AstroDharma

Psst… Want to hear about a powerful tool you can use on your quest for freedom? Its called “AstroDharma” and we’re going to share with you a bit about why we teach it.  We believe that the combination of Astrology & Dharma powerfully brings together two ancient wisdom traditions– one Eastern, one Western – to help us speed up our unfoldment. Think, “turbo charge.”

Yin plus Yang, East plus West

AstroDharma

Personally speaking, conjoining astrology with our decades of experience in mapping consciousness through Buddhist meditation has been a fruitful way for us to understand our talents, pitfalls and personal preferences. This understanding has allowed us to adapt, learn and make more conscious choices on our way towards greater spiritual unfoldment. Buddhist philosophy a.k.a. “dharma” calls this “liberation.” We call it freedom. From a Taoist perspective, Buddhist philosophy may be characterized as more yin, due to its introspective nature (i.e., studying consciousness). Western traditions – like Western culture itself – have always been more about how we manifest on the exterior plane, more yang. Bringing the two together makes for excellent balance in our spiritual practice and awareness. At our retreat center, Clear Sky, we sometimes talk about what is happening with our lives over meals together. We’ll pull our astrology charts out and have a look at what light they can shed. We might look at a situation that’s puzzling us, or explore how to best move forward when we feel like we’re at a crossroads.

Archetypes from our own Culture

Without realizing it, most of us as Westerners are already familiar with most of the astrological archetypes. Most of us know, or catch on quickly, that Venus is about love, Aquarius is about community and utopian ideals, and Mars is about masculinity and assertiveness. No surprises there – it’s all built into our cultural understanding. Being based in our cultural paradigm makes astrology very accessible for Westerners. Since time and energy can be in short supply, for some of us it makes sense to pick low-hanging fruit to advance our spiritual practices.

astrological archetypes

astrological archetypes

Studying Me, Transcending Me

Buddhism and astrology

Buddhism and astrology

Putting astrology and dharma together has been a fascinating experiment for us. As mentioned, on the one hand, dharma is all about understanding that there isn’t really an inherent, fixed, permanent self we think of as “me.” We’re all manifestations of universal consciousness, and the less I dwell on me, the happier and more useful to others this “non-me” can be if you catch our meaning. That said, particularly in the West, we’re all raised and conditioned to be very aware of ‘me’ – my needs, my health, my talents, my individuality, and my personal creative expression. So to get from this glorified, conditioned, and almost “worshiped” me too “non-me” is quite a journey. Astrology is a very effective tool to study this ‘me’, in order to transcend it. It helps us get beyond “little ol’ me” to consider grander concerns, such as all living creatures on the planet, and the cosmos. Our natal astrological charts or horoscopes show what the planets were doing in the sky at our moment of birth. They are a highly personalized map of how to get to transcendence or universal consciousness from wherever we happen to be at the moment, and what we can expect along the way.

How to Learn AstroDharma

Astrology Meets Buddhism

Astrology Meets Buddhism

Like all spiritual paths, astrology is complex, and the potential learnings are vast. Fortunately, a little bit of knowledge and self-knowledge can go a long way. We have taught astrodharma informally to our students for many years, and are now formalizing some of what we teach. We have designed our new online Intro to Astrodharma Course to be relatively simple and accessible. We’ve also designed it to honor all the work you’ve already done on yourself and to give you a doorway into the profundity that both dharma and astrology offer. Simple can still be deep and transformational.

Astrology & Dharma Online Course

Free AstroDharma Resources 

Free AstroDharma Resources

We’d like to gift you three AstroDharma resources that we’ve found very helpful. Subscribe to get the following tools, direct to your inbox:

  1. AstroDharma Reference Chart (Handy printable guide)
  2. The 3 Most Important Parts of Your Chart (Video)
  3. AstroDharma and Relationships (Video)

AstroDharma free resources

How We Use AstroDharma

For spiritual seekers looking to grow, the unique combination of Buddhism and Transpersonal Astrology speed us up on our spiritual path.

At our meditation centre, we use Western astrology alongside Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice.  This helps our students transform their challenges more effectively.

There are five key aspects of AstroDharma study:
1. Understand how to read your own astrological birth chart.
2. Harness and develop its positive elements wisely.
3. Recognize and overcome elements that may be out-of-balance.
4. Use this knowledge to redirect your energy into more effective patterns of living.
5. Use meditation and ideally work with teachers and a spiritual community to go deeper and fully investigate and liberate the subtle patterns and conditioning.

 

Teacher Bio

Catherine Pawasarat

Since the early 2000s Catherine has provided dharma training and taught the path of awakening to hundreds of students, together with Doug Duncan Sensei and on her own. In addition to Astrology and Buddhist philosophy and their applications to daily life, Catherine also draws on generative living (a.k.a. sustainability) and the arts.

Catherine is from a lineage of spiritual awakening that values the best of Eastern and Western philosophy. Her partner Doug Duncan Sensei and their teacher Namgyal Rinpoche excel in teaching both methods. This is an ideal training for Westerners, and an evolution of traditional teachings for the modern seeker.

In addition to Planet Dharma and Clear Sky, her website GionFestival.org shares her ground-breaking work on the spiritual traditions and sustainability of Kyoto’s 1100-year-old Gion Festival.

Free AstroDharma Resources – Join our Community

AstroDharma is a profound and vast study. Join our Planet Dharma newsletter to get a handy AstroDharma one-page reference guide and an introductory video to help you get oriented, as well as periodic updates and teachings from Planet Dharma.

Once you click please wait momentarily.