Maitri: The Five Wisdoms and interpersonal relationships

As a teaching that emerged from Tibetan Buddhism, the Five Wisdom Energies offer us insight into our personality, our emotions and our relationships with others.

During this course, we will experience how the Five Wisdom Energies emerge and how they trigger our emotions. Each of these five energies is associated with its own colour, one of the five senses, an element, a type of behaviour, and so on. For example, the so-called “Ratna” energy is connected with the colour yellow, the sense of touch, the element of earth, to qualities of abundance and generosity or, in its distorted form, to greed and pride.

This video gives more information on the Five Wisdoms approach.

If we are made of energy, what happens when our energy expresses itself in a context of confusion and shutting down? How can we get out of negative meotions? How can we transform complicated and conflictual relationships with others? We will learn how to dance with our energy and that of others.

This is a practice to cultivate a new way of connecting with our senses and energetic exchanges. Participants will learn how to read the energy of conflict situations: the energy of the person who presented, that of the situation and that of the presenter. The aim of the practice is to reach a compassionate approach to dealing with personal and professional relationships.

By connecting to our deep inner wisdom, we realise that there is nothing instrinsically bad or wrong about these energies. Indeed, it is by drawing from the energy itself that we are able to transform our emotions into compassion for ourselves and for others.

This six-day retreat is open to all. It offers an opportunity to touch the very heart of our emotions by teaching us to trust the energy underlying them. Sitting meditation practice will form the ground of this approach.

What we will do

We will meditate, as meditate teaches us to tame our emotions while remaining in the here and now. As well, we will use creative and body-centred exercises to familiarise ourselves with the energies and work with them in pairs.

In order to better experience the Five Wisdoms, we will use certain postures for each of them as well as an environment that is coloured either in blue, yellow, red, green our white. We will alternate between group practices (using glasses with coloured lenses) and individual practices (in special coloured rooms especially designed for this purpose).

Each day, physical and dance exploration activities will be offered as an opportunity to experience the five wisdom energies in and through the body. These practice sessions will be led by Sophie Carles, an Isness Dance practitioner based in Brittany (https://corps-e-mouvants.fr/).

Practical Information

Arrival day (Saturday October 18): You’re invited to come from 4 pm in order to register and settle in your room. Dinner is served at 6.45 pm. An introduction talk is given at 8 pm.

End of programme (Saturday October 25): Closing circle in the evening.

Departure day (Sunday October 26): You may leave anytime (no programme). You’re welcome to stay for breakfast.

This programme is taught in French.

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