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Power in Tantric Traditions
November 8 - November 29
POWER IN TANTRIC TRADITIONS w/ Catherine Sensei & Susan Skjei
Online CourseNovember 8 – 29, 2026
Do you feel empowered in your practice? In Buddha nature? Showing up authentically with both courage and vulnerability can support our sense of empowerment. In these confusing contemporary times, such genuine empowerment is essential for tantric practitioners. In this online series, Catherine Sensei and Right Use of Power and Authentic Leadership teacher Susan Skjei teach together about what power and empowerment mean in the context of tantric spiritual practices. This course aims to empower you to weave every moment with exactly the energy that is needed.
Do You Feel Empowered in These Uncertain Times?
In this age of confusion about what we can believe and who we can trust, many of us may feel disempowered at times. Victim culture is often more supported than empowered culture. Uncertainty about the future of humanity and the planet can shake our confidence to its core.
And when scandals happen with spiritual leaders – often around money, sex, and power – it can leave tantric practitioners wondering: What does authentic empowerment actually look like? What is my power? How can I strengthen it? How can I ethically wield it? This course attends to these questions and issues, pressing ones for contemporary tantra practitioners.
The Path Forward: Your Practice Holds the Key to True Empowerment.
Do you feel strong and safe in your tantric practice? In your authentic presence? Do you have the resources you need to support others to feel empowered?
Primarily, our practice helps us become a person who is authentic and therefore trustworthy – for ourselves and for others. This is part of what non-duality is about. The confusion of our times and world leaders doesn’t have to lead to our disempowerment. This course shares how our practice helps us to weave authenticity, trustworthiness, personal power, and empowerment together.
As symbols representing the lower three chakras, authenticity related to money, sex, and power form the foundation of our being, energetically and in the material world. Catherine Sensei and her partner and teacher Qapel have taught that money and sex are often, the handmaidens of power, and that the spiritual path is a quest for the truest and most deep-rooted empowerment there is.
In this course, Catherine Sensei and Susan Skjei teach on what power and empowerment mean for tantric practitioners, drawing on tantric teachings, Authentic Leadership, and Right Use of Power to provide an important framework for understanding power in traditional and modern tantric traditions – empowering us to weave every moment with exactly the energy that is needed.
What You’ll Learn
In Power in Tantric Traditions, you’ll discover:
- How to be empowered as a tantric practitioner in uncertain times
- How to feel strong in your tantric practice and tradition
- A deeper understanding of tantra in the context of Buddhism
- How to be trustworthy for yourself and others through non-dual practice
- The resources to support others to feel empowered
This course weaves together the wisdom of tantric Buddhism with proven frameworks for Authentic Leadership and the Right Use of Power, giving you practical tools to embody empowerment in every moment.
Who This Course Is For
This course is open to any tantric practitioner seeking to deepen their understanding of power and empowerment in spiritual practice. All you need is an open mind.
Meet the Teachers
Catherine Pawasarat Sensei
Catherine Pawasarat Sensei is a contemporary Dharma teacher via Planet Dharma and co-founder of Clear Sky Retreat Center. In addition to Buddhist philosophy and its applications to daily life, Catherine also draws on generative living and universal spiritual tools including transpersonal astrology and Japanese arts.
She trained daily with Acariya Doug Duncan as his attendant and consort from 1998 until his passing in 2024, in an intensive spiritual apprenticeship that is rare in the modern West. She received lay ordination from Namgyal Rinpoche in 2003.
Susan Skjei, Ph.D
Susan Skjei, Ph.D. has been a practitioner and Senior Teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist Community for the last 30 years. She has taught many programs and led retreats in the US, Canada and Europe. She studied with Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche as well as other Tibetan Buddhist and Zen teachers. Susan is also a leadership coach and organizational consultant. She has been a catalyst for positive change for leaders, executive teams and boards of nonprofit organizations, businesses, and government agencies for over 25 years. She enjoys creating energetic and high trust learning environments that accelerate practical organizational results while building strong, collaborative relationships. Formerly Susan was a Vice-President and Chief Learning Officer in the technology industry, a co-founder of the ALIA Institute, and the founding Director of the Authentic Leadership Center at Naropa University. She loves being in nature and enjoys hiking, biking and watercolor painting.
Course Schedule
November 8 – 29
Class Times (Mountain Time)
- Sunday November 8 – 9:30-11am
- Sunday November 15 – 9:30-11am
- Sunday November 22 – 9:30-11am
The formal and participatory teachings for this course will occur on Sundays, with a separate registration for the Saturday-Sunday flash retreat on the fourth weekend. Class times are estimates and may change slightly.
We encourage you to connect with Sangha outside of class times to discuss and deepen your learning of the material.
Flash Retreat Weekend: November 28-29
To deepen and integrate your experience, the final (fourth) weekend during the course will also be a Flash Retreat (November 28-29), offered by a separate registration, which will include exercises to engage in. This can be done at home, or with us at Clear Sky Meditation Centre in Eastern British Columbia.
Formal group sessions will be held at these approximate times:
- Flash Retreat morning session: 9:30am MT
- Flash Retreat afternoon session: 2:30pm MT
- Sessions will be 60-90 mins in length.
Save the Dates in your Digital Calendar Now
Download the course schedules (.ics) to your iCal or Google calendars.
Course Details
Time and Location
Each of the weekly classes in this online course will be streamed live at 9:30-11am MST. We ask participants to attend live whenever possible. The recording of each class will be available for one week after each class. We encourage you to connect with sangha outside of class times to discuss and deepen your learning of the material.
The course culminates with a Flash Retreat on November 28-29, 2026, with formal group session times held at approx 9:30am and 2:30pm Mountain Time on Saturday and Sunday, with a 60-90 minute duration.
What Does the Course Cost?
This course is offered based on the unique combination of:
- dāna, and
- a $80-120 USD administrative fee:
- Register by October 11th – super early bird – $80 USD
- Register by October 25th – early bird – $100 USD
- Register less than two weeks prior: $120 USD
You may have come across this elsewhere in the form of “pay from the heart.” Dāna is a Sanskrit term meaning “generosity.” With dāna, we give as a mutual exchange of generosity. It’s our joy to offer this course, and we trust you’ll match our time, energy, and passion by giving an amount of money that feels good and healthy to both you and us.
The dharma has been built on generosity. No one is excluded for lack of funds. However, it is also extremely beneficial to give as much as you are able.
Typically people give in a range of $120-$500 USD for a course.
As we’re committed to ensuring everyone has access to the Dharma, please feel comfortable to give less if you are not financially secure. Another form of giving dāna is to offer service, and if you are interested in providing support in a non-financial way, we invite you to contact us.
If you are financially secure, we invite you to generate merit by providing more financial support to the Triple Gem. Contributions like these make the difference in supporting our teachers, teachings, and center.
We're delighted to share that we created a short online course so that you can learn more about the practice of dāna here.
In a traditional model of in-person teachings, a retreat center or urban meditation center invites teachers to visit. In these cases the centers have infrastructure and organization costs to cover, which might be covered by an admin fee. For the teaching itself, dāna to the teachers is offered in a bowl. This honors both the sustainability of the teachers, and of the supporting center.
We’ve tried to recreate this approach online. The teachers’ time and the teaching themselves are offered on the basis of dāna, separate to the admin fee. With our dāna offering we are making a direct gift of generosity to the teachers to support their teachings and livelihood.
The admin fee* goes to support the infrastructure and organization necessary to support them to teach. As anyone with an online business will know, the costs of setting up good infrastructure to support effective teaching and connection online can be surprising.
Our admin fee changes based on the date of registration.
Register four + weeks prior: $80
Register two to four weeks prior: $100
Register less than two weeks prior: $120
*We also do not wish to exclude anyone from the Teachings, so if you are not currently in a financial position to afford the admin fee, please contact the course Registrar via [email protected] so we can support you to attend.
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Below are a few of the work and benefits that your admin fee payment is supporting:
- High speed internet (to allow interviews and classes on-line)
- Online class systems (Zoom)
- Registration / admin systems (Eventbrite, Basecamp)
- Communication systems to keep everyone informed, share connection details, teachings and other resources (Mailchimp)
- Online storage (for example, Dropbox, to allow us to let students watch recordings, and to store and share selected teachings in other forms such as podcasts and video later, and Amazon cloud)
- Quality sound, video and editing equipment (both for live teachings and to provide good enough quality for later sharing as podcasts and video). We are regularly updating our equipment to improve your user experience.
- Online calendar booking system to allow students to book interviews
- Website hosting and maintenance for sharing upcoming courses, teachings, blogs and other resources.
We welcome any questions. May all our efforts be sustainable, abundant and for the benefit of all beings!
FAQs
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What is the main focus of the Power in Tantric Traditions course?
Who are the teachers for this course and what are their backgrounds?
How does this course help me feel more empowered during uncertain times?
Why does the course focus specifically on money, sex, and power?
Is this course suitable for beginners in Tantric practice?
How does non-dual practice help me become more trustworthy for others?
How are the course fees determined through the principle of Dāna?
What practical resources will I gain from participating in this series?
