Opening the Three Doors
An Invitation to Apply to the Fall 2012 U.S. Three Doors Academy
For more than two decades, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has brought the ancient Bon tradition's legacy of wisdom and compassion to Western students. As he has witnessed the profound benefits of the practices in his students’ lives, he has become increasingly interested in offering these practices to many others by presenting them in a secular way.
This focus has led to the creation of The Three Doors, an educational organization dedicated to the wisdom of meditative practice for positive change and enhanced well-being.
Working closely with a group of senior students, Rinpoche mentored a process of applied practice and transformation which informed the curriculum of The Three Doors Academy. These senior students graduated last summer and are now teaching in Academies in the United States, Latin America and Europe as well as bringing the practices to their respective communities.
The Three Doors Academy is an in-depth three-year training course for those who wish to reflect upon their lives and engage and transform limiting patterns of behavior through meditations of body, speech and mind. It is a rare opportunity to directly apply practice to challenging emotions and stressful circumstances and to experience positive changes. The training of the Academy brings meditation directly into your life as you are living it, enriching your relationships with others and encouraging engaged action in society.
The 2012 U.S. Academy, scheduled to begin in October 2012, is currently accepting applications. Marcy Vaughn and Gabriel Rocco will teach this Academy.
Academy participants attend two six-day Group Training Retreats each year, immersing in the teachings and practices they use in their everyday lives. Additionally, participants receive ongoing support in the form of monthly group conference calls, one-on-one mentoring sessions and online resources—as they work to transform 21 specific situations in their lives each year, for a total of 63 transformations by the end of the program. Students are asked to practice daily and to track their experiences in writing. They also complete a creative project inspired by their practice.
Academy participants report many positive results. They have been able to alter critical interactions with loved ones, turn inward for support rather than continually seeking reassurance from others and find greater self-confidence available where it is most appreciated—meeting the challenges and opportunities of life. Participants in the training find support and encouragement in small group work, the mentoring relationship and a “buddy system.” The commitment the group makes to their own practice and to each other over the course of the training is a powerful healing agent.
Participants also speak of the challenge of really facing themselves and learning to value what they see. One Academy trainee shared:
"Perhaps it happens to everyone—coming home late and hungry and opening the refrigerator to find old, not-so-inviting stuff. But because you’re hungry you make do with what you have and prepare a meal. And it has happened to me that from such an unlikely mixture of leftovers a delicious stew, or soup, or sauce for pasta has come out, which could not have been tastier if I had had all the proper, fresh ingredients.
“This image came to me on the last day of the second European Three Doors Group Training Retreat. I felt that the deepening of the practice of reflecting on my life and hosting what I see was somehow like opening the refrigerator of my body, energy and heart, and finding old fears, sadness and pains which had been lying there for so long, denied, frozen, unrecognized. After the first moment of rejection, thinking, ‘I don’t want to deal with that,’ I felt it was time to take them out if I wanted to ‘eat’ and get ‘nourished.’ It was time to accept, embrace and host them, and start cooking and transforming them on the fire of joy, love, compassion and equanimity. I found out that I could even love my fear, my sadness.
“So whatever our refrigerator has in store for us, that is what we need to see, acknowledge, recognize, transform. We need to do this not with judgment, guilt or criticism, but with compassion and joy. Even old stale fear, stale sadness and stale pain can be transformed into the juiciest, tastiest, most nourishing dish!"
Taste of The Three Doors, a one- or two-day experiential workshop that introduces people to the practices and method of this approach, was offered in Los Angeles in March, and will be in Berkeley, Calif., on July 28–29, 2012. Workshop participants are able to experience and engage in a systematic self-inquiry while working within the container of a focused, supportive group. Rinpoche plans to bring Taste of The Three Doors workshops to additional U.S. cities, to Europe and to Latin America.
Over the next several months free online sessions will give people a sampling of The Three Doors program.
More information about the The Three Doors
