Clear Sky Blog

So tell me what you want, what you really, really want!

When I start a meditation retreat these days, I know it takes me quite a while to calm the system down from living and working with technology. In those first few days, the levels of nervousness and agitation are much more than 16 years ago. It’s because I’m on the computer and on social media much more now.

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Misty Winter Scene at Clear Sky Meditation Center

What You Do While Meditating

By Catherine Sensei
Sometimes people imagine that retreat is just sitting still for a month, which may not seem compelling. It’s far more fascinating than that. With meditation, we don’t just sit: we watch the mind. It’s an incredible entity!

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Catherine Pawasarat Sensei - Clear Sky Center

On Entering a Month-Long Advance

By Catherine Sensei.
In a few days I’ll begin my first solitary retreat in over twenty years of spiritual practice, for a month. I’ve done month-long retreats before, and usually I was either helping organize or teach. So it’s been a while, or maybe it’s never been.

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Newborn baby with tubes

The Bardos of Scarlett Elizabeth Grey

My form as a woman has experienced the bardo of birth through my flesh, and then within weeks my daughter’s death bardo.
The two events were so close together I realized that these passages are made of the same energy.

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Man looking at stars

Finding Connection in Aloneness

It’s a feeling that’s unexplainable, but during that week, I had a taste of what it felt like to be deeply connected to something. To something bigger than myself. Bigger than my problems and my struggles.

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Monkeys on wall

Making Friends with the Monkey Mind

On the other hand, have you ever experienced sitting down to meditate, and watching the mind gradually calm down? I hope so, and I guess we might call that a “good meditation” compared to ones where we feel like the monkey mind dominated the show.

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tree trunk in shape of heart

How to Be Kind to Yourself

As spiritual warriors, then, we’re trying to stay on the path that leads to awakening. Anytime we veer off the path, or even pause and step off it for a moment, our progress is slowed.

The point of seeing the “sin” is to remember the path we were meant to be on – it’s not about being at fault.

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girls giggling

Let’s Talk About x, Baby

When was the last time you had an open, in-depth conversation about your attitude to money? Or to sex?

On such taboo topics, it’s rare that we consciously face what lies underneath our surface reactions and responses to them. Yet, sometimes we have to face them, and it may not be pretty.

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Depressed African American guy

How Our Stories F@*! With Us

Many of us are living and working in different ways, and yet something hasn’t changed: we’re still prone to our internal dialogues about what’s going on around us, and within us.

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