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Year of Joy – 2018 Program for Spiritual Awakening

January 1, 2018

Year of Joy: 2018 Program for Spiritual Awakening

How would you like to spend the year cultivating joy? Alas, one can’t awaken from a state of bliss. But it provides the juice to continue deepening our practice of insight. And it feels fantastic.

Most of all, joy is a natural and essential component of the awakening mind.

Besides cultivating joy, the aim of this year-long program is to support beings to awaken joyfully in this very lifetime. On y va! Vamos! 行きましょう! Embora gente!

To us, the teachers, the benefits for participants in the past two year-long programs (the Year of Awakening and Year of Victory) have been very clear. They have been a game-changer in the practice and dedication to the path for people who’ve engaged in a committed way. The growth we’ve seen in participants has been remarkable.

About the Program Teachers:

Doug Duncan Catherine Pawasarat Dharma Teachers cultivating joy, year of joy, 2018Combined, Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat have been teaching, practicing and living spiritual awakening for more than 60 years. They’re well versed in Buddhist and Western philosophy and practices, as well as contemporary psychology, consciousness studies and art.

Since Doug and Catherine have lived and traveled extensively overseas, they also draw on inter- and transcultural experiences. This helps broaden the range and depth of their understandings of spiritual awakening and liberation to an experience that knows no country.

To implement these teachings and experiences in the world, they founded the beautiful and innovative Clear Sky Meditation Centre in BC in 2005.

Their engaged compassion, sense of humor, adventurousness and combined wisdom will enrich your life with exploration and discovery. More to the point, this year it will support you cultivating more joy in your life. Click for their full bios: Year of Joy Teachers.

What others say about the Teachers:

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Webinars & Retreats Offered

Commitment to the Year of Joy entails participating in all three webinars below, plus retreat time, varying according to the level of your commitment. You’ll benefit from one of these retreats taking place at Clear Sky Meditation Centre. Please see the program description below for details.

Cultivating Joy through Year of Joy Webinars:

  1. Dharma in Film (January 29-February 19, 2018)
  2. The Path of Ecstasy: Following Your Bliss (June 4-25, 2018)
  3. The Joy of Sex and Relationship (October 1-22, 2018)

Cultivating Joy through Year of Joy Retreats at Clear Sky Centre:

  1. Becoming a Work of Art Retreat (March 31-April 2, 2018 and extend your stay to a week)
  2. Body of Truth and Star Group Retreat (May 4-18, 2018)
  3. Buddhas in Action Retreat (July 28-August 11, 2018)
  4. Six Yogas of Naropa, Dream Yoga & Light Yoga (Dec 7-22, 2018)

Testimonials from Students in Last Year’s Program (Year of Victory)

I’m so thankful I gave myself this gift of this transformational year long program. The program was captivating and very supportive. It was like a sling shot to the greater clarity, freedom and understanding I’ve been seeking in life. I’d recommend this program to anyone who is wondering which direction to take in order to live a life with more passion and meaning.

–Karen Scott, BC, Canada

It was a fantastic tool to not get completely lost in Samsara throughout the year. Especially because I don’t live in Canada and cannot be with the teachers so often. I felt very connected and supported by the Teachers and Sangha. As a result I became much more aware of my state of mind. I recommend this program to people that are truly interested in studying interconnectedness and the miracle of life.

–Andrea Netscher, Germany

Participating fully in the Year of Victory gave me an opportunity to stay close to the Teachers and practice throughout the year. As a result I benefited by being “tuned” to the Teachers and to my personal victory. I feel like the confidence I gained in victory over my own preference mind was a direct result of this commitment to the full year program. The harder it seems to find time and make a year long commitment, the greater the results seem to be when one does. The program is flexible enough if you plan well, yet structured enough to make sure you don’t get lost during the year. I started in the lower level commitment for the last two years, but now this year I’m diving into the higher level commitment and can’t wait for it to start.

–Linda Hochstetler, ON, Canada

Program Benefits & Commitment Levels

The Year of Joy program has three commitment levels for how you will approach cultivating joy – Vajra, Diamond and Lotus levels.

1. Cultivating Joy at the Vajra Level

The vajra level offers a thunderbolt to strike through the illusions of samsara, clearing the air so that joy can emerge.

We appreciate that the basics of daily life can be very demanding for modern people. Add relationship, career development, education and so on, and maintaining a regular spiritual practice can begin to feel very challenging. This is samsara talking! Apply the thunderbolt: we’ve designed the Vajra level to support you to cut through the illusion.

The Vajra level of Year of Joy will help include cultivating joy in your spiritual practice. Moreover, the program will support you to stay connected to spiritual awakening as the foundation of the rest of your life. It will also leave time for the other exigencies of your life right now. This is designed as a bridge to a time–hopefully in the very near future–when you can make a deeper commitment to your spiritual practice.

Vajra Level Benefits and Commitments Include:

Vajra Level Year of Joy, cultivating joy

  • A commitment to a regular, engaged practice sustained over 2018. Structure and routine are your friends. When applied to your spiritual practice, your current practices will stabilize and shift into a higher gear. Your power for cultivating joy will increase.
  • Ongoing engagement with a community of other committed practitioners, with whom you connect virtually and in person. It’s easier with others. This will bring new insights into the power of sangha, and allow you to enjoy its benefits in new ways. Enjoy and learn from cultivating joy together.

Meditation Retreats

  • A minimum of two one-week retreats during the year. We encourage you to come to Clear Sky. This allows you to take advantage of the blessed Buddha field that many beings’ practices have been cultivating in this extraordinary place. The centre embodies very modern manifestations of spiritual awakening. If this isn’t possible, you may do a retreat elsewhere in the world, led by Doug and Catherine Sensei (see the 2018 teaching schedule).
  • A retreat interview with the teachers. This lineage emphasizes working with directly with teachers. This is so they can provide instructions that are completely customized to your particular needs and path of spiritual unfoldment. They’ll share the practices you can do to awaken most speedily and effectively. Take greatest advantage of this with interviews, at least one during your retreat.

Webinars, Virtual Support and Home Flash Retreats

  • Participation in the three series of webinars (four webinars in each series) throughout the year. Stay connected with the awakening mind and grow your spiritual awakening and learning all year long. This offers you new opportunities to integrate spiritual awakening with your daily life and routine.
  • While not required, we encourage you to participate in the three Flash Retreats that seal each webinar series. Each occurs over the final weekend of every webinar series. These help us apply and integrate the webinar teachings, so that we connect with the cultivation of joy in our beings, and embody them in the world. These are done in the convenience of your own home: besides being easily accessible for you, it also supports your practice of honoring your space and your cultivation of a stronger discipline. In short, we’d like to support your learning about cultivating joy in the comfort of your own home.
  • Join our regular Office Hours throughout the year, generally twice monthly. Again, this supports you in keeping cultivating joy and your spiritual practice front and center throughout the year. No matter how distracting modern life and samsara may be, this regular connection with awakening minds helps ensure that your spiritual awakening prevails.

2. Cultivating Joy at the Diamond Level

The adamantine awakening mind possesses the indestructibility, clarity and luminosity of this gem. The Diamond Level is for people who are prepared to put a stake in the ground and orient the mandala of life around spiritual awakening at the centre of it. Cultivating joy comprises an essential part of this mandala and one’s daily life.

Diamond Level Benefits and Commitments Include:

The following elements, which are the same as Vajra Level:

Diamond Level Year of Joy, cultivating joy, 2018

  • A commitment to a regular, engaged practice sustained over 2018. Structure and routine are your friends. When applied to your spiritual practice, your current practices will stabilize and shift into a higher gear.
  • Ongoing engagement with a community of other committed practitioners, with whom you connect virtually and in person. It’s easier with others. This will bring new insights into the power of sangha, and allow you to enjoy its benefits in new ways. Enjoy and learn from cultivating joy together.

Additionally, Diamond Level includes lengthened retreats and more specialized virtual guidance:

Meditation Retreats

  • A minimum of a two-week retreat at Clear Sky during the year. You may choose from the three retreats described above. Alternatively you may consult with Doug and Catherine to see whether doing a personal retreat at Clear Sky while they’re in residence would be highly supportive your cultivating joy practice.
  • A minimum of one retreat interview with the teachers during each retreat. Take full advantage of suggestions designed to help you in cultivating joy, speed up your spiritual awakening, and make both these more beneficial to all beings.

Webinars, Virtual Support and Home Flash Retreats

  • Participation in three series of webinars (four webinars in each series) throughout the year. Stay connected with the awakening mind and grow your spiritual awakening and learning all year long. This offers you new opportunities to integrate spiritual awakening with your daily life and routine.
  • Participation in the three Flash Retreats that seal each webinar series. There is one weekend-long Flash Retreat per webinar series, generally on the final weekend. The Flash retreats, like their name, are short and sweet and intense. They help us apply and integrate the webinar teachings, so that we connect with the cultivating joy experience in our beings, and can embody them in the world. These are intentionally done in the convenience of your own home: besides being easily accessible for you, it also supports your practice of honoring your space and your cultivation of a stronger personal discipline.
  • Specialised Year of Joy Office Hours: These are Office Hours sessions for Diamond Level Year of Joy students only. These are live, 60-minute internet conference calls weekly during each webinar series. They provide a small-group opportunity for learning and sharing how cultivating joy can be increased or be more integrated with your life right now.
  • When YoV Office Hours are not offered, regular Office Hours support you twice monthly. Keep your spiritual practice front and center throughout the year. No matter how distracting modern life and samsara may be, this regular connection with awakening minds helps ensure that your spiritual awakening prevails.

 

3. Cultivating Joy at the Lotus Level

Lotus Level Year of Joy

Do you want to cultivate your knowledge and exposure to awakening wisdom in 2018?

At the lotus level we encourage you to audit and join in as many of the 2018 Planet Dharma events and retreats as possible. There is no application process for the lotus level.

Register for each event, webinar, retreat in 2018 on our Dharma teachings schedule page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What else do you need to know?

Dāna (Generosity Based Teaching)

Doug & Catherine are teaching this year long program via the ancient tradition of Dāna (generosity). This is an offering from them to participants. It is considered of supreme value to your life and thus ‘beyond price’. So it is expected that the student will be equally generous and support the teaching and the teachers by making an offering. This year’s program offers a unique opportunity to learn about how generosity supports cultivating joy.

While no offering is too small, also no offering is too great. The giver benefits by offering as much as they can, given the individual’s circumstances. Along with compassion, generosity is considered the root of spiritual progress and, according to the ancients, therefore the root of our success in daily life as well.

Dāna and the Year of Joy

Recognize that in your commitment to the program, you are also making a commitment to a healthy and conscious practice of dāna. Before applying, we encourage you to review if you are in a financially sustainable situation. Are you able to support your exploration and dāna throughout the year? We believe that financial health is unique for each person and each situation. It is also very important for a healthy spiritual practice and life.



We also invite you to explore more about how you can practice Dāna. This is one of the pillars of Buddhist spiritual philosophy and the process of enlightenment.

You will have an opportunity to offer Dāna when you register. You can also give by clicking the Dāna bowl image to the left. Another avenue to practice generosity is via the Dāna bowl available at Clear Sky at the opening of each retreat. This is a powerful way to set your intention for the retreat. As well, there are ongoing opportunities throughout the year to offer Dāna. We encourage you to reflect how to use Dāna as a core practice throughout the year. How can one cultivate a heart of generosity, openness and joy?

Program Registration Fees (For Course Costs)

There is a one-time program fee to cover operating costs during the year. Vajra Level: US$250 / Diamond Level: US$350.
At Planet Dharma we believe that finances are one of many creative manifestations of energy exchange. Is your aspiration and other supports for the year-long program and practice of cultivating joy strong? By contrast does the course fee and other financial commitments feel like a challenge? Then please note this in your application and make an offer of alternative forms of exchange.

Retreat Registration & Fees

Please also note that this program’s residential retreats are held at Clear Sky Meditation Centre in BC, Canada. Registration and payment for lodging & meals for these retreats are made directly to Clear Sky via each retreat’s booking forms.

Invitation for Year of Joy Applications

From Sunday, 12 November we invite your applications to participate in the Year of Joy, 2018. We suggest you apply early, as this highly personalized program has limited places available. Applications will be accepted until December 15, 2017.

 Apply for Year Long Dharma Program

Details

Date:
January 1, 2018
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