November, 2025by Qapel (Acharya Doug Duncan) This article was written by Qapel in 2016, and recently re-discovered by Catherine Sensei. We are delighted to be able to publish it here and share a previously unpublished precious gem of Qapel’s teaching. -...
Rebirth vs Reincarnation - What's the Difference? From a Buddhist perspective, death is a temporary end to a temporary process. Energy is neither created nor destroyed - it is always in flux, changing forms. When it comes to rebirth vs reincarnation you can think of...
The Ego: A Necessary Brat , , July 12, 2020by Qapel Doug Duncan Edited by Catherine Pawasarat Sensei and Andy RogersThe Ego: A Necessary Brat Most of us cherish our independence and our freedom to decide our own values, goals, and other life choices. At the same...
Money, sexuality, power, and control are unconscious drives – and part of the important shadow work that must be done in spiritual practice. And, we can learn to step back, and enjoy the theatre.
Change yourself to change the world. By practicing insight meditation we look deeply at the nature of our conditioned struggle and we begin to understand the solution – the ability to choose a better state of mind, at will.
Our shadow material blocks the proper functioning of our chakras. Discover why it is so important to integrate the shadow and liberate the chakras on the path of enlightenment.
From the Dharma perspective, this time of COVID-19 is a wake up call. Perhaps it gives us an opportunity to rethink how we live and orientate in our world.
Click below to read Dharma Teacher Doug Duncan Sensei’s thoughts on how we can find some sanity and perspective in this time of uncertainty:
What is the difference between mindfulness and meditation? While they may be related, they are not the same thing. With mindfulness, the ego still remains in place. With meditation you witness the mind that witnesses the phenomenon.
Do you want to live in a thriving, conscious community that values people, spiritual growth and care for the earth? Here are five tips that you can apply.
Would you like to find peace in a F’d up World?
Thankfully, there are time tested spiritual tools you can practice for transformation and wisdom. Watch this video to hear Doug and Catherine Sensei share their thoughts on why we struggle and what we can do to find true peace:
How do we want to wake up? We do this by meditating on the Common Foundations – Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind from Samsara to Nirvana.
Want to get more motivated on your spiritual path? Watch this video to hear Doug and Catherine Sensei describe four undeniable reasons to wake up:
How do we realize our true nature? By seeing through the illusion of a separate self. In this video, Doug Duncan shares the essence of the Diamond Sutra, (which he and Catherine Sensei will also be teaching on in January 2020).
Watch the video to discover how to find ‘naked’ awareness behind the ‘clothing’ of self identity:
Carl Jung stated the shadow to be the unknown dark side of the personality.
What does the Shadow have to do with spiritual awakening? A lot.
Find out what Dharma Teachers Doug and Catherine Sensei say about the Shadow from a meditation and Dharma perspective. Watch their re-published Enlighten-Up livestream video below:
The quality of no qualities
Buddha Nature, or the tathagatagarbha in itself has no distinguishing qualities. You can’t define it or describe it through the sense bases. You can’t describe it or define it through mental properties.
Chögyam Trungpa described “crazy wisdom” as an innocent state of mind that has the quality of early morning—fresh, sparkling, and completely awake.
What do Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat call Crazy Wisdom? What is its role in liberating the shadow and catapulting students into states of epiphany? Find out, by watching the newly published video below:
Join Doug and Catherine Sensei to explore six aspects of consciousness that have been refined by Buddhist practitioners for more than two thousand years. These six aspects are called the Paramis (perfections) in Sanskrit, and they are the blueprint to becoming your own inner and outer work of art.
The seeds you nurture will grow. Which do you choose?
One of the oldest meditations is on seed, stalk and flower.
The seed we are talking about is basically karma. Where your attention goes, what your mind is on about, what your aspiration is will determine what kind of flower (karma) you have.
What is awakening and why is it? This is the billion-dollar question, one that defies words. In this video, Doug and Catherine Sensei discuss awakening and what difference it can make in your life. They have committed a lifetime of study, teaching and being a living...
You will experience in your spiritual life some degree of physical discomfort in the process of realizing your Buddha-body. The practice of movement meditation is to become aware of, and then relax or release the tension and pain. Enjoy this month’s read!
What is the ‘shadow’ and why is shining light on it so important for spiritual awakening? Find out in this candid talk on ‘monsters in the closet’, with Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat Sensei. This was recorded live on April 13th, 2019, at Enlighten-Up, their monthly facebook livestream event. Watch now:
In order for you to have wisdom, one of the first things required is some space between you and your objects. We call that emptiness.
If you want to get wiser, it takes knowledge as well as experience. How can we balance both? In this video, Doug & Catherine Sensei examine the value of physical and emotional experience, alongside information based knowledge.
Do you struggle in meditation? Does your mind wander? Here are some tips for improving your meditation practice, including becoming like a stubborn toddler.
Why awaken? What are the benefits of spiritual awakening? Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share their thoughts and experience in their monthly livestream – Enlighten-Up.
You are ‘conscious’ and your human consciousness has vast potential. The spiritual journey and meditation is the key to leaving the ‘basement’ to explore the great ‘palace’ above.
This video was filmed at a live class at Watkins Book Store in London on August 23, 2018 celebrating the upcoming launch of Dharma teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat's new book Wasteland to Pureland. Doug and Catherine share themes of spiritual...
Spiritual Awakening is the only Sustainable MindsetHow do we cultivate wholesome mindstates that contribute to harmony and happiness for all beings on the planet? Farah Nazarali for Banyen Books and Sounds in Vancouver, speaks with Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and...
Teachings on Society’s Struggles and What We Can Do The book launch for Wasteland to Pureland, a collection of teachings and reflections from Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat, was held on September 21, 2018. Here is what they had to say...
We all have experienced hurt from life experiences: rejection, failure, shame. This may cause us to hide and protect ourselves, but this prevents us from truly showing up in the world. How do we overcome hurt? Dharma teachers Doug and Catherine Sensei share some of...
When we aren’t meditating or working, what are we doing? Too often we are focused on ego preferences – the food we like, the people we like, the movies we like or dislike. But moving one’s focus from ‘self’, to ‘service’ is fundamental to the deepening of enlightenment.
Why bother with spiritual practice? What is the point of it? In this video, Dharma Teachers Doug & Catherine Sensei explain why the purpose of spiritual practice is not about ‘fixing’ yourself or the world – its about asking a better question – what is human consciousness capable of?
Meditations from the Western spiritual traditions are creative and imaginative. In this video Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share about the Western Mysteries and why Star Group and Western meditations are so powerful.
Do you suffer from money worries? Learn how you can use basic Buddhist principles to conquer your money woes once and for all. It’s a solution you would never expect.
Feeding Positivity in a World of Negativity With all the negativity in our 'crisis news network' style culture, it can be hard to stay positive. If we're eating a lot of negativity in the news, on social media, in entertainment, then that's what we become. Luckily...
Want to live your most beautiful life? Dharma Teachers Doug & Catherine Sensei often talk about ‘becoming a work of art’. In this video, they explain what that means and the role of the six ‘paramis’ or perfections.
To come to terms with the relationships in our lives we need to come to terms with ‘aloneness’. How can we grow more content alone and together?
If you want to really live well, and grow spiritually, embracing community is key. Find out why its so important in this blog post, based on an excerpt from Dharma If You Dare.
Why are you here on planet Earth, here in this body? Is there a desire for awakening? Are you seeking a place where the consciousness is clear, radiant and quiet? Are you desiring a mind that is blissful and spacious at all times? We call that the desire to awaken,...
The Mind is Empty Yet Manifests Phenomena The mind in essence is empty. But that doesn’t stop phenomena from happening. The mind is going to manifest phenomena. Surely. Without ceasing. Always. By learning to dive beneath the waves of the phenomena we can find the...
Your “calling” or your “daemon” is the part of your being that you cannot deny – it is a guiding light that demands to be followed. It is your bodhicitta, the awakening mind. The question is, how does one find one’s daemon?
Embodying the Sacred Feminine: Leaving Room To Be Awakening is the process of contacting the feminine principle, the sacred feminine, the spaciousness. Most people think ‘I’ve got to work on unfoldment', 'I’ve got to meditate more’. Or 'I’ve got to do yoga for...
Luminosity and bliss is the natural state of the mind – before it reaches turbulence. In order to keep the mind from being in a state of turbulence, one has to let go of two veils which generate all our machinations.
If the universe is love, what is all the conflict that we see around us? In this video, Doug Duncan Sensei shares how fundamentally, the struggles of the world come from people feeling that they are unloved.
When it comes to meditation, here is a practical and fundamental question: Why don’t you practice? While we prefer the immediate endorphin rush from ‘pleasure’, it is disciplined meditation practice & our work that grows us. Here is how to put pleasure where it belongs, and flourish sustainably.
So why does suffering continue? This is a hard one. Are you ready?
At some point every serious spiritual seeker asks the profound question: how does true transformative change come about? In this video, Doug Duncan Sensei shares how we need to begin with structural change at the core of our being.
In this blog post we share with you a foundational tool that we believe is fundamental (and universal) to the journey of spiritual growth. This tool consists of six ancient principles, altogether called the ‘Perfections’, or Paramis. The beauty of the Paramis is that they take us out of habit, and into new ways of being.
This video of Doug & Catherine Sensei describes how to use mantra to overcome negative thoughts. It was filmed live during a public talk on April 20, 2017, at Watkins Books in London. When we catch ourselves thinking negative thoughts, how can we move through...
What is tantra? How does it work? In this video, Doug & Catherine describe how tantra is a meditation practice that takes us beyond our fears and habits.
The purpose of relationships is to increase your “differentiation”, and thus your full human potential. To have a better relationship, and to really love consciously, you need to learn to be different.
How does one live a complete, full and beautiful life? Dharma Teachers Doug & Catherine Sensei share about ‘Complete Livelihood’ and the wisdom and vision it offers for one to live a life truly worth living.
It’s a complicated and stressful world for many. Too often we are so caught up in the struggle for connection and safety that we forget to have a vision about what our life could be. A life lived in the awareness and wonder of life’s mystery is the Mystical Life.
How might one attain to spiritual awakening in the modern world, in these complex times? In this article we look back at the two main historical models for spiritual training, and propose a contemporary approach for today.
Donald Trump’s view won’t work. It represents regression. He’s a temporary phenomenon heralding the death throws of selfish capitalism. Have patience. Planetary consciousness is already here. And it will trump what didn’t work.
The spiritual adventure of spaciousness and attentiveness engages us with the vast mystery of life. Using reliable, balanced paths help integrate this. The bhojjangas, or seven factors of awakening are a great tool.
Western culture has its own traditions of spirituality and transcendence. These can be called the Western, or Divine Mysteries. What are these mysteries and why did they go underground? How can you practice and explore their message of united consciousness?
What we say ‘I have to’ to is our path to awakeness. It is the ‘voice’ of the daemon, our inner guide, pressing us to grow and unfold into what we can and should become. Everybody has this voice in their being, the question is whether one is listening or not.
The present – the here-and-now – is a wonderful toy. But we have to get out of the burning house to untie the ribbon, tear off the pretty paper, and open the box! Doug shares how we can do this, and enjoy doing it, during our busy modern lives. Nothing less than spiritual awakening is the inevitable result. This video was filmed live at Watkins Books, London’s oldest estoeric bookshop.
The four deep fears of the ego mean we fixate on objects to shore up solidity in our lives. But if objects don’t really make us happy then what does? The Buddha is offering us a present. To get the present we must come outside of the burning house of the ego and open the box. What we find inside is freedom.
Would you like to live a successful and integrated life?
Doug & Catherine Sensei explain how true personal success originates in spiritual success. While worldly success seems desirable, without spiritual wealth it doesn’t produce sustainable happiness. In the spiritual life we train at recognizing spaciousness, the Clear Sky, and act with skills developed in training from there to serve our communities.
Integrating our shadow may be the fastest way to unfold spiritually, and reduce our suffering. By its very nature, shadow work is not fun or pretty. It takes courage and fortitude. Once we decide to change, the shadow’s darkness moves towards greater and greater light. That is both beautiful and exciting.
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat are asked in this video what expectations they have of committed students, what expectations a student should have of a Dharma teacher, and what they recommend if someone is interested in studying with them.
To really be our best possible selves, there are six assets we can develop. These wisdoms (also called Pāramīs) are tools to help us overcome feelings of isolation, while developing engagement, creativity and joy.
Comprising our sense of self is the drive for connection and the drive for autonomy. Karma Yoga is the path of applied awareness engaged in activity that when performed mindfully reveals and liberates our sense of isolation and separateness while enriching our individuality and creativity.
One of the archetypes of our times is the superhero – they’re doers, they are trying to make the world a better place and they have powers. The action hero of today with supernormal powers can be a metaphor for an age-old spiritual path called Karma Yoga (the superhero) with siddhis (powers of the mind).
Is ‘striving’ to awaken just another form of ego clinging? Why work to awaken if the human collective is already waking up? Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share their insights on these important questions.
There are three substances we could argue to be the most indispensable and immeasurable commodities on the planet, and they also happen to be free: love, sunlight and air. We’d add a fourth, less obvious one: enlightened consciousness, which could be considered a highly developed form of love.
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share about the types of meditation they teach. They also share their thoughts on the challenges that Westerners face in seeking awakening – particularly lack of depth and shallowness of practice.
Want to hear about a powerful tool you can use on your quest for freedom? 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.”
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan & Catherine Pawasarat speak about the benefits of having a spiritual teacher or a ‘guru’. They describe the fear that we might lose our identity, but how the teacher actually helps a student expand their identity beyond societal conditioning to transcendence.
What is awakening? From the point of view of the East, awakening is any realization or insight or knowledge that one didn’t have before. The “how” of awakening is the willingness to find out what it is. If you don’t have the aspiration or the motivation you can’t find it. You have to want it and you have to trust that it’s there.
Which would you choose: happiness, or 16 different kinds of bliss? Classic Buddhist teachings don’t address happiness; they do, however address 16 different categories of bliss. For most of us, they come and go like different kinds of weather. With training, we can manifest them at will – training has benefits!
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan & Catherine Pawasarat speak about their co-teaching model. They describe how having both a male and female teacher can help address different facets of growth and unfoldment.
Anxiety, worry and fear are a part of everyday life, particularly in our fast-paced society and the realities of modern globalization. And they don’t help things! So what do we do to loosen the grip that they have on us and those around us? Discover the Five Steps to Beat Feeling Beat by Fear, Anxiety and Worry.
In this vision setting blog post, Doug & Catherine Sensei, invite their students and spiritual community to join them on a path of Awakening in Action. They explain why and how our approaches to practicing Dharma must adapt to the times to continue to be effective for liberation. They articulate a path that encompasses sangha, karma yoga, dharma training and dana as vital components for speedy unfoldment, in the context of our busy modern lives.
The teacher-student relationship is a vital aspect for spiritual unfoldment in Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. In this video, Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat talk candidly about the process of getting a teacher. They also describe how as modern spiritual teachers they work with their students.
What does it mean to be a student? What does it mean to be a teacher? Doug Duncan Sensei shares his personal experience with his teacher Namgyal Rinpoche, and the dynamics of the teacher-student relationship today.
How do we bring the path of awakening to our everyday lives? Well the truth is, we need training. We need training on how to bring spacious, blissful, non-clinging awareness into our hectic and busy lives.
In this video, Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share why Karma Yoga is an excellent spiritual path for action-oriented modern people, that takes us beyond our selves.
Do you want more freedom? And what do you mean by “freedom?” Some think we can uncover our blind spots through “sitting practice,” also called meditation. While it is true one can discover much this way, what we cannot see is how our patterns play out in our daily lives.
Just 10 years ago this teaching was more focused around meditation and individual therapy, and more yogic, that is, dependent on the student-teacher relationships wherever in the world that might be happening. We’ve seen our focus shift to embracing sangha-centered karma yoga and dharma training as key elements of our path.
Though the spiritual path can be a long and winding road, some good news is that the only work we really have to do is purification – everything else naturally follows from there. In that sense, our spiritual unfoldment is simple and easily within reach. Here’s how.
You can’t get wisdom from knowing more; you can only get wisdom from learning more and then surrendering to the unknown to integrate it. Letting go into the unknown is what’s hard for people, because it seems like defeat.
Mahamudra masters have compared the events of our body/mind to a rainbow, a mirage, a dream, a dewdrop in the sun and the like. These events – thoughts, feelings and sensations – seem so real because they are habitual and repetitive. Mahamudra lets us see them for what they are: “the play of the mind.”
How will dharma reshape business? When Buddhism went to the Himalayas the dorje was a weapon of war, it was used to kill people. Now it is a symbol of the awakening mind, skill in action. In the same way Tibetan Buddhism transformed the dorje, we can transform business and other organizations.
We use astrology to better understand our self, our conditioning, our strengths and weaknesses, and potential. We leverage all of that through a dharmic lens, to get over our egocentricity and to be of better service to others and the planet. This inevitably alleviates suffering, our own as well as others, one of the fundamental “goals” of Buddhadharma.
If we consider spiritual welfare as one of the most precious “commodities” on the planet, next only to environmental health, one might imagine that true spiritual teachers would be rewarded highly. In both East and West, the traditional giving and receiving as part of the spiritual path is in modern times at risk of becoming a spiritual energy trade akin to the mother-child dialogue.
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat describe the Vajrayana "Foundation Practices". These include practices like Chenrezi, Vajrasattva, Prostrations and Mandala Offerings. They also explain the benefits of completing the foundation work. Watch the...
So what would happen if we turned the “me” thing upside down? That is if we acted out “not-me” in order to free ourselves from our habitual identity. We call this action “the Challenges!” It’s a way to determine our own karma.
In our particular spiritual tradition, the keys to success for karma yoga revolve around staying aware in the present moment, and cultivating the bodhisattva vow: dedicating all of our efforts for the benefit of all beings.
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share about what it means to live a 'Dharma life'. They also discuss the power of community for one's spiritual unfoldment. Watch the video: Click for More Videos featuring Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat.
Though difficulties in our life don’t go away, freedom gives us the ability to laugh through them, and still enjoy the journey. No matter what, freedom is always available to us: it resides in our own minds and hearts.
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share about the types of meditation they teach. They also share their thoughts on the challenges that Westerners face in seeking awakening - particularly lack of depth and shallowness of practice. Finally they offer...
Holistic Clearing was specifically created as an “anti-paralytic practice.” There are many reasons that reasonable, talented and intelligent people get “paralyzed.”
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat look at Buddhism and how it applies to our lives, though it may seem formal and foreign. They explain that the principles and methodologies are sound, useful and universal and that we are perhaps moving 'Beyond...
From the point of view of classic Buddhist philosophy, there are two types of liberation: ceto-vimutti, liberation of the heart, and paññā-vimutti, liberation of the mind (insight or wisdom).
How does one free oneself from emotional conflict? What is awakening? And is it possible to experience awakening in one lifetime? Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat each give their personal responses to these questions. Watch the video: Click for More Videos...
One of the many reasons we support Dharma Training is because, when done well, it also leads to business and personal success. You might be wondering, ‘how so’? Firstly, Dharma Training helps us to meet mental models and personal lacks in the form of our tribal and educational conditioning.
Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat each give their responses to the question "What is Dharma?". In the video "What is Dharma?," spiritual teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat share their profound insights on the meaning and significance of Dharma. Dharma, a...
Dharma Training, Engagement and Social Business This is a continuation of The Dharma of Work (Part One) and (Part Two)The values from our social & work training apply to spiritual training Any good spiritual training incorporates the training that has already...
Dharma Teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat describe why they started “Planet Dharma”.
Discover and develop your emotional intelligence with Doug and Catherine Senseis. This online course will be held every Saturday from 4-5:30pm Canadian Mountain Time (May 9, 16, 23 and 30th, 2015). Full details coming soon.
The Paramis are Buddhist principles and meditations designed to provide the foundation and strength for transcendence. Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat will be teaching this course online, on Saturday afternoons (4-5:30pm MT, September 5th, 12th, 19th, 26). Full...
In this video, Doug Duncan Sensei discusses the relationship between the awakened consciousness and the sustainability of our human species. He draws attention to the dual nature of sustainability: both of the question of sustainability of our external environment and...
Or Getting Paid to Undertake Spiritual Training This is a continuation of The Dharma of Work (Part One).We propose that it’s possible to craft a virtual monastery amidst daily life, the workplace and career. In this context, spiritual training is conducive to our...
Historically, spiritual training took place almost exclusively within the monastery or convent. Nowadays few of us spiritual practitioners enter that kind of orthodox context. What then? We suggest that the workplace – whether a company, clinic, factory, studio, etc. – comprises our contemporary spiritual training ground.
This class was recorded at Exhale Yoga Studio in Cranbrook, BC, close to Clear Sky Center. Doug Duncan speaks about trust, doubt, and awakening. He describes the importance of bringing the same level of skepticism to the act of doubting as to the doubts themselves....
Awakening, the great healing. The ongoing, mapped process of awakening is the ultimate spiritual healing. With awakening, the self is transcended, and thus the troubles of the self, of “me,” “my troubles,” are healed. Though any organism is inherently subject to decay...
"As human beings, we are immersed and enmeshed in our experience." In this video, Doug Duncan speaks about the value of having a relationship with someone who can give us perspective on our lives. A teacher can help by pointing out the ways that we defend and promote...
While those in the so called ‘developing’ world may be measured by the wealthiest societies as ‘poor’ in financial terms, their social capital is clearly abundant. As strangers and foreigners just walking down the streets of their town, they generously shared this abundance with us.
Doug Duncan speaks about how mindfully working with others can bring consciousness to areas that are not accessible through sitting meditation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz2VCZgauX4 Click for More Videos featuring Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat.
It’s very illuminating to write one’s personal constitution. Here’s how. What would we put in it? Do our ideals match our actions in our day-to-day lives?
This is the billion-dollar question, one that defies words. What we can say is this: central to the experience of awakening is a way of experiencing life that completely transcends the usual. Most people believe that Christ realization, Buddhist awakening, and the...
Quantum physics as well as tradition Buddhist philosophy teach us that nothing in the universe remains the same for even a second. Thus we know that everything we hold and cherish will also pass on and out of our lives, if only at death. This may feel frightening...
I dream, I hope, I work, I love, I play, I dream, I eat. These verbs are all about me; working, hoping, dreaming, loving, eating all continue, even when there is no ‘me’. Who is this ‘me’? Or is it a what? Is ‘me’ a person, a thing, an idea, a feeling? It’s all of...
When you wake up in the morning you leave behind one world — the dreaming world — and find yourself in another world — waking life. These two worlds or states share similarities. In Tibetan Buddhism they’re two of six states termed ‘bardos’, or ‘in-between states’....
We once asked Namgyal Rinpoche if trust was awakening. His response was: ‘Complete trust is complete awakening’. So the question may be, what (or whom) are you trusting? We need to remember of course that the ego only trusts itself, which is a very poor choice, as the...