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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? Learn the different kinds of power, how to work with them skillfully, and how to repair when power has been misused.
At-a-Glance
Dates & format: Online, live. Sundays Nov 8, 15, 22, plus an optional Flash Retreat weekend Nov 28–29 (from home or at Clear Sky).
Time: Three 90-minute classes, 9:30–11am Mountain Time; Flash Retreat sessions of 60–90 minutes, morning and afternoon.
Cost: Dāna (people typically give $120–500 USD) plus an admin fee of $80–120 USD. Flash Retreat registered separately.
Who it’s for: Open to any practitioner with an open mind.
Do You Feel Empowered in These Uncertain Times?
Do you feel empowered in your practice? In your own Buddha nature?
In an age when it’s hard to know what to believe or whom to trust, many of us feel disempowered at times. Uncertainty about the future of humanity and the planet can shake our confidence to its core. And when scandals surface around spiritual leaders, so often involving money, sex, and power, practitioners are left with real questions: What does authentic empowerment look like? What is my power? How do I strengthen it, and use it ethically?
This course takes those questions on directly. Catherine Sensei and Susan Skjei, a Right Use of Power and Authentic Leadership teacher, bring together tantric teaching and those two frameworks to look at what power actually is, and how practice makes us authentic, and therefore trustworthy, to ourselves and others. Catherine Sensei and her teacher Qapel taught that money and sex are often the handmaidens of power, and that the spiritual path is a quest for the deepest-rooted empowerment there is.
The aim: to weave every moment with exactly the energy it needs
What You’ll Learn
The nature of power in tantric practice. We start by exploring together what power means in tantric traditions, and how that differs from how power usually gets talked about.
Six kinds of power. Personal, role, status/societal, collective, systemic, and universal. Knowing which kind is operating in a situation is what lets you work with it skillfully.
Techniques for accessing your personal power. Practical methods you can use outside class.
Practice as a source of power. How to use your spiritual practices to enhance your personal power and your connection with universal power.
Supporting others. Skills to help other beings access their own power.
Repair and recovery. How to repair or recover from situations where power has been misused.
What’s Expected of Me
- Attend live when you can. Each class is recorded and available for one week.
- Meet with your regional sangha between classes if you can. The continuity helps us go deeper, which is how you learn about intimacy.
- The Flash Retreat (Nov 28–29) is separately registered and includes exercises. You can do it at home or at Clear Sky.
- Class times are estimates and may shift slightly.
- Bring an open mind. No prior tantra experience is needed.
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.
Cost
This course runs on dāna plus an admin fee. Dāna is your direct gift of generosity to the teachers. People typically give $120–500 USD, no one is excluded for lack of funds, and offering service counts too.
The admin fee supports the infrastructure behind online teaching (live classes, registration, recordings, website):
$80 by Oct 11 · $100 by Oct 25 · $120 after.
If the fee is a barrier, contact the Registrar and we’ll help you attend.
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 if I can't attend live?
Recordings are available for one week after each class.
Do I need to do the Flash Retreat?
(answer once you confirm)
What is Right Use of Power?
Is this course a place to work through a personal experience of misused power?
