Zen of Authentic Relating
Authentic Relating is often likened to relational meditation. Please join this unique immersive retreat of relational meditation practices set in the beautiful, contemplative, Crestone Mountain Zen Center. You are invited to spend 4 days and 3 nights in this serene environment. This unique Level 1 course will be an immersive course hosted at the beautiful Crestone Mountain Zen Center on the slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in Southern Colorado. We will guide you through a thoroughly tested and proven sequence of exercises designed to teach you the most powerful tools to create and deepen connection, with facilitated group conversation after each exercise to ensure maximum learning. We’ve constructed the exercises to ensure that the foundational skills of Authentic Relating are most efficiently and effectively absorbed by participants, no matter their level of prior experience or training.
The course begins with arrival on Thursday afternoon, July 29th, and concludes with a departure around noon on Sunday, August 1st.
Optional morning meditations in the Zendo will complement the relational and communication work that we do together throughout the day. There are incredible nearby attractions if you decide to extend your trip.
Level 1 Course Description
ART International’s flagship Level 1 course has introduced the foundational tools and skills of this life-changing practice to thousands of people around the world. The course is designed to make the learning of authentic relating as accessible, adaptable, practical, and engaging as possible so that graduates can apply their new skills to their lives right away with immediate results.
We’ve designed this course to give you the experience of profound connection, intimacy, trust, and aliveness with anyone you want, anytime, anywhere – all within just a few days. The tools and skills we teach work across all social contexts, from the workplace to the living room, from strangers to partners, and everyone in between.
Keith will expertly guide you through a curriculum that strongly emphasizes embodied and experiential learning. This is not a lecture or seminar – it is a deep dive full-immersion training that will leave you enlivened, heart and mind-opened, and deeply connected to yourself and others.
We’ve delivered the same Level 1 Course to spiritual seekers in Bali, inmates in Colorado, executives in New York City, and people from all across the social, cultural, economic, and political spectrum, of all ages and nationalities, on four continents. Universally, participants report profound and lasting transformation in all aspects of their lives. The course speaks in the shared language of human connection and is designed specifically to include everyone in the practice of Authentic Relating, no matter what path they’ve traveled in life.
We believe that we all have the capacity to be bridges – between parts of ourselves, ourselves with others, and together with the world. The course’s mission is to build bridges, and use our bridges to heal, connect, and co-create a more enlivened, awakened world – together.
Schedule
The retreat begins with an arrival dinner at 6 PM on Thursday, July 29th, and concludes around noon on Sunday, August 1st.
The monastery runs on a strict schedule, therefore our meal times each day are fixed at 8:30 am, 12:30 pm, and 6 pm.
Our daily program will begin at 10 AM, and we will end each evening between 8 and 9 pm. Optional Zen Meditation is available in the mornings.
- Arrival 2-4 PM
- What is Authentic Relating?
- <Optional> Introduction to Zazen (seated meditation)


Day 2: Friday, July 30th



