About Us – Dharma Teachers and Spiritual Mentors

Dharma Teachers Qapel (Doug Duncan) and Sensei (Catherine Pawasarat) are the founders of Planet Dharma and Clear Sky Meditation Centre. They co-taught internationally until Qapel’s passsing in October 2024. Catherine Sensei continues to teach meditation and act as spiritual mentor to students internationally and at their retreat center in BC, Canada.  Having lived overseas for many years and traveled extensively, Qapel and Catherine teachings draw on intercultural and trans-cultural experience to broaden the range and depth of their understandings of liberation that they share with others.

Who the heck are they and why should you trust them?  Read on:

Qapel (Achariya Doug Duncan)

July 14th, 1949 – October 5th, 2024.  See: Tribute Page for Qapel

Qapel Doug Duncan studied with the Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche from 1974 until the latter’s passing in 2003. Qapel received lay ordination from Namgyal Rinpoche in 1978, and is a lineage holder in that teaching. He also received teachings from the 16th Karmapa and other Tibetan Rinpoches, as well as from the Ven. Sayadaw U Thila Wunta, and from a Master of the Western Mystery School. In addition, Doug undertook numerous three-month solitary meditation retreats.

Qapel led retreats, gave teachings and training in universal practices of spiritual unfoldment since 1985, helping thousands of students in numerous countries liberate themselves from suffering. His teaching drew on contemporary psychology and science. In 2004 he co-founded Clear Sky Retreat Center in the BC Rockies and was resident teacher there along with Catherine Sensei until his passing in October 2024.

Growing up in Saskatchewan was a pretty “flat” experience, so Qapel caught the travel bug early. As a small child he wandered, such that the local police often had to bring him home. This desire to see the world and understand it more fully led him ever since.

Sensei (Catherine Pawasarat)

Catherine Pawasarat was a student of metaphysics, Western spiritual traditions, and the ayahuasca sacraments in the 1990s. Living in Kyoto, Japan for 20 years, she worked as an advocacy photojournalist specializing in environmental and human rights, and edited sustainability-related publications for various United Nations bodies. She also studied traditional Japanese arts.

Since 1998 she has trained daily with Buddhist teacher Achariya Doug Duncan (Qapel) in an intensive spiritual apprenticeship that’s rare in the modern West. Transmitted from the remarkable Namgyal Rinpoche, they are both lineage holders of these teachings.

With Qapel, she is co-founder and resident teacher at Clear Sky Retreat Center in the British Columbia Rockies. There Catherine Sensei has spearheaded an innovative and sustainability-oriented culture and organization, specializing in conscious community. Together Doug and Catherine also teach through a virtual vehicle, Planet Dharma. In 2018 they wrote the best-selling book Wasteland to Pureland.

Catherine Sensei is an expert in traditional Japanese culture, and the author of the first comprehensive English guidebook to Kyoto’s 1150-year-old Gion Festival, a gigantic living collection of diverse spiritual rituals. She also teaches and advocates for the unique role and experiences of Women in Buddhism.