True Heart True Mind Intensives

True Heart True Mind

  • True Heart/True Mind has been our “flagship” retreat for thirty-eight years. It is a laboratory for the "real-time" implementation and practice of so many of the principles and practices that we have long taught. It is an otherwise silent retreat in which communication, as well as contemplation, becomes the vehicle for taking us deeply into the mysteries of self-realization. We learn to sit with the timeless question “Who Am I?,” not to be answered intellectually, but to be opened to with deepening contemplative awareness.

    The True Heart/ True Mind retreat is a highly structured, safe, and supportive setting in which everything you are becomes the object of your simple contemplative investigation into the nature of self and reality, without judgments, comparison or rejection. We learn to be fully present for our experience while becoming newly aware of the one who is present, with deepening integration, insight, and sometimes a mind-liberating breakthrough. And this learning occurs in the context of a two-person communication process that fosters trust, reciprocity, receptivity, non-judgmental attention, a deepening bonding, and surrender to a truth that lies outside our own mental constructs and projections.

    This demanding and gratifying Intensive process is integrating, revelatory, and often life-changing. It offers a practical introduction to non-dual spirituality and is also a great tonic for anyone’s current spiritual practice. With its equal emphasis on contemplation and communication, it helps us take responsibility for both our inner life and our outer life. With its emphasis on deepening our intention, our openness, and our honest accountability, it is the foundation of all spiritual growth work. It has never been more vital or more relevant -- to our current times, or to the needs of each of us to be true to ourselves and true to each other. We hope to keep this program vital, both in its four-day format, and in an extended format.

  • What is True Heart True Mind?

    Dear Friend: This is a lot of information. Take your time and read it carefully.

    True Heart/True Mind is a unique approach to self-awakening that integrates ancient contemplation and modern communication techniques. It is not just a workshop. It is a slice of your own life with all the routine distractions taken away. It is a time to come face to face with the essential nature of yourself and the essential nature of being. It is a greenhouse that fosters and illumines the natural processes of the self, confronting its conditioned tendencies, obstructions, distractions, and contradictions in the light of its inherent desire for freedom, love, and union. It is an occasion for those willing to let their soul’s search for truth and self-realization become their ruling passion for at least these three days.

    It prompts nothing less than the transformation of the mind’s paradigm: from distraction to devotion, from fixation to openness, from survival to growth. From figuring, labeling, and managing reality to the quiet opening of awareness that lets reality speak to us. And from a habitual social response to others, with all of its projections, to opening to others at the essential level of what it means to be a human being. It is the foundation of all spiritual work.

    It is a wholly simple, benign, and loving process, in which each person’s unfolding occurs in his or her own time. But because the schedule is rigorous, and you are left with no distraction from the moment- to-moment experience of self, it may well be one of the hardest experiences of your life.

    ORIGINS. The format of True Heart/True Mind was first envisioned in 1969, and developed and refined over the next ten years by Charles Berner. It is widely known as the Enlightenment Intensive. It was designed to enable you to directly experience your true self – not the self that we commonly experience as separate and apart from others, caught within the walls of its own opinions and attitudes, but that self which simply and freely participates in the “true nature” of what everything is. In some traditions that has been called an enlightenment experience.

    The barrier to such a direct experience of reality is our attachment to all those indirect mechanisms by which we form conclusions about reality: our projections, preconceptions, and judgments; fixed attitudes and emotional states; even our intellectual and analytical faculties. True Heart/True Mind provides a non-distractive, supportive, and safe environment in which you can learn to de-identify with your conditioned points of view, and open up to the full dimension of who you are.

    THREE KEY ELEMENTS. There are three key elements that are conducive to the awakening of the self, whether we envision this awakening as taking place over lifetimes or in the space of a moment: 1. Sincere Intention to experience things as they are, without prejudice; 2. Openness to whatever arises in your experience, in keeping with that intention; 3. Honesty in communicating to another about the reality of your experience, without need to be more – or less – than you are. Communication is a crucial element that gives True Heart/True Mind much of its power.

    As we grow in openness, we grow in our capacity to notice our own actual experience of self, without either denying or overlooking it; and in our capacity to communicate that experience to another with honesty and accuracy. This enables us to release the fixity of our identification with that experience or with our separative and self-limiting mental states. Ultimately we resume that individuality which is already simply free, and in relationship to things (and others) as they are.

    THE STRUCTURE OF THE INTENSIVE. The True Heart/True Mind Intensive begins with individual interviews late Thursday afternoon and an orientation talk later that evening. It concludes with an informal sharing and integration session on Monday morning. During the interim we will be in full retreat from the outside world. Even our watches will be set aside. Except for communication in the “dyads,” this is essentially a silent retreat without social interaction. The intent is to spend every waking moment learning to focus only on our contemplation.

    The heart of the Intensive format is a unique dyad process that integrates contemplation on the question “Who am I?” with communication to your partner about what is arising as a result of your contempla- tion. You will learn to focus more accurately on the truth of the moment and to feel confident to communicate it to others. Working together with rotating partners, from early morning to late at night, each person unfolds layers of personal identity, gradually letting go of the stories and fixations, until we have exhausted all but our openness to the essential nature of “self” and “other.” This dyad process is alternated with contemplative periods of walking, sitting, exercise, lecture, rest, and meals.

    For many, this openness and intention allows for a dramatic breakthrough in experience, as by some grace we are suddenly relieved of our self-clinging and directly glimpse our true nature. But such an awakening – at whatever level it might occur – is not something apart from the ongoing maturation of our being, and the practice, or process, that supports it. And it is in this supportive practice that we are being schooled at the Intensive.

    WHY IS THIS INTENSIVE HARD? The Intensive is hard because it is your real spiritual process happening in real time. It is an intensification of your life, not an avoidance of it. Whatever struggles the mind is likely to present it is likely to present here, as hour after hour you’ve told all your stories, run into all your own barriers, communicated the beliefs, the emotions, the fantasies, the self-judgments, and you’re still sitting there with no apparent way forward and no way back. The mind is being asked to function in a new way, and you may feel completely stuck. At this point you may announce to your partner with great conviction and eloquence that the process doesn’t work, that it’s certainly not for you, and that you clearly made a big mistake in coming here. Has your life ever felt like that?

    WHAT THIS INTENSIVE ISN’T. If you have experienced other kinds of Intensives, know that this one may be very different. It is not intended as a “cathartic process,” although you are encouraged to freely communicate the thoughts and emotions that are arising in your contemplation. Neither is it a therapeutic or group support process; nor is it intended to problem-solve or resolve life crises. Yet the structure, the boundaries, the rich contact with others, and the careful attention of the staff will support you in doing the deepest kind of personal work. The true intent of the Intensive is to directly experience who it is that is living your life.

    WHY AM I DOING THIS? The demands of the Intensive are balanced by the breakthroughs, the love and the openness, and by a contact with others and with yourself perhaps deeper than you have ever known. The awakening to Self is an end in itself, and at the same time an essential foundation for our continued growth. Whatever level of experiencing occurs for a participant at an Intensive, most will experience a greater integration, authenticity, and lightness of being; and an increased capacity for relationship, authentic communication of reality, spontaneity, and openness to the reality of others. The great sage Hillel said, “If I am not for me, who will be? And if I am not for you, what am I? And if not now, when?”

    We encourage you to see True Heart/True Mind not as a “fix-it” weekend, but as one more avenue of growth in a life committed to living, loving, and speaking truly.

    Paul Weiss, who leads True Heart/True Mind, is a teacher, poet, and multi-modal therapist who has directed The Whole Health Center in Bar Harbor, Maine since 1981. He uses the principles of the Intensive in his therapeutic work with individuals and couples. He began his practice of zen and tai chi in 1966, studying under several teachers in and out of monastic settings. Introduced to the Enlightenment Intensive process in 1983, Paul has been conducting Intensives under the name True Heart, True Mind since 1984. He first brought the Intensive to Kripalu in September, 1999. Paul’s studies of meditation and qi gong have taken him on many trips to India and to China, where he has been certified to teach by three different schools of qi gong. Feel free to reach Paul at The Whole Health Center at 207-288-4128.

  • What participants say:

    The True Heart/True Mind Intensive provides us an opportunity for many levels of growth and transformation, including profound instances of sudden awakening or a direct seeing into the nature of reality that doesn’t depend on books or the opinions of others. Some of the excerpts below recount the self-realization experiences of ordinary men and women. What these excerpts do not convey is the hard work within the Intensive that leads up to them. There are no shortcuts.

    ☼ “Somewhere in the course of the weekend everything changed. I came to a place where the mind had nothing left to offer. For the first time in decades it became still. There were no thoughts left, no clever things to say, no bright ideas about who I was, nothing but stillness. In that stillness I found myself, directly experiencing the me that was beneath all the stuff, that was part of eternal being. I knew absolutely that the stuff is just seaweed that clings to us, that below and beyond is the ceaseless river of which we are all part. At that moment I became a different person – me.” Bettina Dudley, 1994 – Town Hill

    ☼ “As a direct result of the Intensive I experienced a transformation beyond imagining. The fog of confusion has lifted and I enjoy a clarity that I never expected to have. The difficulty with awakening lies not in its complexity, but in its simplicity. I am an expression of consciousness. Not separate. I do not breathe, I am being breathed. Thanks for guiding me back in the direction of simple truth each time my mind beckoned me to do otherwise. Contemplation works.”

    Mickey Lynn, 2001 – Camden

    ☼ “I was beyond self in a vast, open, tranquil place. Between great waves of tearful ecstasy was a deep awareness of being welcomed. The word outrageous kept coming up, the outrageousness of being! Everything I looked at seemed outrageously incredible, sacred, precious, pure essence. Every other is EVERYTHING. And I knew that everything is exactly perfect as it is. There is no judgment here. The concept of ‘self’ and ‘other’ is an illusion of the human mind. It is all ONE. …I can see through pain to the sacredness of every living thing. And, when my own pain comes up, it too is part of everything and to be fondly welcomed.” Ann Hooke, 1998 – Deer Isle

    ☼ “Suddenly the door opens. My agenda is meaningless. The mind has only one part to play: Be Still! There are no words to convey my awareness from then on. Who I really AM has nothing to do with “my issues.” I kept thinking it was something that would be all mine. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not ownable, not measurable. It is everything. Nothing has been the same since.” Barbara Cegelis, 1989 – Southwest Harbor

    ☼ “A butterfly doesn’t have to be called a butterfly. That pillow is simply there, and no name can make it more there or less. All my words are swept away as soon as they arrive, because whatever I am saying points to no thing, and whatever I am cannot be said. And even though I am a person, I am not; and even though I say “I,” I have no I. I am just here and I am so happy that tears flow all by themselves, and the birds and the eyes of another IS IT. It is all that simple. Simply is. And I just wait to see what shows up.” Michelle Grodon, 2001 – New York

    ☼ “I was trying desperately to stifle this (laughter) when I caught sight of Paul behind my partner, and he made a motion that had the most incredible effect – it was sort of an invitation to let it come. And I was literally blown away. I’m not sure I remember everything I did, but I was shouting ‘I’m here, I’m here’ and pounding my fists on my chest (yes, Tarzan-like). I remember the bell ringing and I said I didn’t want to stop and we all laughed and it kept coming. I felt as if the top of my head had come open, and there was such joy and gratitude to everyone, and I cried and cried. I remember saying, ‘I want to know it all, I want to know it all.’ And to my partner, whose question was ‘What is another?’ I said, ‘Look – this is what another is!’”

    David Sanderson, 1997 – Lamoine

    ☼ “The Enlightenment Intensive was both enlightening and intensive. I experienced boredom, mental anguish, energy, peace, joy, love, the interconnectedness of all creation, the mutability of time and space, and what fun it is to laugh uncontrollably. We journeyed from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again….and again. There was also the added bonus of the group bonding – creating a loving family feeling. Paul Weiss and his staff provided impeccable leadership and direction as we were swiftly brought into deeper levels of awareness of our true nature. Since the Intensive, I’ve noticed a greater joy and appreciation in interacting with people and nature, along with a strong desire to watch the comedy channel. There’s also an appreciation for life as it is and a renewed desire to become more conscious of our divine birthright, which is to know ourselves and to know God.” Richard Handel, 1997 – Somesville

    ☼ “Late Saturday, my heart aches and my ribs are cinched by that familiar steel band. My heart suddenly opens – it is not my heart, it is THE HEART OF GOD – infinitely open, infinitely compassionate, loving, capable of receiving and holding all pain….I breathe deeply and freely. The steel band that cramped my chest melts into the heart of God. Sunday morning: I am turned inside out. My tender flame of love – that I always felt I needed to protect deep within – is suddenly all on the outside streaming down over me, into and out from me. There is no outside and inside. That which I called my smile is not my smile – it belongs to the universe.”

    Ann Hooke, 2003 – Deer Isle

    ☼ Through the floating dust

    A single shaft of light

    Illumines emptiness.

    Birth and death do not

    Distract. The clear and present

    Source chooses to shine.

    F. J., 1994 – Bar Harbor

    ☼ “Pure loving presence, no dogma, no pretense, no hype or masks. With refreshing simplicity, sharp focus, and crystal clear, compassionate guidance, Paul engaged us in a difficult dyad process with ease and fluidity, and with his team, they remained a genuine, loving, supportive, and inspiring presence throughout. The Intensive gifted me with a direct experience of my true self and practical tools and inspiration for continued practice and integration of self-realization. I heartily encourage ALL who are deeply committed to Self Realization and the upliftment of humanity to not miss this divinely inspired Intensive. I thank my Kriya Yoga master, Govindan, for encouraging us to take it.” Gita Masiques, 2001 – Toronto, Canada

    ☼ “The Enlightenment Intensive appears as one of the most exact, the most rigorous, and the most truthful methods of knowing the self among all those which have emerged in the course of humanistic psychology.” Jacques de Panafieu (in the French publication, Psychologie)

Upcoming True Heart True Mind Intensives

The True Heart/True Mind Intensive in a Larger Context

The yearning for revelation, for salvation, or for enlightenment is at least as strong today among us suffering human beings as it has ever been.  For many of us these impulses are distracted by our various materialistic enterprises; for others, they are engaged by various dogmas or fundamental-isms.  And still for many of us there lives the simple need to fulfill the spiritual potential that we sense about ourselves as human beings.

Fortunately we are today the inheritors of many authentic enlightenment traditions.  And in our culture there is a proliferation of all kinds of paths, programs and lineages calling for our participation and advertising their enlightened wares.  Many of these offer a legitimate container and support for our own spiritual process.  However, we may also find that all programs play into our tendency to bypass or deny the ground of our own experience, to externalize our search for enlightenment, and thus in some subtle or not so subtle way keep us far from ourselves.  As some of these programs grow in institutional scale there is often an escalation of form and identity as compared to essential teaching that refers us to ourselves.  Actually, that is an ancient problem.  

The authenticity of the Buddha dharma and the Christian gospel – beyond all mystification, esotericism, hierarchical distortion or spiritual materialism – begins and ends with the reality of the original clear light of conscious loving presence.  This is the subtle reality, the great simplicity, the tao without a name, the already present blessing, the divine, that the least grasping, elaboration, diversion or preoccupation obscures.  It is our Self, our Being-place, our pre-existent completion that all our restlessness is seeking.  How difficult it is for this essential spiritual intimacy to be faithfully carried and conveyed within the heavy hands of any institutional form, when even the institution of our own thinking can separate us.  And how easy it is to be diverted from conscious loving presence even by the most well-intentioned forms and practices, when the very nature of our human activity is one of distancing, and spiritual traditions are not immune from this.


Thus it is that some students who today are drawn to traditional forms of practice may end up still feeling diverted or road-blocked, or find themselves even more remote from what they thought they came seeking – or in some way bypassing the raw material of their existence. While others, not drawn to one traditional form or another, may feel at a complete loss as to how to honor their spiritual search and their need for true practice.


We also see arising within many practice communities a common disconnect between traditional forms of practice and the other skills and practice needed to embrace, integrate and heal our whole human selves.  This perpetuates a dualism between our “enlightened” and “unenlightened” selves, and between our meditation skills and our human skills in community.  We see practice communities reflecting the same dysfunctions as the greater culture: a failure of authentic communication, of reciprocity, of respectful intimacy, and of emotional integration, and inadvertent (at least) violations of human integrity. 

 

At the same time that many of us are getting lost in the maze of seeking, a genuine, democratic, enlightened impulse is arising in our midst, honoring, but independent of, the traditions. This has happened in other historical periods, both in the East and the West, wherein small circles of independent practitioners brought renewal to the timeless ideas held in the traditions.  Perhaps the spiritual impulse manifested in the growth of the AA movement and its genuine store of wisdom has also helped pre-pare us for this.  And teachers such as Eckhart Tolle gently call us back to ourselves, and cut through the old mystifications of enlightenment without substituting new mystifications or hierarchies in their place.


Richard M. Bucke, a Canadian doctor and a friend and biographer of Walt Whitman, identified what he believed was an emerging faculty of awareness which characterized our great spiritual teachers, but which was gradually appearing more broadly among the population.  He called it cosmic consciousness, and believed Whitman was a foremost example of it.  Whether the phenomenon he observed is an evolutionary trait or a cultural trait, or more likely an interplay of both, it does appear that more people are experiencing a direct and unitive awareness that transcends limiting cultural and psychological structures of thought.  This may happen among people who have reached a certain maturity of personal growth and spiritual practice; but it may also occur among people who have limited development or understanding about how to integrate these new insights or energies.  Without coming to any final conclusions about all this, we do seem to be in a period, in other words, of growing spiritual openness with limited supportive cultural or psychological foundations for discipline, growth and maturity.

 

This is not to deny, therefore, the importance and the blessing of the ancient lineages, the depth and rigor of practice, and the continuity of dedication and focus that may be found within the traditional forms.  Such depth is not easily come by in our independent learning process, and we shouldn’t presume that our relatively superficial efforts, even with some realization, are in themselves a substitute for that.  In any case, it is up to our own true intent, longing, openness, and native spiritual intelligence to begin to channel our exposure to the learning opportunities that come our way into a continuity of daily devotion, integration and practice beyond a daisy chain of weekend workshops. 

 

Another contemporary approach to supporting people in their awakening is found in the True Heart/True Mind retreats that we offer here in Maine.  (The Chinese term hsin, or xin, means both the heart and the mind as one essential organ of knowing or understanding.  True mind or true heart refers to that direct unitive heart/mind understanding that arises when we neither reject nor cling to the fragmenting concepts of our mental and emotional conditioning.)


The True Heart/True Mind retreat is a unique integration of contemplation and communication that is from the outset non-dualistic and integrative of the whole self.  True Heart/True Mind is authentically grounded in the enlightenment traditions, and while informal in its approach, is no less rigorous and precise in restoring us to ourselves and in supporting our capacity for direct experience and awakening.  True Heart/True Mind integrates contemplative discipline with communication practice in a way that supports us in staying present in our whole selves, not separating inside from out-side, the enlightened from the everyday, the personal from the relational, or our capacity to express ourselves truly from our capacity to listen well.  By taking the whole phenomenon of the self, or of life, as the object of contemplation and communication, we gradually open to a deepening presence, integration and detachment that invites the awakening of true heart, true mind.


By honoring our own natural capacity from the beginning, with no power or authority invested in external forms, there is no hint of mystification or cultism, but only support for restoring us to our-selves and to our own capacity for direct experience.  We appreciate “enlightenment” as a natural part of “growing up” – the full flowering of human maturity that is so often stultified.


When I, as a facilitator, observe the process of the True Heart/True Mind retreat, I often think with amazement to myself, “I have just witnessed human beings ‘grow up’ in the course of three days.”  I watch a random group of people arrive with their typical distractions, complaints, doubt, restlessness, judgment, and attachment to drama or story, and I watch them become present, alert, still, dignified, appreciative, self-responsible, open and compassionate to themselves and to each other, with frequent expressions of enlightened insight based on their direct perceptions, and even surrendered to profound   awakening, speaking with the tongues of sages and prophets.  How can this happen?


When we look at human life on this planet we see a species acting like abused and abusing children, with little evidence of our mature potential.  Yet we sense that the very essence of our humanity is the capacity for wisdom and for love – for enlightenment.  How is this potential suppress-ed and how is it fostered?  


We see that essence and potential of wisdom and love when we behold any  newborn.  That glimpse of our mature aspect is present at the beginning, ready to unfold in a natural developmental sequence in accord with mature nurturance and reciprocity from the environment of caregivers.  That is, this nurturance and reciprocity acknowledges and honors the whole unfolding self of the newborn, mindful of its tenderness, responsible to its dependencies, and supportive of its unfolding autonomy, self-expression, and exploration of reality.  This begins even as the first reciprocal gaze between mother and child awakens our neural capacity to “attune” to ourselves and to others.  In short, it is an environment of love and awareness that reflects and invites the love and wisdom of the child to flourish.


Of course we know that in our actual experience, the environment of the newborn is not such a perfect reflection, as our caretakers are not that whole themselves.  We are born into a conditional world that in so many ways negates our own innate wholeness of self, and in response to that world we adopt identities and structures of thought that allow for less than the wholeness of our own experience.  Out of a lack of reciprocity with ourselves and others, we develop a separative identity and fixations of thought and emotion that distort our direct perception of reality.  Our future “spiritual practice” be-comes a struggle to release these distortions in a world that still seems to reinforce them.  


At the True Heart/True Mind retreat everything you are becomes the object of your simple investigation into the nature of reality, without judgments, comparison, or rejection.  We learn to be simply present for it all and to become increasingly aware of the one who is simply present.  And this learning occurs in the context of a two-person communication process that fosters and restores trust, reciprocity, receptivity, non-judgmental attention, and a deepening bonding and surrender to some-thing that lies outside our own mental structures.  It is the communication added to the contemplation that gives this process much of its efficacy.  The capacity to truly listen, which is a wholly receptive capacity, is married to our capacity to stand fully in our own truth, to give it complete expression, and then to let it go.  Together, they clear old circuitry and make us available to new experience.  Combined with our own deepening intention, openness and contemplative rigor, our chronic fixations and developmental distortions begin to melt away and our genetic developmental capacity for full spiritual maturity asserts itself.  That is why we have sometimes referred to True Heart/True Mind as a green-house that fosters the natural processes of our spiritual growth.


We are currently expanding the True Heart/True Mind process into a full supportive program for spiritual maturation and conscious loving presence.  This will consist of a carefully designed and integrated program of practical and experiential study for awakening the harmonious function of the heart/mind and conscious loving presence in our everyday life and thereby complementing, support-ing, expanding and integrating the focused work of the True Heart/True Mind retreats.  Our intention is to provide support for those who would like to pursue the depths of their essential, unadorned spirit-ual process with incisiveness, breadth, and integrity while staying true to the simple intimacy and equality of conscious loving presence.  


True Heart/True Mind offers transparent support for wherever we are in our spiritual practice.  It is a welcoming doorway for the inexperienced, those wanting to make sense of, but not get lost in, the maze of spiritual practices currently available.  It roots them in what is essential to spiritual practice and in an integral sense of self that encourages both self-reliance and self-surrender.  For experienced practitioners, True Heart/True Mind complements and enhances other spiritual practices, or may release areas of stuckness.  While True Heart/True Mind teaches basic skills that we would do well to apply in our daily lives, it also encourages us to adopt or continue in whatever other practice maintains our spiritual focus on a daily basis.  For some, True Heart/True Mind has been a primary inspiration for their spiritual practice and understanding.  Others  welcome it as occasion for spiritual renewal.


In this process the facilitators and masters are also often participants and peers.  And thus we are all seen as people in process.  I am a capable being in whom a genuine realization is able to ex-press itself.  I am also an ordinary person with his own share of limitations and issues, and whom life periodically returns to first grade.  We all respectfully share the same process and the same potentials, and our enlightenment underlies both and is negated by neither.  This is the foundation of an enlightened democracy, of which my old friend Walt Whitman liked to sing.  For those of us who readily despair about the current direction and legacy of “the American experiment,” this other prospect is still worth singing about.