I came to this work though a love affair with silent meditation retreats. As I experienced openings on retreat, I found I lacked the understanding and support to integrate these experiences into my life. I found myself in a painful split between ‘spiritual’ and ‘everyday’ life. Gratefully a teacher on one of these retreats asked me, “Have you ever heard of the Diamond Approach?” What I have found here is a mysterious teaching that has expanded and deepened this love affair…and I sense that it has only just begun!
Some people look at the many books and the vast map of this teaching and think that it is heady and complex. This can support a misunderstanding that spiritual work is something we accumulate, or ‘add on’ to ourselves. For me, this is the most delightful and paradoxical component of this work…the way inquiry burns away all that is extra. What remains is surprisingly simple, subtle, pure and free.