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A Seven Year Program
CYCLE THREE - February 2003 - Dec 2009 CYCLE FOUR - Sept 2008 - Sept 2015
Teacher: John P. Milton
November 30, 2002
I am inviting those of you with previous Sacred Passage experience and particularly those of you who have been studying with me as senior students to participate in a new cycle (the Fourth Cycle) of the seven-year Advanced Awareness Training (AAT) program. Our first two gatherings in this new cycle were held in September 2007 and March 2008. I have initiated this Fourth Cycle of the AAT due to the success of our last (Third Cycle) of the AAT which still has two more years to complete. For 2008 and 2009, both the Third Cycle and the Fourth Cycle will be combined in two sessions each year. The main focus during this time will be on advanced Taoist alchemy and spiritual cultivation practices.
These two seven year AAT's have been initiated at the request of many of you to make more available the powerful transformational processes of the previous two Cycles of the Advanced Awareness Training. In prior years, this Training was only accessible to those of you able to take off up to a full year of study and training abroad. Compared to your previous Passage experiences, this newly designed Advanced Awareness Training presents you with an extraordinary and much more accessible opportunity to profoundly deepen the level of the teachings and practices you will receive. You also have the chance to do this Training with the support and fellowship of an exceptional group of my senior students. It is also designed to provide advanced teachings that I have never had the opportunity to offer before, particularly those on the recognition of the primordial state of Pure Source Awareness.
I believe the continuity of participation by the people who have expressed interest in this program will open new doors for learning together and building a mutually supportive spiritual community. Even more, I believe it is within the power of this group to help birth the liberating cultural transformation needed to bring human activities into harmony with Nature. 
“First and foremost, the Seven Year training will support you in your commitment to your own liberation.”
Program Overview
The Seven Year Advanced Awareness Training is intended to radically deepen your process of Spiritual Liberation. The basic structure of the Seven Year Advanced Training requires your participation in two or three Advanced Awareness Training Retreat Intensives each year, typically in winter, late spring/early summer, mid-sumer or fall. As I usually organize the Sacred Passages, each of these Intensives would entail time for teachings, individual cultivation, group practices, community sharing, and wilderness solo time.
I recommend that each of you entering the Advanced Awareness Training commit to attending each of the individual Trainings held in any given year. Ideally, you would begin the AAT starting with the first programs in fall 2007 and winter 2008. However, with prior approval from me, it would be acceptable to join and begin the Training during the second or third year (2008 and 2009). Once you have begun the Advanced Awareness Training, I would ask your commitment to attend all the programs for each calender year. This is to ensure you receive the cumulative energy and wisdom created by building step by step from a strong foundation through the unfoldment of the Advanced Awareness Training teachings, transmissions, practices, and cultivation methods of "The12 Principles."
My wish for each of you in this group is to:
Focus on direct and essentialized approaches to liberation
Gain a clear view of why you are here in this lifetime, and where you want to direct the focus of your life to be of much greater service to the whole
Realize a profound communion with Mother Earth
Open an outpouring of your unique individual creativity
First and foremost, the Seven Year training will support you in your commitment to your own liberation. The wisdom, good heart and insight you gain will serve you, and help you serve, in many ways you cannot now even imagine. At some point during the training, you may feel called to serve as a guide for Sacred Passages and other Way of Nature Programs. I cannot emphasize enough, however, that your training commitment should be first and foremost for your own liberation, which forms the deepest foundation of your true ability to serve others. At some point during the Training, you and I may mutually agree that you are suited to guide others. The Advanced Training could then serve to prepare you as a Way of Nature guide.
Students who I would consider prepared to undertake the Advanced Awareness Training will have completed at a minimum two to three Sacred Passages. (I may choose waive this in special cases if you have the background and experience that is the equivalent of this minimum requirement.) A background in meditation, T'ai Chi, Qi Gong, Taoist, Buddhist or Dzogchen practice, non-dual Advaita Vedanta, advanced Shamanic practices, or basic training in Buddhist or Hindu tantra is extremely helpful but not required. Students who have completed the 49-day training (including its a 28-day solo) that I have offered in previous years will be superbly prepared for the Advanced Training.
Content & Schedule
Each Advanced Awareness Training session is designed around five core elements:
Teachings and Transmissions
Individual Cultivation (in base camp)
Group Study and Practice
Solo Retreat
Integration
During most twelve-day programs, seven of your days in base camp will be devoted to teachings, study & practice, and integration, and five days will be reserved for your solo. During the sixteen-day program, you and the other students will spend eight days training with me in base camp and eight days on solo.
Teachings and Transmissions
The heart essence of the Advanced Training is formed by the 12 Principles, a path of clear progression of insights, transmissions, teachings, and practices that provide the most potential for full liberation. The Principles are a highly essentialized, balanced, organic, and progressive path of spiritual opening. You and the other advanced students will work deeply with the first four principles (and all their associated practices) during the first two years, with Principles 5 through 8 during the third and fourth years, and with Principles 9 through 12 during the last three years. You will focus on integrating all the principles in the last three years during one 28 Day and one 44 day extended solo retreat. More details on the specific teachings will be forthcoming at a later date.
When the Advanced Awareness Training group comes together two or three times each year, I will conduct interviews with individual students to fine-tune their training process, ask and answer questions specific to their progress, and recommend practices and areas of emphasis that should be helpful.
Individual Cultivation
Students will be given private time in base camp specifically for their own cultivation, before they go out on solo retreats. This is an important time to refine new practices and prepare oneself for solo time in Nature.
Group Study and Practice
I have found that regularly scheduled group study, discussion sessions and practice (without my presence) are critical to realizing the Way of Nature teachings and transmissions. This is a time for you and the group as a whole to reflect on the teachings, and support one another in deeper understanding and integration.
Solo Retreat
The Nature solo is your time to go into direct connection to Source, and deeply apply the practices and principles you explored during my Awareness Training. Solos will be five days during the twelve-day programs and eight days during sixteen-day programs.
In the second or third year of the Advanced Training, students will undertake a 28-day solo, plus eight days of training and integration, for a total time commitment of 36 days. Potential locations for this solo are: Crestone Colorado, Peru, New Zealand, and the Spanish Pyrenees.
During the last three years of the Advanced Training, students will undertake a recommended 44-day solo. In the longer, 44-day solos, you and the whole group will gather in silence on an average of once per week for a half to a full day to receive teachings and transmissions on advanced practices. I will conduct individual interviews with you during this time also.
During the 28-day solo, students will complete one 3 or 4 night classical solo rite of passage quest, during which you will remain within a small, eight-foot circle, taking minimal water, and abstaining from food, sleep, clothing, and shelter. It is permissible to have a sleeping bag that is kept open and wrapped around oneself to protect from cold, and also a hooded parka to protect from rain. If your health dictates, this process may be modified to meet your needs.
During your 44 day-day solo, you and the other students will undertake two rite of passage quests, one during the full of the moon, and a second during the transitional time from the dark of the moon to new moon. They will be designed in the same way as described for the quest during the 28-day solo.
In addition, depending on the progress of each individual student, I may recommend a dark retreat as part of your overall process.
You may be excited, as I am, to know that a high lama of the Bonpo Dzogchen and shamanic tradition (the mystical, esoteric, native religion of Tibet) has offered a number of retreat sites in the Dolpo Region along the Tibetan border in central Nepal for pilgrimages and for the 44 day solos. Over the centuries, these caves have been used by accomplished Dzogchen practitioners, some of who even accomplished the rainbow body at these sites. A second offer for solo sites may manifest in Bhutan. These are auspicious signs for our Advanced Awareness Training process.
Integration
At the conclusion of the solos, all of us will gather for a period of communion and mutual support. Your focus during this period is on integrating the realizations and insights gained while in on solo.
Optional Pilgrimages
In addition to the two or three retreats that form the backbone of your Advanced Awareness Training program each year, you will have options to join in pilgrimages over the four year period to more distant sites possibly including the South Pacific Islands, Bali, Laos/Thailand/Cambodia, Tikal (a Mayan site in the rainforests of Guatemala), Mt. Kailash in Tibet, Ireland/Iona, Peru, the Spanish Pyrenees, the Greek Isles, and the sacred Mountains of China. You will dynamically participate in the selection and planning of these journeys.
Advanced Training Commitments and Requirements
The intent of your Seven Year Training is to create a mandala that holds your realizations gained in the retreat intensives and Advanced Awareness pilgrimages. A strong daily practice is the vehicle for the complete integration of your realizations, and enables you to cultivate and nurture the practices and Principles in between the intensive retreat sessions. Therefore, I ask you to make a clear commitment to two hours of practice per day, plus one day per week in Nature that is dedicated to solitude and spiritual cultivation. If you have family obligations that make an entire day's commitment difficult, then a half-day of solitude in Nature is acceptable. I will provide clear study and practice guidelines for these daily and weekly practice sessions.
There will also be a mandatory reading list and a required equipment list for each year.
2003 Schedule
We will endeavor to schedule the programs at approximately the same times each year.
Perhaps the most important base for our Training will be at The Way of Nature's main facility in Crestone, Colorado. For programs in late May and mid-July through September, Crestone is an ideal location. The abundance of spiritual centers combined with the uplifting resonance of the highest peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (many over 14,000 feet) make Crestone truly unique. Of equal importance is the presence of the Sacred Land Trust and its extraordinary sacred sites.This will also be the land where many of our longer 28 and 44 day solos unfold.
A very important base for our Training will be in in Baja California. Our dedicated tropical facility, The Way of Nature Retreat Center in Southern Baja, is known to many of you already. Our retreat center here provides a home base for our training near the town of Todos Santos. Solo sites along the Pacific Coast open to the beauty and spaciousness of the sea and sky and are often graced by visits from whales, dolphins, pelicans, and sea lions.
Some of the Advanced Awareness Trainings will be in the Chiricahua Mountains of Southeast Arizona. The Way of Nature has a delightful retreat facility here named "Sweet Chi" for its good energy. Most of our Training will be based here. The surrounding Chiricahua Mountains of Southeast Arizona are blessed with extraordinary wilderness gifts for us. Close by are numerous magical canyons, pristine forests, exquisite volcanic mountains, ancient stone meditation seats and striking natural rock formations. Even the Mexican Jaguar is now a resident here. All these striking qualities provide a powerful setting for deepening our connection to Source.
Cost
The base cost of all 10 to 12-day individual retreats within the U.S. is $1,008. The 16-day retreats will cost $1,260.
Retreats at the Way of Nature Retreat center in southern Baja California, Mexico will cost $1,260.
Costs for the 28-day solo and the 90(or 44)-day solo will be announced in the future.
Costs for the optional pilgrimages, and the coming year's Advanced Awareness Training Schedule, will be announced in the fall prior to each new year.
Half of the retreat fee is due at the time of registration, with the balance sent to the Sacred Passage office no later than two weeks prior to the retreat.
When either 12 or 16-day retreats are held at The Way of Nature facilities in the Chiricahuas, Baja or Crestone, the cost of accommodations is included in the cost. If held elsewhere, the cost of food and lodging will be additional, priced according to the facility.
We Are Seeking Scholarship Support
We are actively seeking funding support for younger students and others who are unable to afford the full cost of the Advanced Awareness Training. Those who are interested in providing scholarship funds for students and those who need financial help to do the Advanced Training are invited to contact us. We, and those who will be helped by your support, deeply appreciate your generosity.
Registration
Even with little outreach, we have already had significant interest in the current Fourth Cycle of the Seven Year Advanced Awareness Training, and we anticipate even more interest. The minimum number of people needed to make the Training viable is twelve, with an ideal group size of twelve to fifteen, and a firm cutoff at twenty in order to meet space constraints and preserve the intimate character of the training process. Therefore, we highly encourage you to register as soon as possible.
You can register for the first year of the Training by contacting our office manager at 877-818-1881, and at the office address below. Checks for the retreat intensives should be sent with your completed registration form to:
Office Manager
Sacred Passage and The Way of Nature Fellowship
5600 W. Placita del Risco
Tucson, AZ 85745
I understand that the commitment of time and money to participate in this program is considerable. But the opportunity for us to learn and grow together is extraordinary.
I very much hope that you will be able to join us.
Much Love to you all,
John |
