Planet Dharma - The Launch Pod

In this talk from the online course Riding the Dragon, Doug and Catherine explore the concepts of Quantum Creativity and Adaptive Creativity. They discuss how imagination springs forth from spaciousness and how it is the remedy for habitual mind. Surrendering, or letting go, into this spaciousness allows us to move beyond simply running on instinct and tap into our fullest potential.      Here are the links referred to in the episode:   Register for the free online course called Wake Up: 4 Paths to Spiritual Awakening at planetdharma.com/wakeup.   Learn about upcoming online courses by visiting planetdharma.com/events.   Learn more about Wasteland to Pureland, download a free chapter, or purchase your own copy by visiting planetdharma.com/pureland.

In this talk Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat look at the pitfalls of our society’s tendency to value information over lived experience. They discuss ways to integrate knowledge and wisdom so we can live connected lives.   Today’s recording comes from Doug Duncan and Catherine’s Facebook Livestream series, Enlighten Up, a monthly talk given on contemporary topics of awakening.   To stay up to date on these teachings, like and subscribe to notifications for our Facebook page at Facebook.com/planetdharma. We also upload edited versions of the Enlighten Up episodes to our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/planetdharma      To learn more about Planet Dharma’s offerings visit planetdharma.com/podcast.

Drawing on material from the first reflection in their book, Wasteland to Pureland, Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat explore the topic of personal vision and connect it to the concepts of absolute and relative truth. Today’s recording is a continuation of the material that you can hear in the Season 3 trailer entitled, Why Awaken?   To explore these ideas further, purchase Wasteland to Pureland: Reflections on the Path to Awakening, available on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Indigo.   Today’s episode features a recording from Planet Dharma’s first online course of 2019, The Pearl Without Price. Doug and Catherine run 3 or 4 online courses each year. Participants can attend live or watch the recording for one week after each of the 4 weekly sessions. The next online course takes place in September and covers the material in the final section of Wasteland to Pureland, entitled Crazy Wisdom. To learn more about Planet Dharma’s online courses visit planetdharma.com/events and click on

This week is Doug Duncan‘s 70th birthday. We thought this was the perfect time to launch Season 3 of the podcast with its new title, Dharma If You Dare.  The first episode of the new season will drop any day now, so stay tuned. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your Podcasts to receive new episodes directly on your device as soon as they are published. We look forward to sharing a season of thought-provoking, insightful and practical teachings to help you to more fully integrate your spiritual practice into your daily life.   In Season 3 you’ll hear content from Doug and Catherine’s best-selling book, Wasteland to Pureland, along with other teachings that translate traditional wisdom into modern paths of spiritual awakening.   We’ll leave you today with a selection of recordings of birthday messages from some of Doug and Catherine‘s students, wishing Doug Sensei a wonderful birthday. In their messages they share reflections and stories about the impact Doug Sensei has had on their lives. We hope these

Why Awaken? Today's episode explores the idea of personal vision and how it relates to spiritual unfoldment. It's part of our celebration for the upcoming release of more podcast episodes from Planet Dharma. Season 3 will begin in mid-July to celebrate Doug Sensei’s 70th birthday! The Season 3 launch will include a new podcast name, theme music and format. It will be all-new content, but will still have the same focus on how to embrace a path of awakening in modern times by leveraging all that life has to offer. And to keep you engaged in the teachings between now and the launch of Season 3, Doug Sensei and Catherine Sensei will be hosting a 4-part online course entitled Riding the Dragon: Spiritual Awakening in Modern Life. To learn more about this course, which can be viewed live or via recordings, visit planetdharma.com/events. We hope you enjoy today’s episode and stay tuned for the launch of Season 3 in July. For more content from the cutting edge of spiritual awakening, including books, blogs, vid

Join Deborah Price, founder of The Money Coaching Institute, in a conversation with dharma teachers Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat as they address the challenges of living a spiritual life in the modern world. Together they discuss community, time management and consumerism and how it impacts our ability to live a full life. This interview highlights the launch of Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat’s best selling book Wasteland to Pureland. You can find out more about the Wasteland to Pureland book at planetdharma.com/pureland. To learn more about Planet Dharma's teachings and programs, visit planetdharma.com/podcast.

We all have boundaries that help us feel safe and comfortable. But what happens when we cling to the comfort?  In this episode, Duncan and Catherine explore the comfort zones of their students at Clear Sky Retreat Center. They encourage these students to step out of their comfort zones and discover the ultimate place of learning: their growth edges. This episode comes from a class given during Planet Dharma’s retreat, Buddhas in Action at Clear Sky Retreat Center. To learn more about Planet Dharma's teachings and programs, visit planetdharma.com/podcast.

We’re all familiar with yoga in the studio, with an instructor guiding us on our mats. But did you know that there are other types of yoga that we can incorporate into our spiritual practice?  In this talk, Doug and Catherine introduce these other yogic paths and explain why karma yoga, the path of action, is built for the modern spiritual warrior. This episode comes from a class given during Planet Dharma’s retreat, Buddhas in Action at Clear Sky Retreat Center. To learn more about Planet Dharma's teachings and programs, visit planetdharma.com/podcast.

We live in a distracted society. Keeping focused can be challenging, whether we’re engaging in conversation or trying to meet a deadline. Learn what it means to put ‘complete effort’ into things and the benefits we gain by being fully present in each moment. In this talk, Doug and Catherine explore the topic of Right Effort, from the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. They explain that wholesome effort is when we are in the moment and not distracted by conflicted emotions or primitive thinking. This episode is an excerpt from Planet Dharma’s 2017 online course, Right Effort – Healing the Splits Within. To learn more about Planet Dharma's teachings and programs, visit planetdharma.com/podcast.

How do you find your purpose? Embrace compassion, explore, and ultimately, get over yourself so you can tap into something much, much deeper. In this talk, Doug and Catherine explain the need for a vision bigger than your lifetime and bigger than yourself. They look at the importance of letting the study of nature and consciousness inform your vision and career. This episode is an excerpt from Planet Dharma’s 2017 online course, Right Effort – Healing the Splits Within. To learn more about Planet Dharma's teachings and programs, visit planetdharma.com/podcast.

The paramis are Buddhist teachings that allow you to overcome bad habits and transform them into more wholesome ways of being. When applying these principles in our daily lives, unnecessary suffering cannot arise. In this talk, Doug and Catherine give an overview of the paramis and explain their power and practicality.  This episode is an excerpt from Planet Dharma’s 2017 online course, Right Effort – Healing the Splits Within. To learn more about Planet Dharma's teachings and programs, visit planetdharma.com/podcast.

There’s a sense of safety with feeling comfortable. But comfort often goes hand-in-hand with habit, routine and ultimately suffering. It’s time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. In this talk, Doug and Catherine explore the low-grade angst that exists when we cling to comfort and explain how not seeking comfort is not the same as seeking discomfort. This episode is an excerpt from Planet Dharma’s 2017 online course, Right Effort – Healing the Splits Within. To learn more about Planet Dharma's teachings and programs, visit www.planetdharma.com/podcast.

"Lama Rinpoche, to you I supplicate." Even if you're fully awakened, you still say that. Why? To overcome pride, which is very subtle! http://www.planetdharma.com/

How do you live and move and recognize in your world? What are the patterns and structures of how the mind works, whether hunger/gatherer or food grower or living in the modern world? --- Doug Sensei gives an interview on an upcoming talk he will give on traditional wisdom in Australia in December 2013. http://www.planetdharma.com/

The spiritual teachings are focused on drawing your attention to the awakened/awakening consciousness. The real purpose of awakening is it puts you in a position where it's just much easier to learn without a lot of baggage. --- From an interview conducted in October 2013 with Doug Duncan Sensei...   Transcript: Well again, it's mapping, it's patterning. I won't go into those particularly, but pattern recognition. It's what the human consciousness is particularly good at. "Oh, winter's coming. Oh, nuts are under the snow. Hmmm…. let's build a shed, put the nuts in the shed. I can get to the shed. I can't get under the snow." It's a kind of pattern recognition. So, cabbalistic teachings, Christian teachings, Islamic teachings, Buddhist teachings… it's all about pattern. It's all recognizing pattern, seeing how things work, how things tie together -- psychology, science, mysticism. It's all patterns. "Occult" means "hidden" -- that which is hidden -- so if you're an occultist, you're studying that which is

The 'you' -- is an illusion...because 'you' aren't there. And if you knew that, the 'you' would disappear. It would evaporate like a fog. --- Transcript Student: The ego is hurt...somebody steps on you. Doug Sensei: "The definition of 'you' is 'hurt'. Be very clear about this. 'You' is 'separation'. Separation is, by definition, hurt. You don't want to know the cruel taskmaster who owns you -- the 'you' -- is an illusion...because 'you' aren't there. And if you knew, the 'you' would disappear. It would evaporate like a fog. You don't want to know that 'you' are an illusion -- an image in a mirror, a reflection in a pond. You want 'you' to be there, and so you purposely get distracted. It's a choice to be distracted. And in that distraction you appear. (That's the problem with all these you's.) If you are not distracted, you dissolve. And then there's bliss; clarity; non-clinging awareness. But your program -- the whole story of you, the whole story of 'me' -- is to be distracted. The minute I'm not dist

The first step in spiritual awakening is becoming aware of our ego structure -- actually perceiving the particular beliefs and images that we have identified with and taken to be true -- then dissolving that, letting go of that part of one's identity. --- Doug Sensei teaches on the enneagram, drawing from this source: Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas by A.H. Almaas, 1998; Chapter 4, Basic Trust Search inside: http://books.google.com/books/about/Facets_of_Unity.html?id=gdTz5Mt0WtgC&redir_esc=y Extended paraphrase: The ego is a psychic structure that is based on crystallized beliefs about who we are and what the world is. We experience ourselves and the world through the filter of this structure. Spiritual awakening involves connecting with those dimensions of experience obscured by ego structure. The first step is becoming aware -- actually perceiving the particular beliefs and images that we have identified with and taken to be true -- then dissolving that facet of the ego structure. Th

Part 2: Paralyzed and Free! A quadriplegic man in the hospital for 25 years sees the spaciousness through which all manifestations can arise, including the mind. Was no longer obsessed with the arisings. --- Part two of the "Why Practice the Paramis?" podcast from Aug. 23, 2013. The "he" referred to at the beginning is "Gerry," who was laid up in the hospital for 8 weeks unable to move. This talk was originally given on Dec. 13, 2007, in Kyoto, Japan. http://www.planetdharma.com/

The paramis are qualities of character, or "perfections" of heart and mind that can be developed to support the path of awakening--practices which develop wholesome activity, growth and enlightenment. "It is so clear that the Teaching is the only refuge." --- What are the paramis? They are qualities of character, or "perfections" of heart and mind that can be developed to support the path of awakening--practices which develop wholesome activity, growth and enlightenment. In the Theravadin school of Buddhism there are ten. In Mahayana, six, considered to indicate a sequence of development: generosity, virtue (coolheadedness), patience, energy, concentration, and wisdom. For more on the paramis, search for "A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life" or "paramita." Also, "The Path Of Victory: Discourses on the Paramita" by Namgyal Rinpoche can be ordered from BodhiPublishing.org Transcript: Why practice the paramis? Well, as you remember, if you had a turban and it was in flames, what would you do? You'd p

Bliss is present because there is no one trying to do anything. Be very clear about this: bliss arises when you no longer try to do anything. --- A one-minute excerpt from a talk by Doug Sensei on the Diamond Sutra held at Zofukuji Temple, Miki, Japan, on Jan. 4, 2013. You'll want to listen to this one over and over again. Transcript: "Bliss is present because there is no one trying to do anything. Be very clear about this: bliss arises when you no longer try to do anything. Whether it's a golf shot, a poem, a recipe, or singing a song in a band. You're not trying anymore. The minute you don't try to do anything, there it is -- the flow, I guess. You only can be a samurai when you realize you are already dead. The minute you put in a defensive motif of any kind it tightens your muscles, it slows down your reaction time, puts you in a sense of separation […] So, recognize awakening is... you already have to see your life as being over. My life is over. MY life is over. There's just life. My preferences and