Gatekeeper Student Training
“When the student is really ready the teacher will disappear” – Lao Tzu
Although Gatekeeper 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.
Engaging a Student-Teacher relationship with Ekan Nangaku could be a profound next step for you on your path. Becoming Student is a significant next step as it is essentially an explicit commitment to undertake a sincere study of the self. As Zen Master Dōgen says in his famous Genjokoan:
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand dharmas. To be enlightened by the ten thousand dharmas is to free one’s own body and mind and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues forever.” – Zen Master Dōgen
Student Training is for students of the “Buddha Way”. Through advanced meditation training, Zen studies and dharma talks we study the self to “forget the self”. We also teach how to connect with the inherent, enlightened dharma of the foundational medicine of the “ten thousand dharmas” (the essential Elements of all phenomena) – offered through the Apprentice Training which you are encouraged to continue to include in your study of the “self”. Hence, entering Gatekeeper Student Training is to engage in both the study of the Buddha Way, as well as the study of the “ten thousand dharmas” (the Elements). The one approach begins with studying the Buddha Way which leads to being enlightened by the Elements. The other is finding the Buddha Way through studying the inherent enlightenment of the Elements. Both are simultaneous enlightenment practices of the Middle Way. Dōgen continues, “…To be enlightened by the ten thousand dharmas, is to free one’s body and mind and those of others…”. Freedom is the natural outcome. Wherafter, the works of freedom begin i.e. your dharma/medicine. This opens the gate to Facilitator Training, where the facilitator learns to practice freeing “one’s body and mind and those of others”, such that “…no trace of enlightenment remains…”. This is what it means to be an Elder in community. And through continued freeing of one’s body and mind, “No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues forever.”
As a student you benefit from the following:
- All of The 5 Gates offered in the Guest Track plus:
- All of the Apprentice Track and an
- Additional one-on-one mentoring session plus:
- Advanced Meditation Training (shikantaza)
- Zen Buddhist Study group
- Zen Buddhist Dharma talks
- Zazenkai (ZZK) – an all-day, online silent meditation