Is Peter Fenner still delivering non-dual therapy training?

Is Dr Penner Fenner still teaching his Radiant Mind course?

A living master of Madhyamika-style deconstruction, Dr Peter Fenner delivers his teachings with contemporary finesse and is among the leading non-duality teachers of our time. Through his Radiant Mind workshops and books, and his non-dual therapy training, he has shared his powerful and effective transmission with thousands of seekers and practitioners.

He built his reputation on two structured courses: the nine-month Radiant Mind Course and the ten-month Natural Awakening teacher training, the latter aimed at people wanting to bring non-dual awareness into their work as therapists, coaches, counsellors or meditation teachers. 

Radiant Mind, as currently sold, is a three-month self-guided course based on his book and the Sounds True audio recordings. The old facilitated group programme of the same name is not on offer. So the original teacher-training pathway exists on paper without an active intake.

Dr Fenner is still teaching, but the formal multi-month training programmes that made his name are not currently running on a set schedule.

In 2015, Dr Fenner said, “At a certain point I decided to keep Radiant Mind as a course for the public and develop a new training that has the specific intention of teaching people how to share non-dual awareness. I used Radiant Mind as a structural model for the new Training.”

However, no further dates have been arranged for the Natural Awakening course.

Anyone looking specifically for his classic nine-month or ten-month non-dual therapy training would not currently find an open enrolment. They would find the books, the self-guided Radiant Mind course, the supervision offering and whatever short courses he is teaching through places like Dharma College.

Peter Fenner now directs therapists and coaches towards the Natural Awakening guidebook.

What is an alternative non-dual therapy course to Peter Fenner’s offerings? 

The Reclaiming Wholeness non-dual therapy course is not only an alternative to Radiant Mind and Natural Awakening, but is also informed by a different framing of the non-dual recognition. 

The Reclaiming Wholeness course draws its inspiration primarily from the Trika school of Kashmir Shaivism, while using jargon-free modern language. 

Madhyamaka and Trika are both deeply non-dual in the sense that they challenge the ordinary assumption that reality is made of separate, self-existing things. Both traditions undermine the idea of an isolated ego standing apart from the world. Both invite a release from fixation, contraction and misperception.

They also share a subtle view of appearances. Neither tradition simply says, “the world is just solid objects exactly as common sense imagines.” For Madhyamaka, appearances are dependently arisen and empty of inherent existence. For Trika, appearances are not separate objects existing apart from consciousness, but expressions of Śiva’s own self-manifesting power.

Both traditions also avoid crude dualism between the sacred and the ordinary. A thought, a sound, a sensation, a painful emotion, a moment of beauty, a sense of self — none of these need to be rejected in order for insight to occur. In this sense, both can support a radical intimacy with experience.

What are some of the differences between Madhyamaka and Trika?

Natural Awakening’s Madhyamaka-informed approach is primarily deconstructive, while Reclaiming Wholeness’s Trika is primarily recognitive and affirmative.

Dr Fenner brings extensive Buddhist training, and his analytical work in Madhyamika philosophical psychology gives him unique skills for deconstructing one’s assumptions about who one is and what is so. Madhyamaka refuses to let us land on any final metaphysical claim. If we say reality exists, that is too much. If we say it does not exist, that is also too much. If we say it both exists and does not exist, or neither exists nor does not exist, those too are conceptual extremes. Madhyamaka keeps cutting through every position until the mind stops grasping at reality through fixed concepts.

Trika, by contrast, is much more willing to speak positively about ultimate reality. It says that the ultimate is Śiva, self-luminous reality, freedom and power. The world is not merely empty of essence; it is the living expression of the whole. Where Madhyamaka says, “do not grasp anything as ultimately real,” Trika says, “recognise everything as the expression of the one reality.”

Another key difference is their treatment of consciousness. In Madhyamaka, consciousness is also empty. It is not allowed to become a final metaphysical ground. In Trika, consciousness is the groundless ground: the absolute reality from which all experience arises and as which all experience appears.

Madhyamaka protects non-duality through emptiness.

Trika celebrates non-duality as fullness.

They meet in their refusal of separation. They differ in tone, method and metaphysical confidence. Madhyamaka liberates by dismantling every place the mind tries to stand. Trika liberates by revealing that wherever you are standing, whatever is appearing, is already the radiance of the whole.