Angkor Rising

Psyche & Co. presents · Mystery School

Ten days among Angkor's temples, read as an initiation into the Divine Human.

Psyche & Co. presents Angkor Rising, a mystery school with Andrew Harvey among the temples of Angkor. It is longer and deeper than a retreat: ten days in which the stones themselves become the teaching, and the journey from the Churning of the Ocean of Milk to the faces of the Bayon to the roots of Ta Prohm is walked as a single initiation.

We live in a time when much is breaking down. Angkor holds an old and patient understanding of what that can mean: that turmoil can bring forth nectar, that compassion can look out calmly in every direction, and that nature reclaims what we build. Andrew's work on the Divine Human, the slow birth of divine consciousness in an ordinary embodied life, finds unusually clear mirrors here.

The place

Angkor Wat was raised in the first half of the twelfth century by the Khmer king Suryavarman II and dedicated to Vishnu; unusually, it faces west. In its eastern gallery runs the great bas-relief of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, in which gods and demons haul on the serpent Vasuki under Vishnu's direction, churning the cosmic sea until the nectar of immortality rises from it.

A little to the north, at the heart of Angkor Thom, stands the Bayon, the state temple of Jayavarman VII, built in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Its towers carry some two hundred serene stone faces, which many scholars associate with the king himself and others with Lokeshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion also known as Avalokiteshvara. The same king founded Ta Prohm in 1186 as a Buddhist monastery, its central image modelled on his mother as Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom. Built without mortar and later abandoned, it was left by its restorers much as the forest had remade it, with great trees rooted in its galleries.

The teachings

• The Churning of the Ocean of Milk as a map of transformation: how the pull between light and shadow, held long enough, yields the nectar of a deeper life.
• The faces of the Bayon and the bodhisattva of compassion: learning to look out on the world with steady, undefended tenderness.
• Ta Prohm and the wisdom of being reclaimed: what it means to let something larger than the ego grow through the structures we have built.
• The Divine Human: Andrew's teaching on embodied divinity, the meeting of the transcendent and the ordinary in one human life.
• Sacred Activism: how mystical awareness, once awakened, asks to be expressed as wise and practical action in a wounded world.

A sketch of the days

1. ArrivalGathering, settling and an opening circle in which Andrew sets out the shape of the initiation ahead. A sketch of the days; the final programme will be confirmed.
2. Days 2–4Angkor Wat: time with the Churning of the Ocean of Milk relief, teachings on turmoil and nectar, and contemplative practice at the temple.
3. Days 5–6The Bayon and Angkor Thom: sitting with the faces of compassion, with teachings and practices of loving awareness.
4. Days 7–8Ta Prohm: the temple in the forest's embrace, with reflection on surrender, impermanence and renewal.
5. Days 9–10Integration: gathering the thread of the whole journey, Sacred Activism and the return home, and a closing ceremony.

This is an outline to give you a feel for the days. The final programme, teachers and timings will be confirmed with the dates.

What you'll take home

• A lived understanding of the Divine Human, grounded in direct experience of some of the world's great sacred architecture.
• Contemplative practices of compassion and steady awareness to carry into daily life and, for practitioners, into the consulting room.
• A new relationship with crisis and breakdown, as possible ground for transformation rather than only loss.
• A sense of how inner awakening can become wise, practical service.
• Companionship with a small group who have shared a long and searching journey.

Who it's for

Angkor Rising is for anyone drawn to a long, deep immersion rather than a short retreat. Psychotherapists, psychologists and others in the helping professions will find much here for their own inner life and their work with suffering. Thoughtful laypeople are equally welcome: no prior knowledge of Hindu or Buddhist traditions is needed, only a willingness to travel slowly and inwardly. Dates are to be confirmed; register your interest to be told first when details are released.

Photographs via Wikimedia Commons: Alexey Komarov (CC BY-SA 4.0); Anandajoti (CC BY 3.0); Supanut Arunoprayote (CC BY 4.0).

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