Our Spiritual Roots
Intelligence is the speed and accuracy with which one can adapt to changing circumstances quickly and successfully.” Namgyal Rinpoche
Deep Roots: Namgyal Rinpoche & U Thila Wunta Sayadaw
Our spiritual roots are through the illustrious Canadian-born Namgyal Rinpoche (George Dawson)
and the Burmese meditation master U Thila Wunta Sayadaw.
Namgyal Rinpoche – George Dawson
Namgyal Rinpoche was born Leslie George Dawson in 1931, October 11, and raised in Toronto, Canada by parents of Irish and Scottish descent.
Leslie George Dawson awakened through the Western Mysteries while living in London, where he met the visiting teacher Sayadaw in 1958.
Dawson moved to Burma and studied under U Thila Wunta and Mahasi Sayadaw in Bodh Gaya, Rangoon (where he was ordained as Ananda Bodhi), Bangkok and Sri Lanka.
Ananda Bodhi left the East in 1962, teaching at the London Buddhist Vihara and founding Johnstone House in Scotland, which he gave to Chögyam Trungpa who renamed it Samye Ling.
Anandabodhi returned to Canada and founded the Dharma Centre of Canada outside Toronto. His teaching methods included international travel with students; in 1968 and 1971 he traveled with about a hundred students to India and Sikkim, where they met the Tibetans. He was recognized by the 16th Karmapa, Kalu Rinpoche, Sakya Trizin Rinpoche and others as an embodiment of Namgyal Rinpoche, and received transmissions of the Karma Kargyu lineage.
Over the years he included the Western Mysteries, science, psychology, art, music, exercise, travel and other methods in his teaching repertoire, becoming one of the main voices of Tibetan Buddhism in North America along with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Some of Namgyal’s students started centers in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Central America as well as Canada and the US.
He continued to teach until his death in Switzerland on October 22, 2003, having empowered a number of senior students to continue his work.
U Thila Wunta Sayadaw
U Thila Wunta was the teacher of Ananda Bodhi (formerly Leslie George Dawson and later recognized as Namgyal Rinpoche), and was born June 28, 1912, in Mon State, Myannmar. He began his training at a monastery school in 1919 and took monks’ vows at the age of 15. In May 1932 he received full ordination as a Bhikshu in the Theravada Order under the direction of Kyaw Sayadaw.
In 1947 U Thila Wunta set out for Mandalay to pursue further meditation practice at Mahatmya-muni Pagoda, a famous holy site in Mandalay. While struggling with his meditation at Mahatma-muni Pagoda, U Thila Wunta met a disciple of Bodaw Aung Min Gaung (Bo Min Gaung), a fully realized Burmese saint and a great meditator in the Weizzer forest tradition of Burma. In Burma “weizzers” are forest yogis known as accomplished masters, similar to tantric yogis or siddhis. Inspired by what he heard about Bodaw Aung Min Gaung, U Thila Wunta traveled to Popa to meet him in person and pursued further study, resulting in a radical deepening of his understanding.
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That same year, a pious layman, named U Pho Nweh, requested that U Thila Wunta accept five acres of land for monastic purposes. He spent five years living under a tree on the property, practicing the Dhutangas (the 13 allowable ascetic practices). He meditated in such stillness for such lengths of time that his body became a waystation for networks of ants’ paths, garnering him the nickname, the “Ant Sayadaw.”
Over the next six decades, the land gifted to Sayadaw became a thriving monastic complex with more than 170 pagodas and buildings for practice by monks and pay practitioners, known as Dat Pon Zon Aung Min Gaung Monastery.
After the venerable Sayadaw attained awakening, he began a number of extensive trips around the world. He began in 1955, visiting Thailand, Nepal, and India. He continued traveling internationally throughout his life, overseeing construction of a pagoda in Brazil at age 90.
In April 1982 Sayadaw left once again for North America, where he constructed pagodas and taught at centers near Boise, ID, Kinmount, ON and on Galiano Island, BC. Additionally, he rebuilt the American Shwe Dagon Pagoda in New York and gave teachings in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Nelson, Edmonton, and Calgary.
U Thila Wunta Sayadaw was one of the most renowned healers in Burma. There are many stories of people traveling far distances with old wounds and mysterious illnesses for healing. Thanks to his skill and radiant state of being, their sicknesses would go into remission.
In North America, he was experienced as a gentle and kind teacher. In Burma, however, young monks experienced him as more direct and wrathful. Moreover, both locals and monks were in awe of the powers derived from his many years of intense spiritual practices.
No one would come around his monastery in Yangon at night, because it was known that was when he did some of his deepest work. Every night in his older age, he would chant the Paritas, a special form of merit generation.
Not one for many words or philosophical sophistry, at one point Sayadaw stated succinctly, “First you have to have a car: attain liberation. Then you will be able to give others a ride in it. Before that, it is just empty talk.”
The Ven. Sayadaw was considered a living embodiment of the power of the teachings, and spoke of himself as a fisherman casting the golden net of Buddha Dhamma in many far-off seas. He passed away in Rangoon on March 18, 2011 at the age of 98.
” A spiritually awakened being is one who abides in the clear sky realisation,
even as they live, relate and work in the world with clouds.” - Qapel & Sensei
Current Roots: Our Dharma Teachers and Spiritual Mentors
Dharma Teachers Qapel (Doug Duncan) and Sensei (Catherine Pawasarat) teach meditation and act as spiritual mentors to students internationally and at their retreat center in BC, Canada. Having lived overseas for many years and travelled extensively, Doug and Catherine draw on intercultural and trans-cultural experience to broaden the range and depth of their understandings of liberation that they share with others.
Sensei (Catherine Pawasarat)
Catherine Pawasarat was a student of metaphysics, Western spiritual traditions, and the ayahuasca sacraments in the 1990s. 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.
With Qapel, she is co-founder and resident teacher at Clear Sky Retreat Center in the British Columbia Rockies. There Catherine Sensei has spearheaded an innovative and sustainability-oriented culture and organization, specializing in conscious community. Together Doug and Catherine also 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.
Qapel (Achariya Doug Duncan)
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.
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.
Books by Qapel (Doug Duncan) and Sensei (Catherine Pawasarat)
Qapel (Doug Duncan) and Sensei (Catherine Pawasarat) apprenticed in the teachings of awakening for decades with their teachers. Between them they have been teaching for more than 30 years. Honouring the wisdom of others with more experience, just makes navigating the path of awakening more clear. Qapel and Sensei teach from various wisdom traditions – rooted primarily in the Vajrayana buddhadharma teachings, but also include Western Mystery teachings and modern therapeutic approaches to spiritual awakening and liberation.
