Vipassanā Meditation Retreat

Both in person and online

REPEATING SCHEDULE: Daily
START DATE: Friday, June 13, 2025
END DATE: Sunday, June 22, 2025

REGION: Fort Steele, British Columbia
ORGANIZATION: Clear Sky Meditation Center
TEACHER: Catherine Pawasarat Sensei
CONTACT PERSON: Michelle Heinz
CONTACT NUMBER: 1-250-429-3929
EMAIL: bookings@clearskycenter.org
WEBSITE

“Our problems are noisy, but our breakthroughs are quiet. All great mystics are born of solitude and silence.”

-Catherine Pawasarat Sensei

 

Many first-time meditators choose Vipassanā for their first retreat.

This practice is ideal for those new to meditation because it introduces you to the foundations needed to build a strong meditation practice.

Regardless of one’s experience level, this practice is a doorway to profound insight and realization.

Join Catherine Pawasarat Sensei in an eight-day Vipassana meditation retreat, where we will practice a balanced meditative approach using the foundations of mindfulness from the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta.

with Catherine Pawasarat Sensei | June 13-22nd, 2025

Registration Deadline: May 30th

Early Bird Ends: April 13th!

We recommend in-person retreats as the best way to get the most out of your experience. That said, we recognize that travel is inhibitive for some people and are offering an online option to people living outside of Western Canada. 

A Life Changing Experience

At this retreat, the practice itself is awakening, life-changing and healing. And most importantly, you will reap great benefit from the rare in-person guidance of an accomplished meditation teacher and wisdom holder, Catherine Pawasarat Sensei. Sensei’s teaching is radical, down to earth, and one-of-a-kind.

If you have a background in Vipassana retreats and are interested in doing something that is similar but a next step, with a live teacher, then this retreat may be for you. You will receive more detailed instructions based on the Buddhist satipatthana sutta, and opportunities for asking questions and receiving feedback on your practice. This is priceless.

An online option is also available for those not in Western Canada, to make participation possible from anywhere in the world.

Eight Day Meditation Retreat

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.

Another of our foundation practices is learning. A guiding text for this retreat is the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, or Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness.  It is an incredibly powerful methodology. In it, the Buddha describes four foundations of mindfulness: body, feeling, mind, and mental objects. It is a guide to liberation.

This simple yet powerful framework will extend your meditation experience to everything from subatomic particles to the vastness of space, and all that’s between. It includes practice in all four postures—sitting, walking, standing, and lying down. Experience will transform. And, finally, we will offer support for bridging the gap between retreat and daily life when you get home.

Awakening Community and Tarot Retreat

Catherine Pawasarat Sensei began her spiritual practices in earnest in her early 20s, when she struggled to make sense of and overcome personal suffering and international environmental and social justice challenges. She became a student of metaphysics, Western spiritual traditions, and the ayahuasca sacraments in the 1990s.

For 26 years Catherine Sensei trained daily with Qapel Doug Duncan in an intensive spiritual apprenticeship that is rare in the modern West. She received lay ordination from Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche in 2003.

With Qapel she co-founded Clear Sky Retreat Center and Planet Dharma and is a lineage holder for these teachings. She supports the spiritual underpinnings of social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship for spiritual practitioners. She worked as an advocacy photojournalist and studied traditional Japanese arts (including koto, shamisen, kyogen) in Kyoto for 20 years, culminating in her landmark work GionFestival.org.

Since the early 2000s Sensei has provided dharma training and taught the path of awakening to hundreds of students, together with Qapel and on her own. In addition to Buddhist philosophy and its applications to daily life, Sensei also draws on generative living (a.k.a. sustainability) and the arts.

What’s Expected of Me?

  1. An open mind and heart, and a spirit of adventure are excellent things to bring!
  2. It’s human to have some apprehensions about doing something new, meeting new people, or going to a new place. Particularly when all three happen together. We try to make this as supportive as possible.
  3. When exploring our growth edges, it’s natural to feel uncertain and awkward. And it’s very fruitful to transform that emotional tension into creative energy by drawing on your own inner resources – such as inquiry, going with the flow, and self-reflection, just a few of the many kinds of constructive engagement.
  4. To maximize your retreat experience, we ask that you refrain from reading, using the internet, phone or listening to music during the course.
  5. Students are expected to be silent during the silent parts of the retreat, and participate in all classes, group meditations, activities, and discussions.
  6. We ask that you refrain from microdosing or consuming mind-altering substances during this retreat and in the days immediately following it.

The Location – Clear Sky Center

  • Located in the BC rocky mountains, Clear Sky offers over 300-acres to deepen your practice and reconnect with nature. Founded by Qapel (Achariya Doug Duncan) and Catherine Pawasarat Sensei, the center is home to students from around the globe who are dedicated to co-creating a supportive and innovative space for awakening in our modern world.
  • How to get there, what to bring and other FAQ about Clear Sky
  • Our teachings and Clear Sky operate based on the ancient tradition of dāna or generosity. As generosity is the basis upon which all spiritual practice flourishes, we recommend that you learn more about this profound practice before you register.

 

COST: Cost: $1017.00 -$2142.00. Online course fee only is $450.00. Dāna for the teacher is additional.

SOME CITIES CLOSE BY: Cranbrook, Whitefish