Meditation Retreat
Sensei Doug Duncan’s Annual Meditation Retreat at Villa Sumaya – May 4-13 2012
Awakening in this Lifetime -Using the Object of Desire to Transcend the Object of Desire
General Inforation: Each year Villa Sumaya sponsors this exceptional nine-night meditation retreat with Sensei Doug Duncan. Our 2012 silent retreat will have the classic Tibetan-style Sengema Initiations: Lion Faced Daikini and Guru Rinpoche.
This silent meditation retreat is beneficial for all levels of practitioner, from the beginning meditation student to advanced practitioners. It includes two daily teachings with Sensei plus an opportunity for personal interviews as well as three daily group sits and time for personal practice. There will be a one hour yoga class each day with our beloved and skillful teacher, Rae Ishe.
Course Description: Life is a series of movements; nothing stays still for even a microsecond. Our attachments and aversions represent our futile attempts to fix things in place, causing much struggle in our lives. The process of liberation is learning to let go of the clinging … without needing to destroy the object of that clinging.
In Buddhism, this series of life’s movements has been divided into six major phases, given the name of “bardos” or “transitional states:” life, dream, death, becoming, meditation and birth. After focusing on the nature and characteristics of each of these bardo states, this retreat empowers us with techniques for realizing peace as we accept the joyful nature of this incessant movement and learn to transition gracefully between them.
“The conventional life promises so much, but delivers so little. The transcendental life promises little and delivers so much.” ..Sensei Doug Duncan
We have specially priced this retreat so it is accessible to all practicioners. Please contact us for a registration kit. Lizzy@villasumaya.com
Achariya Doug Duncan Sensei
Doug Duncan’s main focus as a spiritual teacher is facilitating awakening in this lifetime. Known for his accessibility and humor, Doug also demonstrates indefatigable compassion in encouraging his students to manifest their full potential as awakening beings.
Doug brings a practical and contemporary approach to spiritual work , based on his forty years of Buddhist and Western mystical training in the ground-breaking Namgyal lineage. His methodology emphasizes courage and integrity conjoined with balancing inner and outer exploration through meditation, travel, mastering personal challenges, and positive engagement in life. His students use words like inspired, unconventional, stimulating, idiosyncratic, disruptive and illuminating, and loving to describe a teaching style that must be experienced to be believed.
Doug Sensei has founded the Clear Sky Meditation & Study Center in British Columbia, Canada, and Dharma Japan in Kyoto, and travels worldwide to share the universal teachings of liberation. www.Clearsky.org and www.dharma-japan.org
Sensei’s lineage is pictured here.
Top photo: Sayadaw U Thila Wunta http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/contemporarymasters/sayadaw-u-thila-wunta.htm
Middle photo:Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche http://www.clearskycenter.org/about-us/history-of-the-lineage.html
Bottom Photo: Acariya Doug Duncan Sensei http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/kyabje-namgyal.htm
Testimonials
Sensei´s teaching is food for my longing for the truth. I feel naked and safe in his presence. He leads me right to the edge. Sensei – a precious jewel. His words go straight to the core of my being. There is no road he would not go down with you if it will bring you to the transcendental – and this is a true teacher… Andrea Netscher
To have the opportunity to receive teaching from a master such as Doug Duncan sensei, in such depth, volume, passion and clarity is a jewel of immeasurable value. On top of that it is hard to imagine a better location and venue than Villa Sumaya to retreat from the outside world and immerse in the teaching and practice of the Dharma. I give it my highest recommendations. Robert Blaisdell
On Dāna
“Dāna” is a Sanskrit and Pali word meaning “generosity” or “giving.” In Buddhism, it also refers to the fundamental practice of cultivating generosity.
Dāna is the first of what are called the Six Paramis or Perfections: generosity, ethics, patience, joyful effort, concentration and wisdom. Every being “perfects” each of these virtues on our path to full awakening.
Buddhist teachings hold that dāna is the cornerstone of all the paramis, and through an ongoing strengthening of our own ability to be generous, all the other paramis unfold naturally. First and foremost, practicing generosity benefits the giver, as we gift ourselves another step on the path of liberation from suffering.
Through giving we have the opportunity to share loving kindness and compassion while we also observe and let go of our own attachments. Generosity allows us to support the spread of awakening to limitless beings, and “pay it forward” to future recipients, who may benefit in ways we can’t even imagine.
Dāna is always discretionary, and may consist of time, energy, money, food, clothing, gifts, prayers (particularly for the good health of dharma teachers and practitioners and the flourishing of the teachings), or a wholesome, supportive attitude. That said, the most precious dāna we can give is sincere and diligent application of the teachings.
May we all awaken speedily for the benefit of all beings.
