You can realise enlightenment. In fact it’s the most worthwhile thing you can do.

Fastrack Development

Study one-to-one with a Zen Master

£108 pounds an hour – It’s expensive, but the money goes towards helping others (and it’s exactly what you would pay for an interview with a Rinzai Roshi in Japan).

One hour a week in your own home or another agreed location.

Enlightenment seems a very high state – perhaps way beyond what you think you may be capable of but centuries of records show that a stream of people, young and old, rich and poor, male and female have achieved this state. Fundamentally you are no different from people of the past. You too could live free of the fear of death and free of the fear of life. The word, ‘enlightenment’ has acquired various new age connotations. The term the Buddha used was closer to ‘waking-up’.

Granted, enlightenment is the highest a human being can achieve, but the main obstacle to getting there is not being willing to set out on the journey. There are a few other stresses and strains that us moderns have to deal with, the greatest of which is we have so little time.

That’s where the enlightenment process comes in. It’s not psychotherapy nor healing, although many good side-effects can occur. It’s an enlightenment fastrack. Now that doesn’t mean it’s a shortcut. There are no shortcuts. So how does it work. The ancient Zen texts describe a principle called kanno-doko. It’s a little difficult to translate, but probably the best English version would be induction. In the same way that you can cause and electrical current to flow in a wire by running a current through a nearby wire, spending time around a person with a high-level mind state will speed-up your development of the same state. The opposite is true as well – we all know some people can drag you down. We become like the people we’re with.

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Julian Daizan Skinner is the first Englishman to go to Japan and become a full Zen master is the rigorous Rinzai school of Zen. Twenty years ago, he sold his house, gave all the money away and became a Zen monk.

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I had the privilege of sitting with my own teacher, Shinzan Miyamae Roshi in this way and the benefits were enormous. The enlightenment process uses the principle of kanno-doko, together with spiritual and psychological work on other levels to quicken your development. In the old days you could leave your family, go off into the mountains or to a temple and perhaps spend ten or twenty years living a very quiet life and practicing meditation. You can still do this today. But the fact is, the world desperately needs enlightened people right now. The enlightenment process is for people who don’t have that kind of time. Obviously you have a spiritual quest stirring within you or you wouldn’t even be reading this. But perhaps you’re successful and you have many responsibilities. It wouldn’t be right to just dump them.

The enlightenment process requires an hour a week of your time plus just en minutes out of your daily routine, to get the results you seek. Of course, if you can find more time, your development will proceed even faster. You don’t have to change your religious or philosophical convictions, enlightenment is not a matter of belief, it’s a direct experience, as simple as drinking water and knowing for yourself whether it’s hot or cold.

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At a place where there is kanno doko, establishment of the enlightened mind occurs.

Zen Master Dogen 1200-1253

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‘I was sitting opposite Daizan Roshi when the nature of mind revealed itself. We both began to laugh uncontrollably for what seemed like ages.” John Pollex, Potter.

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Over time, the enlightenment process may well cause you to adjust different aspects of your life, but at all times you’ll be able to meet your responsibilities.

The enlightenment process symbol shows how your development proceeds. The white arrow is your gradually elevating awareness – it’s the enlightened mind itself. You can think of the enlightened mind as like a seed germinating and sprouting upwards. Did you know that a single blade of grass moves aside half a ton of soil as it moves up towards the light?

Your enlightened mind has a similar power, but just as the grass blade grows up through the darkness, your enlightened mind develops in the unconscious part of your being. The growth that happens here is akin to enlightenment in it’s other meaning – you get lighter. Your burdens of suffering start to lift.

If you stay with the process and don’t get discouraged, the moment will arrive when your process becomes conscious. You know for sure what enlightenment is and that you’ve glimpsed it.

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“The feeling of oneness continued to build over a period of weeks. I had a private interview with Daizan Roshi. During that conversation I felt so in tune with that feeling of oneness that I couldn’t help laughing as we sat in his garden.  In the days that followed, the sense of luminescent expansiveness that I had experienced partially in previous weeks grew and blossomed. It would come in waves, often at unexpected times. Occasionally a wave would burst forth just when I was ruminating over some issue as if to remind me that there was a bigger universe outside (and inside) me.” David Bernstein, writer.

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This is just the beginning of a new phase, however. There is still more to do as your enlightenment reaches higher. Often people think that enlightenment is the glorious moment when it all breaks into your consciousness, but on reflection you can realise that the whole process is your enlightenment and ultimately it’s both beginingless and endless. As your consciousness continues to expand, you’ll become more aware of how actually everyone and the entire universe is part of this one great, beautiful process.

Proceeds arising from the Enlightenment Process will go towards funding a permanent centre for Zenways activities. If you want to find out more, please email zenways@london.com.