Would you like a new way to look at stuck places and access transformation? You’ve experienced the benefits of meditation practice. You are grateful for the groundedness and mental clarity it brings you. With this clarity, you’ve been able to release some attachments and make positive changes. Yet some things change slower than you would like or remain stuck.

Seeing your own habits, thinking, and believing, is hard to do. The Enneagram helps you to see yourself in new ways and find freedom from ways of being that are not serving you. When the Enneagram comes together with Buddhist practice, the way opens to a clear and discerning view of karmic patterns.

Often, when you strive towards transformation, you slip into critical analysis of yourself and your history. While this may seem helpful at times, it often leaves you back where you started. So you try to just do things differently, with sheer willpower you attempt to break habits and “be” different. Both of these are difficult paths to transformation. You need support and guidance as you reflect on your experience, heal, and integrate new skills and behaviors.

When you are looking at your own individual experiences, there’s a lot of static in your perceptions because attachments, habitual distortions, story line and contextual details get in the way. It’s hard to pull out the underlying patterns. These patterns of human thinking, feeling and behaving have been described by many systems throughout human history. The Enneagram is a well-developed and trusted system of naming common karmic patterns. When you are identified with any particular pattern a stuck, inflexible sense of self is present. When you see a pattern clearly for what it is, you experience freedom and flexibility. For example, fluency with the Enneagram can help you move from a people pleasing pattern to a grounded generosity that nourishes you and others.

The weekend as a whole will be a combination of learning new concepts, self-reflection, meditation, whole group discussion, and embodied practice. You will spend time in structured learning exercises in pairs and small groups. You will have an opportunity to discern your own type and share in the discernment with others. This is an intensive and will require a willingness to be vulnerable and hold space for the vulnerability of others. Vegetarian meals will be served.

From this workshop we hope you will walk away with:

• Greater self acceptance
• Insight regarding patterns that keep you or others stuck
• New skills to create equanimity in your relationship with yourself and others
• Freedom to live an authentic life based on your deepest values
• Enjoyable and connecting time with like-minded folks
• Opportunity to enjoy springtime in natural surroundings on the temple land

Facilitated by Kakumyo and LaShelle Yoan Lowe-Charde.

Pre-requisites: A willingness to engage in personal sharing and self-examination and a value around meditation and contemplative practice. Prior experience with the Enneagram is not necessary.

Schedule

Friday
4-6 Session 1: Introductions; overview and relevance
6-7 Dinner
7-9 Session 2: Discerning types in others and self, descriptions

Saturday
9-11 Session 3: Continuum of health; dynamics (heart/stress points)
11-12 Zazen
12-1:30 Lunch and Break
1:30-3 Session 4: Using subtypes, centers and wings
3-3:30 Break
3:30-5 Session 5: Application in Buddhist spiritual context
5-6 Zazen
6-7 Dinner
7-9 Session 6: Integration and closing