A 7-Day Training Intensive with David Deida
September 17-24, 2010
Omega Institute
Rhinebeck, New York
Enrollment in this 7-Day Training is by application only.
For registration or to receive an application click here.
This 7-Day Intensive is David Deida's advanced training for men and women ready to illuminate the unseen depths and shadows of their being. Practitioners from all over the world gather with Deida for an unparalleled opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of their psyche and desire. Journeying solo, partnered, and in groups, virtually no stone is left unturned in seven days and nights of investigation, insight, and celebration.
In this 7-Day Training we go far beyond the weekend and dive deeply into advanced practices that enhance our heart's depth and presence, turning lovemaking into whole-body prayer and true spiritual communion as we learn how to create and sustain the authentic yoga of intimacy throughout the days and nights of our years.
What are you really here to do—professionally, intimately, artistically—and how committed are you to doing and living it? To get there, Deida teaches, we need to surrender to the boundless self that we truly are and learn to live in the unbearable pleasure and vulnerability of that exquisite state of openness. And most of us require a dedicated practice, a living yoga, in order to sustain this.
During this training, we engage in practices that focus on where we are most contracted, and "for a lot of people that means sexuality, life-purpose, and intimacy," says Deida. We spend our time deepening and fine-tuning personal practices, both in and out of the classroom, using traditional means such as breathwork, meditation, yoga, and dance, as well as the custom-designed personal practices for which David Deida is so widely hailed. Working in groups, with partners, and individually, we learn to:
- identify our unique gifts and give them more fully;
- learn when to respect boundaries and when to press through them;
- ease beyond fear into ecstatic surrender;
- open out in connection when all we want to do is close down;
- employ ecstasy to heal past wounds and melt open beyond the self;
- offer our deepest presence and love;
- skillfully navigate the differences between men's and women's internal sexual circuitry;
- discover how to access the freedom of consciousness and humor amidst anger, lust, and jealousy;
- design a deeply personal spiritual life; and
- create a daily sexual yoga practice, solo and in partnership, that will continue to grow along with the depth of our heart's desire to turn our entire life into an artful, whole-body offering of love.
Whereas "healing old wounds" is most fruitful amidst patience and firm boundaries, the yoga of transformation that Deida teaches involves carefully stretching to play at your vulnerable edge and just beyond, including your limits and gifts of body, mind, and emotion. Just as you are, sourced in loving awareness, no subject is taboo. All fixations and unique twists of character are welcomed with compassion and humor. Every struggle and life situation is workable in this teaching. Together with an international gathering of men and women dedicated to authentic spiritual practice, you will have the opportunity to go as deep as you choose:
- explore all of your real desires, dark and light, in a compassionate and skillful setting;
- learn how to create a spiritual portal through the sexual act;
- determine when to heal restfully and when to leap beyond being frozen in terror;
- learn the artful use of natural substances, sex, music, and nature to enliven the creative matrix of your life's offering;
- investigate your taboos and learn how to offer love's gift in moments of resistance and closure;
- understand the powerful sexual dynamics of money;
- discover the difference between emotional neediness and devotional yearning;
- illuminate the "cult" blueprint often hidden in teacher/student and lover/beloved intimacies;
- develop your capacity for sustaining radical relationship through heartbreak and comfort;
- uncover your deepest purpose and learn why you haven't yet fully offered yourself;
- familiarize yourself with the basics of straight and gay sexual yoga (and everything in between); and
- cultivate the true yoga of light, bringing authentic presence and bright love to the places in your life and relationships that many are hesitant to illuminate
Participants should be prepared for explicit use of language and intensive experiential practice. Actual sex and nudity are not involved in this training. Precise rules of relating between all participants create a safe space for learning and exploration. This 7-Day Intensive and the Weekend Workshop are open to singles and couples of any sexual orientation, with a strong emphasis on personal instruction and one-to-one feedback and refinement.
This 7-Day Intensive registration is by application only. No more than 48 applicants will be accepted into the training, and this Intensive is expected to sell out fast. Applications will be reviewed in several rounds. To be considered in the next round, your application must be received by September 3, 2010. Applications received after September 3 will be considered on a space-available basis.
For registration or to receive an application click here.
Selected Deida Workshop Topics
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Why is feminine energy extremely attractive yet mistrusted by both men and women?
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How does the desire for social and economic fairness inadvertently serve to weaken men and harden women in intimacy?
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Why do many men resist marriage even when they are totally in love?
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Why are the five biggest turn-ons for women different than those for men?
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What is the relationship between your ability to express forceful anger and sexual passion?
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How do you transform emotional and sexual wounds into gifts?
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Why is the word "surrender" so offensive to some people and so erotic to others?
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How does one cultivate "masculine presence" and why is it such a gift in intimacy?
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What is the difference between telling your partner "everything" and telling your partner the "truth?"
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What are the spiritual prerequisites for experiencing the ultimate sexual embrace?
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What is the difference between rape and ravishment, or seduction and enchantment?
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Why does our sexual growth often cease at an early age?
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When is it appropriate for intimate partners to honor each other's boundaries and when is it appropriate to respectfully penetrate them?
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What is the relationship between food and sex?
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Why is it often so difficult for a man to listen to his partner talk about her day?
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What must you risk in order to experience deep sexual union and emotional communion?
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Why does a man driving a car often have such a strong reaction when a woman gives him directions?
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How do men and women use places, pets, drugs, food, and vacations as sexual substitutes?
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Why do most men, but not most women, lose sexual interest when their career is uncertain?
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How can you determine if you will attract a macho man, a "wimp," or a passionate man; a submissive woman, a "ballbuster," or a radiant goddess?
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Why is a man's "mission" usually more important to him than an intimate relationship?
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Why are abusive relationships often so passionate, and balanced relationships often so tepid?
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What do women reveal about their desire to be ravished in love?
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What is the connection between sex and aggression in most men's minds?
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Why do most couples decide to stay in the "safe zone" of sexuality and spirituality, and what are they missing?
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Why are soap operas like feminine pornography?
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Why is the feminine undervalued in our society?
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Why are many women attracted to "bad" men?
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In what way are beer, TV, and women almost interchangeable to most men?
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What do men and women really want from each other sexually?
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Why is it impossible to grow spiritually without embracing our darkest impulses?
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Why does the repression of our darkest sexual desires create an unhealthy world?
On the Work of David Deida
There are few categories I know of for an original like David; for his teachings there is no pigeonhole. David is the one western teacher of tantra whose books I read and whom I send students to learn from. He is a bridge-builder between East and West, between ancient and modern wisdom traditions regarding this least understood of all spiritual teachings: the mystery of intimacy as a yoga of transformation, transcendence, and self-realization. The results of true practice, in any tradition, are unmistakable; David Deida demonstrates them.
- Lama Surya Das, best-selling author of Awakening the Buddha Within
Every once in a while, someone comes along whose work is clearly a next step. Their ideas seem to answer some collective questions hanging out in the culture. Their books and seminars become an underground buzz, and within a period of time their ideas become part of our cultural vernacular. David Deida is such a person. In a time not too far off from now, his ideas will have spread like wildfire. That's how hungry this society is for what he has to offer.
- Marianne Williamson, best-selling author of A Woman's Worth
Being able to teach and live integrated sex, relationship, and transcendence is no easy task. It requires immense courage, wisdom, and above all, fearless loving. In Deida, all this gets included in one radical teaching. At last, a teacher who understands sexual polarity and a man's core desires without compromising or emasculating you with pseudo-psychotherapy, "tantra," or political correctness. You'll learn how to open your heart and integrate the need to sleep with every attractive woman you see, deal appropriately with a woman's emotional chaos, give your gift to the world and lover, and finally transcend the whole lot by including it all.
- Vijay Rana, The Watkins Review
Deida brilliantly lays bare the hidden psychology of feminine and masculine and offers clear instructions for tapping into our deepest core and achieving true harmony through sexual intimacy. His understanding of feminine psychology astounds me.
-Miranda Shaw, Ph.D., author of Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism
David Deida's teachings on this central human concern, sexuality, emanate from a deeply trustworthy source. He has undergone his own rigorous training and practice, which manifests in precise, gentle, and thorough teachings. Many spiritual traditions, including Zen, have excluded or marginalized the sexual experience. David's work fills this gap, and gives us a mature approach for bringing the energetic, emotional, and physical experience of sex into our life and practice. And like Zen, the fruition of David's work is openness, compassion, and love.
-Genpo Roshi, Zen master and author of The Eye Never Sleeps
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