Radical Wholeness

Psyche & Co. presents · Retreat

Shadow and light held together, on the banks of the Mekong.

Psyche & Co. presents a week with Andrew Harvey on wholeness: not perfection, but the courage to include everything we are. Most of us carry parts we would rather not see, and spiritual life can become one more way of hiding them. Here we turn towards shadow and light together, in the conviction that what is integrated can be transformed.

Luang Prabang offers an unusual teacher for this work. In a town shaped for centuries by Theravada Buddhist monastic life, each day begins in silence and simplicity. We will let that rhythm slow us down, and ask what it might mean to live, and to help others live, from a fuller wholeness.

The place

Luang Prabang sits on a peninsula where the Nam Khan river meets the Mekong, ringed by mountains. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century it was the capital of Lan Xang, the "Kingdom of a Million Elephants", and a centre of Buddhism in the region; its name means "Royal Buddha Image", after the Phra Bang statue. The town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 for its blend of traditional Lao and colonial architecture and its many richly decorated monasteries, among them Wat Xieng Thong, built in 1559–60 under King Setthathirath, whose rear gable bears a glass mosaic of the tree of life. The sacred hill of Mount Phousi rises at the heart of the old town.

Every morning at sunrise, monks walk barefoot and silent through the streets for tak bat, the alms round, receiving sticky rice from kneeling residents. For many monks it is their food for the day; for the givers it is a way of making merit and practising humility. Visitors are asked to watch quietly, at a respectful distance and without flash.

The teachings

• Wholeness, not perfection: why the spiritual path asks us to include our shadow rather than transcend it.
• Meeting the shadow: recognising projection, shame and disowned gifts, with tools drawn from depth psychology and the mystics.
• The light we fear: owning our own goodness and power, which can be as hard as owning our darkness.
• Simplicity and generosity: what the daily alms round and monastic rhythm can teach about receiving, giving and enough.
• The Divine Human: Andrew's vision of embodied divinity, in which heaven and earth, spirit and body, are joined in us.

A sketch of the days

1. ArrivalWelcome and opening circle; an introduction to wholeness and to Luang Prabang's monastic rhythm.
2. Days 2–3Shadow: morning teachings from Andrew, reflective writing and small-group work on what we have disowned.
3. Days 4–5Light: dawn observation of tak bat for those who wish, visits to the old town's monasteries, and practice on receiving our own goodness.
4. Days 6–7Integration: time by the Mekong, silence, and teaching on the Divine Human and bringing wholeness into our work.
5. DepartureClosing circle and practices to carry home. A sketch of the days; the final programme will be confirmed.

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 compassionate, practical understanding of your own shadow and light.
• Ways of working with shadow that can inform therapeutic and caring practice.
• A taste of simplicity and silence to build into daily life.
• Respectful first-hand experience of Theravada Buddhist culture.
• A renewed sense of yourself as whole, and of wholeness as something to serve.

Who it's for

For psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors who work with the shadow in others and want to meet it more fully in themselves, and for laypeople who feel ready to stop dividing themselves into acceptable and unacceptable parts. No meditation experience or knowledge of Buddhism is required. The week is reflective and sometimes challenging, held with warmth.

Photographs via Wikimedia Commons: Basile Morin (CC BY-SA 4.0); Basile Morin (CC BY-SA 4.0); Arian Zwegers (CC BY 2.0).

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