Awakening In Daily Life
July 27-August 11, 2018.
This summer retreat is offered by Doug & Catherine Sensei, Clear Sky’s founding teachers,
When we’re in the middle of modern samsaric busy-ness, the spiritual life can feel out of reach. We want to relate meaningfully with those around us, but we often feel unfulfilled. Work just leaves us feeling worn out and slightly empty. And sometimes the space between self and other feels like a tremendous gap.
We all need to earn a living and deal with day-to-day pressures. The wonderful news is that we can use contemporary spiritual practices at work and in relationship to feel fulfilled while doing so. These different parts of our life can support one another in beautiful ways, leading to great feelings of meaningfulness, balance, and connection.
Read more about spiritual practice at work in this blog, Awakening Speedily Through Career.
Our experience shows that blending study, meditation, and what we call “awakening through action” profoundly integrates spiritual practice with day-to-day demands.
Traditionally, spiritual seekers lived in monasteries or trained with their teacher in remote mountain caves. Throughout both traditions, meditation and training were supplemented with practical application.
This practical application–also called karma yoga or the path of action–helped students learn to embody ever-growing wisdom and awareness moment-to-moment. The idea was always to share these fruits of spiritual practice in meaningful ways with the broader community, for everyone’s benefit.
We’ve spent the last 20 years adapting this tradition of awakening through action to our modern lives, at home, in offices, in conversations, at our desks, in meetings, in bed and in the field. This profoundly practical application can help you find greater joy, fulfillment, and calm amidst your busy daily life.
Why Use Karma Yoga to Wake Up Your Work & Daily Life?
By learning the principles of karma yoga, you can apply awareness and wisdom to everything you do. Cultivating this practice allows you to transform your work, home and city life into a connective field of monastic or yogic practice. Your home becomes your monastery, while your co-workers become your fellow yogis and yoginis.
This retreat gives you the building blocks to apply awareness, compassion, wisdom, and strength to each moment. The result is greater fulfillment amid daily life and meaningful connection with others and the world around you.
Please note that this retreat and Clear Sky welcome people of all religious backgrounds and beliefs. This retreat is also open to all experience levels.
Why the Actions of “Service?”
Calling our actions “service” instills the notion that we do it with and for others. Service helps both ourselves and others gain greater clarity and contentment throughout our daily activities.
By putting others first, we give the ego a chance to relax. The result is increased success, effectiveness, and fulfillment in our work and relationships. This is a profoundly joyful experience.
This approach is highly relevant to the Western lifestyle of the 21st century. This course offers you the opportunity to learn from our experience and take it back home and to work with you.
In this course, we’ll draw on traditional meditation and yogic practices and philosophy. We’ll also utilize exercises drawn from Namgyal Rinpoche’s Holistic Clearing practice, Authentic Leadership, Theory U, Fifth Discipline, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, as well as original exercises we’ve created expressly for Karma Yoga and Dharma Training development.
What’s Expected from Me if I Come to This Retreat?
An open mind and heart, and a spirit of adventure are excellent things to bring!
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.
Changes – including positive ones – require movement, and movement requires engaged energy. We ask you to engage with us around the teachings and activities that will support your learning and unfoldment around awakening in action.
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.
To maximize your learning, we ask that you refrain from reading, using the internet, or listening to music during the course. We make an exception for journaling, course assignments, and dancing during exercises or group celebration – all great resources for integration and growth.
Lastly, our teaching and Clear Sky operate based on the ancient tradition of dāna or generosity. Please learn more about this profound practice before you register.
