The Enlightenment Intensive was born in 1968 when a man named Charles Berner combined a partner-based exercise he knew from his counseling work with the tradition of inquiry-based contemplation familiar to most people in the form of Zen koans. He took a group of people into the desert for a five-day retreat, sat them down in pairs and had them ask each other the question "Who am I?" in the form of "Tell me who you are" over and over again.
Berner chose the "Who am I" question because he had noticed that people who had a strong sense of who they were did much better in personal growth work than those who did not. His initial hope was that the experiment would help people wake up to themselves more quickly than other methods he had tried. The results exceeded all his expectations. Not only did people discover who they were, in a relatively short time people began to have the kind of break-through experiences that he had read about in books on Zen. As Berner continued to experiment, he came to realize that he had stumbled on a method which increased the likelihood of a break-through or "enlightenment experience" dramatically. He started looking at other traditions and methods and confirmed that the openings people were having were of exactly the same nature as those familiar in all spiritual traditions.
He called his discovery "The Enlightenment Intensive" and over a period of about 12 years he continued to refine its structure. The form that he devised over that time is the form we follow on our intensives, with some minor modifications. It is a residential retreat lasting three full days, with a final half-day devoted to integration exercises. During the three days, everyone takes a question and contemplates it from morning to night as long as the intensive lasts. In most cases people begin with "Who am I?" After their first intensive, people may choose other questions: "What is life?", "What am I?" or "What is another?".
About 12 hours a day there are structured exercises that intensify and open up your questioning. Everyone sits down facing a partner. One partner contemplates while the other listens. With an open awareness, the contemplating partner sets out to experience the truth directly, using his or her question as the focus. He or she then communicates whatever comes up as a result of the contemplation.
The listening partner just receives and understands the communication, without comment, reaction or judgment. Every five minutes a bell sounds and the partners switch roles. This way of switching roles is called the "gong method" and is the one I use on my intensives. It guarantees that everyone spends an equal time contemplating and communicating.
What makes Enlightenment Intensives so powerful is the combination of contemplation and communication. The contemplation is based in open questioning, “not knowing” in the most fundamental way possible. And the communication balances the presentation of your experience with non-judgmental and open listening. Being heard in this way can be very powerful and serves to rapidly clear the mind.
It is very difficult by yourself to overcome the barriers that inevitably arise in the pursuit of enlightenment. In the Enlightenment Intensive, you have several things that work to your advantage. One is the structure, which is designed to create a safe container that supports you and minimizes distractions. But contemplating in a structured environment characterizes many methods. What truly distinguishes the Enlightenment Intensive is that you have a partner to help you in your contemplation. Although you do spend a lot of time contemplating alone, in the dyad structure you have the conscious energy of your partner aiding you. It's probably easiest to see the power of having a non-judgmental listening partner in the self questions, who am I and what am I: in order to know who you are it is often the case that you must be willing to be known just as you are, without any "spin."
What to expect
When you take an intensive, you will attain levels of openness and clarity that you rarely, if ever, experience in normal life. You will naturally experience powerful connections with the other participants as you leave behind pretence and the usual masks and facades you present to the world. You begin to speak the truth without reservations. As you continue to open, more and more usually hidden or overlooked aspects of yourself, life and others reveal themselves to you. In this environment you dramatically increase the likelihood of a sudden shift in awareness, a breakthrough into something never cognized before (though paradoxically often the most familiar thing there is). People often have the feeling that they are hiding or that they are hidden from others and themselves. When you experience yourself directly, you are no longer hidden. It is you - without any doubt. This kind of breakthrough can clear up many things. People often say that when they experience themselves directly, one of the most valuable things is seeing clearly what they are not, i.e., who they thought they were.
Paradoxically, although direct experience or enlightenment is the aim of the Intensive, it is actually counter-productive to set out with that as your goal. It is much more powerful to delve deeply into whatever question you are contemplating, to open up to the question as fully as possible, to want to know who you are or what life is with every fiber of your being, to want to know regardless of the consequences. The most powerful tool you have is your love of the truth of the matter. Fortunately, in my experience, we humans seem to have an innate love of the truth. This is your most powerful ally and guide on the intensive and it's also the reason why we can say that the technique used is self-reinforcing. The truth is really like a beacon for the contemplator. In a way you could say that it wants to be known as much as we want to know it.
It is important to know that the intensive can be difficult. Opening up to the truth can reveal things you would just as soon not look at. There is no requirement that painful subjects come up. But if they do, it's important to communicate them as they arise. The point is not to come to the bottom of them or to even to understand them, though new levels of understanding often occur. The point is to clear your mind of them so you can continue to open. Having communicated something difficult, people often experience a burst of energy and report new levels of clarity and openness and freedom.
At the end of the intensive, whether or not you have had a direct experience, you will be in a state of extraordinary openness. The world will seem brighter, closer and more vivid. And you will be more present to yourself, to life and to others. This level of clarity inevitably fades. But what has been revealed to you remains. You are still you, as you have always been. But now you "have" you, the most precious thing there is.