Browse Schedule by Category: Retreats / Online Courses
Mindfulness Teachings in Victoria
Heart of the Village Yoga 2186 Oak Bay, Victoria, BC, CanadaDoug and Catherine will be teaching on mindfulness on Friday and Saturday evenings, October 24-25th in beautiful Victoria, BC. Classes will be from 7:30-9pm and held at the Heart of the Village Yoga. Please see the event website for full information.
Hollyhock Teachings, Cultivating Awareness, 2014
Hollyhock Manson's Landing, Cortes Island, BC, CanadaReclaim the personal power that’s every human’s birthright by growing mindfulness habits, thereby liberating your finest qualities and decreasing obstacles to your best manifestations in the world. Together we explore receptive and active exercises, solo and in small groups, supplying useful tools for practice throughout the year in both daily and exceptional situations. Connect three times daily to hear teachings and play with creative visualization, movement, meditation, speech/writing and artistic exercises. Become empowered to unveil mindful ease via the different senses and various parts of the brain. Rediscover your strengths and develop your weaker areas. Cultivate a more balanced, holistic life full of the natural pleasures of relationships, work, humour and joy. For more details and registration information, please refer to the Hollyhock course page. Learn more about Hollyhock here. New on the Hollyhock website, our article "Spiritual Healing".
Meditation Retreat: Enlivening the Mystical Life
Clear Sky Meditation & Study Centre 3567 Cockell Rd, Bull River, British Columbia, CanadaAre you longing for a greater sense of the mystical in your life? It awaits us, as part of the human birthright of awakening. This four-week retreat from December 19 addresses four stages of the mystical life, and may be attended in its entirety or for particular stages: 1) Building an Unassailable Spiritual Aspiration (Dec 20 – 26) Like any stable creation, our spiritual life needs to be built on a strong and sound foundation. During this stage we lay or strengthen the groundwork for the fundamentals of the spiritual life. Highlights include teachings and meditations on impermanence and the preciousness of this human birth, as well as cornerstones of spiritual aspiration such as generosity and others means of generating merit. 2) Abiding with the Divine (Dec 27 – Jan 2) Compassion and loving kindness are two of the indescribably precious “divine abidings,” where fully awakened beings spend all their time! We go in depth to craft our practice of building, maintaining and growing these prized assets, so that we spend more and more of our time there. This stage also reveals how we can continue to fertilize their growth while we go about our daily lives, a crucial component to the virtual monastery. 3) Catalyzing Growth Through Universal Archetypes (Jan 3- Jan 9) We all live by creating and sustaining images and appearances – we have to appear somehow! This stage examines a variety of historical archetypes of how we humans have modeled ourselves around the world and over […]
The Hero’s Journey Retreat at Clear Sky Center
Clear Sky Meditation & Study Centre 3567 Cockell Rd, Bull River, British Columbia, CanadaThe Hero's Journey This popular retreat offers a powerful mythical journey experience. Accepting the challenge of the Hero’s Journey will leave you with a healthier, strengthened ego – one more fully integrated with the ‘shadow’ and thus accessing more energy and less susceptible to stress. Introducing the shadow What do we mean by ‘shadow’? Our shadow aspects are the unconscious patterns and views that affect our behavior, decisions and intentions to the extent that we’re not acting consciously for the benefit of ourselves or others. For most of us, the ego is locked in a continual struggle with the shadow: it determines whether we like or dislike people, situations and things, without realizing why or being conscious of our responses. In terms of lifetime patterns, we may be undermining our relationships, blocking our growth, and limiting our spiritual unfoldment and thus our ability to benefit others. Or: we can choose to take a look at what’s really going on under the surface. Negative emotions like anxiety and depression are rooted in the ego’s need to ‘object’-ify our experience. We attempt to cling to things. Since all things have an impermanent nature, this inevitably leads to struggle and dissatisfaction. Once we commit to the challenge to release the energy locked in there, imagine the fountain of energy that becomes available to us then! Enter the Hero In this retreat, support your inner hero or heroine to undertake a courageous journey through the archetypes. The aim: not to destroy the shadow, but […]
21 Taras Meditation Retreat
Clear Sky Meditation & Study Centre 3567 Cockell Rd, Bull River, British Columbia, CanadaJoin us for a week-long retreat where we will study, contemplate and immerse ourselves in “Tara” - an archetype of support and nourishment, protection and encouragement. Tara is a female bodhisattva, a being who delays their own Buddhahood or entry into nirvana in order to assist and alleviate the suffering of others. She is known as a saviouress and as the "mother of liberation" from suffering. See this introductory video with Doug and Catherine on the 21 Taras.
Karma, Womb and Transcendence
Clear Sky Meditation & Study Centre 3567 Cockell Rd, Bull River, British Columbia, CanadaProbably the most important work to do in this lifetime in relationship to getting in contact with how you were made, shaped and formed… By doing the retreat you’re bringing that which was unconscious into the conscious mind - which is hugely important for your liberation. -- Doug Duncan & Catherine Pawasarat All of our tendencies and potentialities come from the womb experience. It literally shapes and forms us - before we were conscious. The exercises and practices in this retreat will bring these patterns to consciousness, and only then can you be liberated from them. This retreat will be taught by Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat at Clear Sky Meditation Center. The retreat will include individual and group exercises and meditations. It will be a challenging topic, suited to those looking for a liberating experience. Hear more about the retreat from teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat: https://youtu.be/C7Z6B4-p_F8 What others have said about this retreat: Can you imagine what gems of insight await you? Course prerequisites: Completion of the Online Course, A Year of Dharmic Astrology. Recommended reading: The Womb, Karma and Transcendence by Namgyal Rinpoche, available from Bodhi Publishing Image credit: Top image is a painting by Sonam Senge, from the cover of the book "The Womb Karma and Transcendence" by Namgyal Rinpoche.
Online Course: Emotional Intelligence
Gather online with teachers of awakening Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat for these 90 minute webinars, one day a week for four weeks. Strengthen and energize your vehicle of emotional intelligence, and view it through the lens of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness to further and contemporize your realization of awakening. Through improved relationships, we may be of greater benefit to more beings. Less emotional conflict makes for greater joy and deeper insights into the mystery of being. Course Dates & Time: 90 minutes once a week, May 9 - May 30, 2015. Sat., May 9, 4:00-5:30pm Mountain Time Sat., May 16, 4:00-5:30pm Mountain Time Sat., May 23, 4:00-5:30pm Mountain Time Sat., May 30, 4:00-5:30pm Mountain Time * NOTE: webinars must be attended live; no recordings will be available. Registration numbers are limited to 25 people; please confirm that you're able to attend live before you register for this course.* Determine your local time here. Cost: This course is being offered on the basis of the progressive and precious practice of dāna (generosity). The course is currently full, but please join the Wait List: Course Description: How well do you swim the sometimes-turbulent waters of interpersonal relationships? Are you frolicking like a sea otter, or busy avoiding sharks? Are you aware of and comfortable with what you’re feeling, and do you express it in a way others understand and relate to? And would those close to you agree? Are you smiling or clenching your teeth right now? […]
Planetary Awakening, Calgary Teachings
Human Potential 360, Calgary 1231 9 Ave SE, Inglewood, Calgary, AB, CanadaJoin Dharma teacher Catherine Pawasarat in Calgary AB, for a weekend exploration of “Planetary Awakening”. Catherine will give Discourses on Deep Sustainability, covering such questions as:
-What needs to shift for humans to live in balance and harmony with the planet?
-How can we support this process in our day to day lives?
-How does the concept of sustainability translate to our mind states?
Foundations of Buddhist Philosophy (Online)
Much of the mindfulness, self-awareness and self-improvement courses that are available today are modern derivatives of ancient traditions and methods that could be called fundamentally Buddhist. These five streamed courses will give an overview of the foundations of the Buddhist teachings of liberation, helping us better understand and make optimal use of contemporary interpretations.
Holistic Clearing Retreat
Clear Sky Meditation & Study Centre 3567 Cockell Rd, Bull River, British Columbia, CanadaHolistic Clearing - A Modern Liberative Practice Join this retreat to learn a simple and transformative four-step approach that has amazing power to free us from persistent and tenacious blocks. Holistic Clearing offers a supportive and fully liberating self-contained practice. It is an original creation by Namgyal Rinpoche, representing a new and unique stream in spiritual practices. In particular this meditation is designed to help us face and overcome paralysis, any sense of being “stuck.” This practice empowers us to become unstuck, to flow naturally and gracefully in sync with the energy of the universe that we call the awakened mind. The Holistic Clearing meditations are designed to purify, balance and strengthen our transcendent natures, the optimal manifestations of our being. Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat continue this lineage of authentic teachings. Let them skillfully guide you through this straightforward, insight-style program that empowers us to luxuriate in greater freedom and joy in our lives. Join this retreat for the valuable opportunity to help share these unique Namgyal teachings in the contemporary world. Course Outcomes • Recognize, identify and build on the strengths and positives already in our lives. • Use your strengths to support your growth in other areas. • Learn how to move beyond our strengths, to develop our potential further and in more integrated ways. • Recognize and clear elements of your persona that stand in the way of greater freedom and clarity. • Identify and grow completely new areas of our own potential. • Access more […]