Martin Jespersen
Webdesigner (Denmark)
First and foremost curiosity has brought me to the seminar. Reading other testimonials tell a lot about the deep transformative effect Ayahuasca can have on you. My life had been going in circles for a long time. This opportunity seemed like the right one to take.

Time will tell if I reached my purpose. My expectations have been more than met. I really didn’t know what to expect from going into this. I do feel that changes are already happening in my life.

As long as your motives are pure in the sense of exploring yourself, and being aware that you might not always like what you see, I think Ayahuasca is a great healer and teacher. It is most definitely medicine for the soul.

I would recommend this to everyone who is interested in knowing themselves deeply, or wants to see things from a different perspective. Anyone who is looking to change aspects of themselves would also benefit from this experience.

Pisaq is a wonderful place to have the workshop. The nature is so magnificent and there is much to see and experience. The life in and around Pisaq is full of opportunities to connect with people. The atmosphere is relaxed and peaceful.

Steve
Psychiatrist (New Zeland) - Cusco workshop
My principal purpose was spiritual curiosity. I wanted to gain a greater understanding of the mind and explore the internal world. I was also hoping to gain insights that might be helpful in my profession. Clinically, a wanted to get a sense of whether this might be a helpful medical treatment. Also, I was hoping to resolve some of my own issues and enhance my meditation practice.

Ayahuasca certainly help reach my purpose in unexpected ways. It is a very powerful medicine. You should be prepared for a very intense, personal experience.

First, I think that Ayahuasca should only be used in a controlled setting with someone who has a great understanding of the medicine. this is a very strong substance and it has a definite healing potential in the right context.

I don't recommend it for people who are looking for a recreational thrill. I recommend it for people who are on a serious search and are prepared to face personal difficulties. If a person feels stuck or trapped and is prepared to open themselves, Ayahuasca is a powerful way to do that.

Also the place and the setting was beautiful. The trips we took to ruins, historical sites, villages and an orphanage all enhances the experience. This would have been an amazing experience even without the Ayahuasca.

Eric Hoffmann
Attorney (USA)
I had read about Ayahuasca a long time ago and wanted to see if it really possessed some of the remarkable abilities attributed to it. I hoped to gain a better understanding into a number of important familiar and personal relationships. I also wanted to re-examine my own commitment and relationship to Buddhism. To a lesser extent, I thought I might also consider what I am doing with my life right now, and whether I should tackle something different.

The experience of the three ceremonies seemed very profound and inexpressibly strange. A number of insights, which seemed valid then and now, came to me both during the official ceremony and afterwards. I did not feel that the visual effects were particularly meaningful in my case, with a few important exceptions, which could be described as highly symbolic and mostly static pictures instead of the colored, geometric, and dynamic patterns that one also often experiences.

First, I would say that Ayahuasca is not a recreational drug. Anyone who approaches it with that attitude will be disappointed. The ceremony itself can be intensely uncomfortable and draining at times. Nausea was also present frequently. What was surprising was how positive I felt the day afterwards in each case. I think all of us are very perceptive, but over time we filter and block or ignore the sensations that we pick up all the time. Ayahuasca seems to put you back in touch with those perceptions, and there is a tremendous sense of clarity when considering very complicated personal issues. This is extremely difficult to capture in words, but it is a real phenomenon nevertheless. There is an enormous sense of “that’s the answer!” when considering situations and people that otherwise seemed too complex to understand. How Ayahuasca accomplishes these things, I don’t know.

I would recommend this experience only to people who are open to the idea, specifically the possibility that Ayahuasca is different in some key respects than other plants/drugs that share the common feature of being able to produce colorful patterns and/or hallucinations. The Ayahuasca experience is not about the colorful patterns, which can become tiresome and annoying. The real benefit seems to lie in considering what is most important to you, whether that is family, friends, work, or any other aspiration or question that you carry inside.

About the place we,
It is a lovely setting. The sky at night is just stunning for any city dweller. This is a very special place. Pisac and the surrounding towns are very nice as well, and the people are very friendly towards tourists/guests.

Sohan Ko
Buddhist Sangha sister (Canada)
I have been to the Seminar in the jungle (Puerto Maldonado) in 2003. I feel very blessed to come back for this first Seminar in Pisaq. Being a Buddhist. I found this Seminar my best Dharma practice in lifetime. It's deep and wonderful. It connects me to Buddha.

Thank you Mother Ayahuasca for healing me, in the way she brought me in the bardo realm, (the intermediate state between living and dying / waking and dreaming). Through the experience of dying, Ayahuasca taught me about death. Through knowing death, I know about life. She is the medicine to cure our blindness, remove our veils, so we can remember what life is, remember our ancestors and our root, remember how to be a good person with love and integrity, remember our connection to our mother earth, the father sky, the sun and the moon, all our brothers and sisters, the mountain gods and our great spirit. These understandings have been always within us, we just forgot them. In this deep connection, there's no more judgments and prejudices, but only compassion.

The Seminar is also a profound practice for Buddhist Dharma. Thank you for Buddha's protection. Our mind is changing all the time. Impermanence is the nature of all existences. We are all future Buddha, we just need to realize this. With the practices of six perfections: giving, discipline, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom during the sessions, I understand much more about bodhichitta, and the heart of Bodhisattvas, (the great beings with compassion and loving kindness.) My heart was filled with respects. With the practices, our mind can be kept centered and balanced no matter how difficult the situation is. With control of our changing mind, we can receive enormous amount of freedom and strength. I also realized that this reality is just delusion like dream. things only exist because we think they do. If we can abide in the no-dual stillness and emptiness with full awareness and compassion, then the suffering and pain will no longer exist.

Ayahuasca is working so deeply to purify our negativities, the suffering she brought to me was a profound healing process. I just cannot avoid them because only through that process, I could be healed and return to the place where we belong, with complete calmness and unconditional love.

Solveig Sonera
Biologist, Environmental Protection (Germany)
Before coming to the Seminar I was not entirely clear about Ayahuasca's potential for insight and healing, because I had no prior experience with it or any other psychedelics. I was hoping it could be a way of letting go of negative emotions and reactions toward others and of having time to think and deal with my problems.
I was also curious to see if the controlled use of Ayahuasca could be used for therapy purposes.

The experience was beautiful and very useful. Specially the second Ayahuasca ceremony was quite a practice of letting go, meditating, patience and giving. It brought me completely back to my own center and in a beautiful and forceful way showed me complete calm/peace inside me, my own strength and love for others. It feels like a first very important and valuable step to me, but I think the learning process has not ended and the more difficult part is still ahead: to learn to apply the new understanding and insights to real life, my own life.

After this experience, the controlled use of Ayahuasca, in a safe setting and under the careful guidance of an experienced leader / Shaman, seems to be a very good and valuable tool of insight and healing. However as to my current understanding, I feel it is important to acknowledge that Ayahuasca can be a powerful medicine, but does require a lot of care and openness by those taking it, in particular to connect the experience with daily life. I am still considering if Ayahuasca has the risk of people relaying too much on its effect alone. I do think it serves for cleansing and reconnecting to our own inner master, which will help the process back at home.

I could recommend this experience to anyone wanting to work on themselves and ready for a possible difficult process; to those needing help / healing of past traumas or strength for their own soul and to help others / and all this in a loving and secure setting.

The Seminar location in the Andean mountains in Pisaq is a beautiful place for the Seminar, embedded in the life of the local and indigenous population and the "Ayahuasca-community" in Pisaq, making the Seminar not seem too far away from real life.

I found it really nice to have a lot of communal activities with you and your family participating - I feel it helped to create stronger connections, more and deeper trust, a community spirit and it showed me how to apply some of teachings in real life.

I believe the integration sessions are very important and good, and it helped me a lot to listen to and understand other people's experiences during the sessions, also to get a better understanding of my own process. The integration sessions were probably as important as the session themselves, because it helped to put a partly unreal experience into the context of life. Sharing a room during the Seminar (and afterwards) was good for the same reason.

Clif Usher
Retired (USA)
My intent was to find my purpose for the next decade or so. I’ve been an executive for three decades, working long hours in a purposeful environment. Now, after three years of retirement, it is time to find out where my path will lead me.

I realized that until I learned how to surrender, my purpose was not going to be real. It could only be what my mind conjured up for me, and it might not be what my heart truly wanted.

I strongly believe Ayahuasca is a great medicine for finding one’s way in this world. The insights I received about surrender, love, God, my tribe, my own wild mind and much more will serve me for the rest of my life. Before this experience I was adrift, searching for answers in all the wrong places. Now I know what I need to do.

And, Diego was a true master at bring out the most and the best for each of us. I would not feel comfortable with anyone else leading the ceremony. The very real honor with which he holds the sacred space for such activity makes it work. Without that, I would not drink the medicine.

I loved Pisac, Cusco and the Sacred Valley. It was truly an inspiring locale, and the lodge was a wonderful “home” for the week there. The food, the trips to local spiritual sites, the Sunday market, the wonderful people of Peru, all added to the experience.