Browse Schedule by Category: Retreats / Online Courses
Online Courses
The Pearl without Price: Why Awaken?
The Pearl without Price: Why Awaken? An Online course with Planet Dharma's Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat.
Riding the Dragon: Spiritual Awakening in Modern Life
How do we integrate our spiritual practice with the demands of modern life? As more of us embrace contemporary spiritual paths, we are co-creating ways to make it viable, attractive and powerful.Riding the Dragon: Spiritual Awakening in Modern Life As more and more of us embrace modern spiritual paths, we are co-creating ways to make it viable, attractive and powerful. How do we integrate our spiritual practice with the demands of modern life? To help ease the learning curve for others, we share our wisdom from founding both a virtual and a working monastery. We address the common challenges we see many contemporary spiritual practitioners face. More to the point, we share successful strategies for upcycling these challenges as fuel for the awakening fire.Course Schedule Starts June 3, 2019. MON, JUNE 3 Awakening Through Creativity The awakening mind rests in spaciousness or sunyata, where all thoughts, feelings, actions, and states of being from past, present and future exist simultaneously. All of creation is birthed from this state of spaciousness. To “find” a solution, to receive inspiration to craft something beautiful, to introduce an invention that makes our lives better, or to develop a better future for the planet, we simply need to connect with sunyata to create the space and connection for these to emerge through us. Expand your view of what “creativity” is, and develop your ability to connect with this awakening practice. MON, JUNE 10 Secrets From Ourselves: When we think of “secrets” we usually think of something […]
Crazy Wisdom: Taking a Walk on the Wild Side
It takes courage and an open mind to explore the frontiers of awakening. What’s more, this greater range of understanding creates something we all desire: greater degrees of freedom. And freedom ain’t for the faint of heart. Crazy Wisdom: Taking a Walk on the Wild Side Meditation trains us to pay attention in any and every situation, making a broader range of experience available to seekers of every type. What’s more, this greater range of understanding creates something we all desire: greater degrees of freedom. And freedom ain’t for the faint of heart. It takes courage and an open mind to explore the frontiers of awakening. Course Schedule Starts September 9, 2019 MON, SEPTEMBER 9 Spiritual Energy Traders What do our relationships with our mothers, capitalism, and the Triple Gem have in common? Without mindfulness and a robust sense of love, all may fall into an exploitative dynamic, one that’s not in our own best interest. How can we live abundantly and generously as spiritual beings in a capitalist system? We look at the sophistication of giving and receiving skills, the future of sacred economics, and how these impact our spiritual awakening. MON, September 16Only the Shadow Knows Developments in 20th-century psychology introduced us to the concept of our personal and collective shadows. Integrating the shadow is central to our teaching, and can feel arduous and distressing at times, but brings with it infinite rewards. Liberating the shadow frees up immense amounts of energy previously spent repressing or otherwise avoiding it, and […]
Diamond Realization: Clarity in an Unclear World (Online)
Let your mind shine like a diamond. A clear and strong consciousness cuts through foggy or disillusioned mind states to reveal wisdom and ultimate truth. By studying the Diamond Sutra, we deepen our abilities to act in the world more skillfully and effectively with a profound reverence for every moment. The Diamond Sutra Deepen your own unfoldment with our exploration of the Diamond Sutra through the scope of awakened master, Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche. One of the most treasured sutras in the Mahayana canon, the Diamond Sutra is also recognized as the oldest dated and printed book in existence. The full translation of the book’s title is "The Diamond Which Cuts Through Illusion." “Whosoever can receive and retain this teaching, study it, recite it and spread it abroad will be clearly perceived and recognized by the Tathagata and will achieve a perfection of merit beyond measurement or calculation – a perfection of merit unlimited and inconceivable.” – The Buddha (The Diamond Sutra, Section XV, The Incomparable Value of This Teaching) Recommended Reading For this online study of the Diamond Sutra, we will use Suchness, the commentary by the great awakened master Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche. We recommend that you order a copy of Suchness from Bodhi Publishing for the course. Shipping times may vary so we suggest doing this at your earliest convenience. Course Schedule Starts January 6th, 2020 PLEASE NOTE to deepen and integrate your experience, we are offering three optional weekly Master Classes during the course and an at-home Flash Retreat at the end. See below for more details. MON, JANUARY 6Class 1 In […]
Intro to AstroDharma (Ongoing Enrollment)
Intro to AstroDharma is an online self-study program that supports you as you begin the journey of self-discovery and transformation through the uniquely combined lens of Buddhist teachings (Dharma) and transpersonal Western astrology.
To learn more, register or resume course, visit the course page.
Intro to AstroDharma (A Self-Study Course)
Intro to AstroDharma is an online self-study program that supports you as you begin the journey of self-discovery and transformation through the uniquely combined lens of Buddhist teachings (Dharma) and transpersonal Western astrology.
Enroll at any time and study at your own pace. Access the material for up to a year.
Enlightened Archetypes: Energies We Need to Awaken (ONLINE)
Renowned psychologist Carl Jung studied archetypes, including Vajrayana Buddhism. He believed that we all have access to such strong, healthy archetypes through the collective unconscious, yet individually they are largely misunderstood or incomplete. Jung believed that one healing modality is to call them forth into consciousness and make them whole again. Indeed, enlightenment or the process of awakening, is referred to as the Great Healing. . A Weekend Experience In these two morning talks, Doug Sensei will focus on the energies and teachings associated with Vajrayana Buddhist archetypes, and how they can be used wisely and compassionately for our unfoldment. NOTE: Due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns, we have restructured this weekend intensive originally set to take place in Calgary into online teachings. The original plan involved a Vajrapani wongkur. We will be looking at a future date when we can reschedule this for the Calgary participants. Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you would like an immersive experience of tantric deity practice, we encourage you to join the Tantric Deep Dive retreat that is still set to take place at Clear Sky Retreat Center in June. Click here for more details. Part 1 - 10am Saturday Talk: Why do we need archetypes? An introduction to Tibetan deities Part 2 - (Postponed) Empowerment Ceremony (Wong Kur) – Vajrapani, The Body of the Buddha Part 3 - 10am Sunday: Embodying awakened energies through the practice Meet the Teacher Achariya Doug Duncan has been teaching the Buddhist path to awakening for over three decades. Known for his […]
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Online)
What are the four foundations of mindfulness that provide a platform for insight, and 'clear seeing'? Discover indispensable tools for crafting a powerful meditation practice.Four Foundations of Mindfulness: The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta While we believe any undertaking can be a vehicle for awakening, there's no substitute for the power of one's own profound experience of truth, gained through meditation. This is why meditation is one of the four foundational practices of our teaching. In this four-week online course, we take a deep dive to explore the Theravadin tradition of vipassana or insight meditation. We’ll focus on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, or discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which has been described as the most profound discourse the Buddha ever gave on mental development. This simple yet powerful framework will help you extend your meditation experience to everything from subatomic particles to the vastness of space, and all that’s between.Recommended Reading To prepare, please read the full Satipatthana Sutta before class. You can find a link here: Satipatthana Sutta We also recommend Namgyal Rinpoche’s short and pithy Breath of Awakening, a commentary on the Anapanasati Sutta, which is nice background for the Satipatthana Sutta. The book is available at the Clear Sky Center shop, or through our friends at Bodhi Publishing (recommend ordering well in advance, as delivery times vary).The course went beyond my expectations, I feel I learned a lot of new things or new ways of seeing things. The teachers have an incredible way of presenting the themes in a way that makes it easy […]
Beyond the Cushion: Awakening our Highest Potential (Online)
One might equate the spiritual life with a cloistered contemplative life. But few of us live that way today. So what spiritual methodologies actually work for busy, modern people living in a complex world? We share four pillars and five principles with you in this online course, to take your practice beyond the meditation cushion.
2 Steps to Freedom: Change How You Act in the World by Changing How You See It
People sometimes find themselves lost, confused, uncertain, or doubtful about their path. Indeed, the nature of samsara is that we get caught in chasing the same things, over and over. Yet right now, you may be one of many people who see the disruption of 2020 as an opportunity to press reset on important aspects of your life. The problem is, without the right focus, without putting the right view first, we’ll almost certainly end up in the same place. What does this mean? And how can we break free? Even in good states, we work mostly on autopilot. We’re making decisions that come from our mind, emotions, memory, or from a sense of “worldly” practicality. Or perhaps we close our eyes and hope that things will work out. Mostly, we act from the idea that our worldly lives are fundamentally “real,” something we need to control or to fix. By putting this view first, however, we’re basing our decisions and actions on the influences of our society, family, and changing states or emotions. So what’s the alternative? A Weekend Experience In these two talks, Dharma teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat will propose that to get wonderful results from life we must start with questioning and adjusting this view. Without the right view, our conduct cannot possibly flow in a wholesome, generative way. What is the view? The teachings show us that the ego is not real, that nothing is permanent. Hence, our first goal is to learn to dwell in […]