The Guest House
Defusing and disempowering difficult thoughts and emotions
Sundays, June 1, 8, 22, 29
10am – 12pm MDT
Online
There is no lotus flower without mud
Thich Nhat Hanh taught, โNo mud, no lotus.โ This course invites you to meet difficult thoughts, emotions, and inner struggles not as obstacles, but as essential ingredients for growth. Just as mud nourishes the lotus, your inner challenges can become the very source of joy, peace, and loving-kindness. And not just that, they can be the gateway to awakening.
Many people believe meditation should always feel calm and pleasantโbut true transformation comes from embracing discomfort. This course shows you how to cultivate patience, compassion, and wisdom toward your โwayward heartโ as it moves through different emotional states. Over time, youโll learn to meet inner challenges with kindness, clarity, and steadiness.
Putting out the welcome mat for our challenges
What if, instead of fighting difficult emotions, you welcomed them? This course teaches you to โput out the welcome matโ for lifeโs challengesโbuilding a resilient, non-reactive awareness that can hold space for discomfort without being overwhelmed by it. Paradoxically, these very challenges can become doorways to deep flow states, non-dual awareness, and profound inner peace.
What you’ll learn on this course
Through a range of meditative tools and techniques, youโll learn to:
- Scan the body for emotional sensations
- Break down emotions into their core components
- Disentangle thoughts from feelings for greater clarity
- Loosen resistance and soften your response to difficult emotions
- Allow and welcome emotions instead of suppressing them
- Access a spacious awareness that can hold emotions with compassion
- Notice the absence of negative emotions
- Investigate the โselfโ that feels like the thinker or experiencer of emotions
- Disengage the sense of self from emotions, leading to greater freedom
Rather than running from discomfort, learn how to face itโand watch as it transforms into a pathway to peace, wisdom, and awakening.
This course borrows its name from a poem by Rumi:
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if theyโre a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
โ Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)
The Guest House
- 4 Sunday Sessions 10am โ 12pm MDT on June 1, 8, 22, 29
- Live Q&A time with Henry to help develop your skills
- Lifetime access to the session recordings
- Subscribe to The Way app to enjoy a 20% discount on all live events. Book through the appโs Events page to claim your discounted price. Click here from your mobile phone to go the Events page. For any questions, email [email protected].
Recordings
Each session will be recorded. If you can’t attend live, and it will be made available the following day.
Questions?
If you have any questions about The Guest House, please contact our program manager Jeremy. Weโre happy to answer any questions and look forward to having you join us!
Scholarships
We warmly welcome you to contact us if a scholarship would allow you to attend this course. Please contact our program manager Jeremy for details about how to apply.
Hereโs what students have said about Henry’s teaching:
What I love about Henry is his foundational approach to building a sustainable practice that is emotionally supportive and feels empowering.
Iโve practiced meditation with a number of teachers through my life over decades, but somehow Henry is getting through to me in a profound way. There is so much loving kindness in his voice and instructions.
I canโt say enough about Henryโs gentle, encouraging, compassionate, oft-humorous and always insightful support.
To deepen your experience in โThe Guest House,โ weโve curated key sessions from The Way to complement your learning journey. These optional but valuable sessions offer deeper insights into core themes explored in the course. For this course, we recommend:
- Retreat 4, session 9 โ Sensing emotion
- Retreat 5, session 5 โ The third Hindrance: Worry (part i)
- Retreat 5, session 6 โ The third Hindrance: Worry (part ii)
- Retreat 9, session 4 โ Human emotions (part ii)
- Retreat 9, session 6 โ Whose mind is this?
Reviewing these sessions beforehandโor revisiting them if youโve seen them beforeโcan significantly enrich your learning experience during the course. While not required, they offer a powerful way to deepen your understanding and practice.
About your teacher
Henry Shukmanย
Henry is an authorized Zen Master in the Sanbo Zen lineage, the co-founder of The Way meditation app, and the Spiritual Director Emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition to teaching meditation, Henry is an award-winning author and poet. His struggles and traumatic experiences as a youth, combined with a spontaneous awakening experience at 19, paved the way for Henry to develop a well-rounded approach to healing and awakening through meditation.
