Dhamma Modana

Dhamma Modana ('Joy of Dhamma', which the centre also gives as 'Land of Joy') is the Vancouver Island Vipassana Centre, owned and run by the Vancouver Island Vipassana Association. The association's history page says British Columbia hosted, in June 1982, the first course outside India led by S. N. Goenka's assistant teachers, and that from 1983 an annual 10-day course was held at rented camps on Vancouver Island. The centre dates its founding to 2006, when the association bought 137 acres of bare land at Lake Cowichan; a small meditation hall followed there in 2009, and three-day courses were held on the land in 2014 and 2015. In 2018 it bought a former nunnery near Duncan and moved there: a 12,000 sq ft building on 13.5 acres in a rural area of small farms and bird and forest conservation areas, about 45 minutes' drive north of Victoria and 45 minutes south of Nanaimo. From the mainland, the Tsawwassen to Duke Point ferry is the shortest route, about 40 minutes' drive from the centre. IslandLink buses stop at Duncan train station, 5 km away, and BC Transit route 6 stops at Calais Road, about 15 minutes' walk from the centre. Courses are taught in English, with arrangements for students who do not speak English on most courses, and the centre is run solely on donations.

How to apply

Apply online through the centre's page on dhamma.org (in Nepal, start from np.dhamma.org). New students must first complete a 10-day course, and there is no charge.

What is taught here

Donation-funded 10-day courses taught with S. N. Goenka's recorded instructions, in the line of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, at centres in Nepal and worldwide. Read about Goenka (U Ba Khin).