| Centre for Growth
VAEKSTCENTER
VAEKSTCENTER (Centre for Growth) is an open, modern, lay monastery and a training centre for meditation, based on the assumption that all major religions have a common spiritual core. Our aim is to share a contemporary approach to spiritual development and contemplative living that is accessible and understandable.
Fundamental values of Vaekstcenter are: democratic principles, gender equality, acceptance of our common Christian cultural heritage, and respect for scientific inquiry.
On this site, we share some of the practices, perspectives and RESOURCES that have been developed or inspired by Jes Bertelsen, the founder of Vaekstcenteret. Since 1982 these have been part of the spiritual and existential training at the CENTRE.
Perspectives and practices
RESOURCES
Offerings in this section include an introduction to the Pentagon Model, conceived by Jes Bertelsen, which represents a simple but profound general framework for contemplative training; A set of five foundational exercises widely taught and practiced in the community and beyond; and a bibliography of Jes Bertelsen’s published writings. Finally, there are some examples of Jes Bertelsen's perspective on constructive ways of working with personal and collective challenges such as the global environmental crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
| Daily life at the Centre
THE CENTRE
Vaekstcenter occupies a large traditional whitewashed farm in the village of Nørre Snede, Denmark. It was founded in 1982 by Jes Bertelsen, and is a place of residence, a centre for education, as well as for intensive training in meditation.
The Centre is managed and maintained by the resident members of the Vaekstcenter community – approximately 80 adults and some twenty children. Members of the community earn their livelihoods from work outside the centre. Except for ten people who live at the centre itself, community members have their own places of residence, mostly in close proximity to the Centre. They have actively chosen to live here in order to take part in this social-existential experiment aimed at developing greater wakefulness and compassion, benefiting from the presence of an authentic spiritual teacher.
A wooden dome arches over the meditation hall at the heart of Vaekstcenter. Store Sal (the Large Hall) has provided the space for the daily meditation sessions, for the resident community as well as for the many people who visit on a regular basis, who come for courses or retreats, or who otherwise feel a connection with Vaekstcenter. Since the Centre's establishment in 1982, people have meditated here, again and again, every single day, all year round.
Organisation
Vaekstcenter is organised as a foundation that conducts workshops and training programmes. The daily management is in the hands of an executive committee representing the resident community under the formal leadership of the Board of the foundation.
The income of Vaekstcenter primarily stems from these workshops and training programmes, and from rental income, a bookshop and donations.
Teachings and training programmes
Vaekstcenteret has a core staff of teachers supplemented by guest teachers who each semester offer a variety of workshops and programmes in self-development, mindfulness and other foundational and intermediate contemplative practices and principles. These programmes for self-development imbued with a spiritual perspective may be seen as a modern version of the foundational schooling known from the major spiritual traditions. This foundational training seeks to promote bodily awareness, personal maturation and self-knowledge, mindfulness and other forms and aspects of meditation, and the cultivation of the natural qualities of the heart for the benefit of both one’s personal and work life and for society in general.
The more advanced spiritual training is provided and supervised by Jes Bertelsen. His Tibetan teacher, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920-1996), authorised him in 1989 to teach Dzogchen (an advanced form of meditation) and encouraged him to do so using his own judgment as to how to introduce these teachings into northern European culture and society. Tulku Urgyen acknowledged that Vaekstcenter’s foundational schooling could serve as valid preparation for more advanced forms of practice, including Dzogchen.
Jes Bertelsen's teachings and approach constitute a synthesis of eastern and western spiritual knowledge and practice, integrating modern psychological and philosophical insights, and reflecting his own experience and training.
Jes Bertelsen on What is Dzogchen?
| Founder and guiding teacher
JES BERTELSEN
Jes Bertelsen (b. 1946) holds a doctorate in the History of Ideas from Aarhus University, where he taught from 1970 until 1982. His authorship includes 25 books, from Kategori og afgørelse: Strukturer i Kierkegaards tænkning from 1972, to Essensen: Et essay om den spirituelle strømning fra øst til vest from 2020.
When, at the end of 1982, Jes Bertelsen gave up his tenured position at Aarhus University, he did so to establish the contemplative community of Vaekstcenteret, a place where people could engage in existential training and contemplative practice, receive instruction and supervision.
Jes Bertelsen’s work is focused on developing and teaching a secular contemplative pedagogy in support of the unfolding of our innate spiritual and empathic potentials.
In 1989, during a visit to Nepal, he met the Tibetan Rinpoche Tulku Urgyen. This marked the beginning of an intensive learning process which in turn stimulated interest in more advanced forms of meditation among resident members of the community as well as the wider Vaekstcenter community.
