

Learn harmonising techniques – how to sense and relate to others. Access your emotional intelligence. Navigate the complexities of human and non-human relationships. Acquire the skills of meditation; compassion; resonance; resolving dilemma; and shadow work.

Apprentices tune into the rhythms of Water, refining their ability to sense, relate, and respond with Water’s energy in motion — E-motional Intelligence. Water teaches the art of harmonisation—flowing between interactions, sensing the unspoken, and embracing the unseen. Through this fluid connection, apprentices will develop a heightened awareness of balance, sensitivity, and relational depth, discovering how to embody compassion and resonance in both the tangible and intangible aspects of life.
 
Each session will bring apprentices into a deeply intimate relationship with water, not just as a resource, but as a living guide to balance, presence, and relational flow. Emotions are the oscillations of Water, reflecting the ebb and flow of our inner world. Tears become the body’s release, like fresh rain cleansing parched earth. Our clear, still Waters hold the weight of what is unspeakable, quietly resolving distortion into clarity. Water teaches us to cleanse, recharge, and realign our inner states, revealing the body itself as a flowing system—a harmonic hologram of the great Waters of the world. By learning to experience deeply, apprentices will cultivate a profound sensitivity, allowing them to respond to themselves and others with openness, clarity, and compassion.
Through meditation, elemental rituals, and reflections on ancient wisdom, apprentices will learn to resolve dilemmas, engage in shadow work, and strengthen their emotional intelligence—enhancing  their understanding of how Water nourishes and connects all life.

We plant a tree for the first event / training you attend. We help restore your inner- and outer-environment.

FAQ’S

What is "Dana payment" and why are we asking for it?

True Wisdom teachings are priceless. The Wisdom Teachings you will receive are beyond commodification. They have taken years of study and verification to compile and have been received at great personal cost by BEZA’s Lineage. They are generously offered to you as BEZA’s gift to you – it is our DANA.

We invite you to practice DANA in the same way, inviting you to offer your DANA Payment in exchange to maintain balanced reciprocity.
 
Be assured, practicing generosity will serve you well, and generate abundance in your life.
Is this program academic or theoretical?

Not at all. While there will be profound guidance transmitted to you via an online live presentation, the 2 month-long investigation is hands-on, practical and self-directed. It’s important for you to have an embodied experience – direct contact with the nature of the Element. The entire training is designed this way – not to transmit information, but rather invite self-discovery through personal exploration of yourself in relation to the Element.

What happens during the private Heart Mentoring sessions?

You get to ask any questions you like… about the element, how it functions in your life, how to work with it, how it is manifesting in your life at present. The facilitator will use the context of the elemental training to guide you to work with the Element directly. The mentoring session is there to open the gates for your personal journey into the Element’s medicine and learn how to use it in a practical way in your life.

What is divination?

Divination has been around as long as we humans have. We use divination to make the invisible world visible. The invisible world holds what is not yet known. Through divination we receive this wisdom – it is made available for you to integrate into your journey. Nangaku uses sacred talismans, bones, stones and other amulets which become the vocal chords of the Other World. He spreads them over an Elemental Medicine Wheel. Where and how they land in relation to other items and the mandala reveals profound information for you to ingest and metabolise.

Earthen Zen

The Elemental Journal

One of the apprentices at BEZA’s Zen Academy in Cape Town, engaged in mindfulness and spiritual growth through Shamanic Gatekeeper training and Zen meditation practices.

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 be focussed on these powerful illusionary differences causing separation, alienation and ultimately conflict.
Read Blog
Talismanic art displayed at BEZA’s Zen Academy in Cape Town, Western Cape, symbolizing protection, intention, and spiritual connection through creative expression and mindfulness.

The Transformative Power of Talismanic Art

“Becoming aware that the art I had been instinctively creating using sticks, stones, feathers and bones, is my unique medicine gift to the world, I completed my first “conscious” Talismanic Art Piece. I based it on my journey with Born as the Earth School so far.” - Alison Evans
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ChatGPT assisting participants at BEZA’s Zen Academy in Cape Town, Western Cape, providing insights and support for mindfulness practices and spiritual growth through technology.

Artificial Intelligence vs Authentic Intelligence: A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Consciousness

“Everything we are talking about AI or computing power will never be able to beat the complexity that nature presents to us. The real intelligence is Nature’s Intelligence. AI is good, but AI is just a tool to Nature’s Intelligence. Nature’s Intelligence is four and half billion years old. To think that something that is less than a hundred years…
Read Blog