Requirements
- No prior experience is necessary. You will learn what you need to know.
Description
Planet Dharma’s Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat distill a life-changing practice into four core paths for spiritual awakening in this lifetime. Through Action, Meditation, Study, and Integrating the Shadow, each unit explores one of our core pillars and provides exercises that participants can apply at home, work and in relationships. These exercises help us to develop greater awareness of our habitual patterns in body, speech, and mind. Where does our mind go when we do a simple task like wash the dishes? What comes first, a feeling, or a thought about a situation? Can we see an image in two, very different ways? How does our body posture affect our mental patterns? There will also be some short, guided meditations. Participants are invited to answer short questions after each exercise based on their perceptions and experiences. No answers are wrong. This is an invitation to step out of your comfort zone, and explore a little deeper into some of life’s routine patterns that we normally don’t take the time to investigate. We may find that small changes in our routines can lead to improvements in our own well-being, and in those around us. And that, indeed, is what Spiritual Awakening is about. As in everything we offer, Wake Up is founded on our mission of benefitting all beings.
Who this course is for:
- This is a course for those searching for deeper insights and meaning in our world, and through the learnings and practices is alleviate suffering for the benefit of all beings, including ourselves.
Instructor
- 4.8 Instructor Rating
- 20 Reviews
- 833 Students
- 4 Courses
Planet Dharma is the virtual teaching vehicle for dharma teachers, Catherine Pawasarat Sensei and Doug Qapel Duncan.
Catherine Pawasarat Sensei is co-founder and resident teacher (with Qapel Doug Duncan) at Clear Sky Retreat Center in the British Columbia Rockies. At Clear Sky, Catherine Sensei has spearheaded an innovative and sustainability-oriented culture and organization, specializing in conscious community. Together, Qapel and Catherine Sensei teach through a virtual vehicle, Planet Dharma. In 2018 they wrote the best-selling book, Wasteland to Pureland.
Catherine Sensei is an expert in traditional Japanese culture, and the author of the first comprehensive English guidebook to Kyoto’s 1150-year-old Gion Festival, a gigantic living collection of diverse spiritual rituals. She also teaches and advocates for the unique role and experiences of Women in Buddhism.
In the 1990s, she was a student of metaphysics, Western spiritual traditions, and the ayahuasca sacraments. Living in Kyoto, Japan for 20 years, she worked as an advocacy photojournalist specializing in environmental and human rights, and edited sustainability-related publications for various United Nations bodies. She also studied traditional Japanese arts.
Since 1998 she has trained daily with Buddhist teacher Achariya Doug Duncan (Qapel) in an intensive spiritual apprenticeship that’s rare in the modern West. Transmitted from the remarkable Namgyal Rinpoche, they are both lineage holders of these teachings.
Qapel (Achariya Doug Duncan) (1949-2024)
Doug Duncan studied with the Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche from 1974 until the latter’s passing in 2003. Doug received lay ordination from Namgyal Rinpoche in 1978, and is a lineage holder in that teaching. He also received teachings from the 16th Karmapa and other Tibetan Rinpoches, as well as from the Ven. Sayadaw U Thila Wunta, and from a Master of the Western Mystery School. In addition, Doug has undertaken numerous three-month solitary meditation retreats.
Doug has been leading retreats, teaching and training in universal practices of spiritual unfoldment since 1985, helping thousands of students in numerous countries liberate themselves from suffering. His teaching also draws on contemporary psychology and science. In 2004 he co-founded Clear Sky Retreat Center in the BC Rockies where he is resident teacher along with Catherine Sensei.
Growing up in Saskatchewan was a pretty “flat” experience, so Doug caught the travel bug early. As a small child he wandered, such that the local police often had to bring him home. This desire to see the world and understand it more fully has led him ever since. He passed away in October 2024.