With Pema Khandro, Father Francis Tiso, Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, Chagdud Khadro, Shugen Roshi, Julie Rogers, Jim Tucker, M.D., Koshin Paley Ellison and Dr. William McGrath
Open Dates
Teachings on Death and Dying Facing realities of dying, death, and grief are central to our human experience. This program offers practical instructions for helping others in the process of dying and an overview of essential knowledge on death, bardo, and rebirth. This includes self-paced lectures on dying, loss, grief, and illness from Lamas and scholars of Buddhist Studies. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for these precious teachings. Your contribution, big and small, helps makes in-depth Buddhist training and education more accessible for all. May the teachings spread and flourish!
With Dr. Nicole Willock, Julie Regan, Ph.D., Pema Khandro, Lama Willa Miller, Amy Langenberg , Dr. Ann Gleig, Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, Lama Rod Owens, Dr. Jim Hopper, Dr. Elizabeth Call and Damchö Diana Finnegan
Open Dates
Join Pema Khandro and a group of esteemed Buddhist Studies scholars for an exploration of the history of Buddhist Sexualities from celibacy, to sacred sexuality in Buddhist Tantra and a simple approach to embodied integration with nature in Dzogchen. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for these precious teachings. Your contribution, big and small, helps makes in-depth Buddhist training and education more accessible for all. May the teachings spread and flourish!
This course on Buddhist Ethics goes through the Five Buddhist Precepts. The five precepts form the basis of a Buddhist way of life and the vows that Buddhists Seek to follow. The Five Precepts are a discipline of freedom, honor, and precision that cover the potent themes of life from the extraordinary perspective of non-duality. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for these precious teachings. Your contribution, big and small, helps makes in-depth Buddhist training and education more accessible for all. May the teachings spread and flourish!
With Holly Gayley, Judith Simmer-Brown, Sarah Jacoby, Amy Langenberg , Damchö Diana Finnegan, Venerable Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Pema Khandro
Open Dates
This is the missing history of women in Tantric Buddhism. This course addresses the fascinating story of nuns, mothers, teachers, consorts, prophets, and disciples. Taught by scholar-practitioners whose groundbreaking research on women and Buddhism has changed the way we think of Buddhist history. This course will address the history of women in Buddhism, the history of yoginis and dakinis in India and Tibet, the stories of important Buddhist women, Buddhist philosophy on gender, sex, and sexuality, and the role of the consort in historical Tibet, and contemporary manifestations and so much more. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for…
The Six Yogas Intensive is a six week training which includes in-depth training in the most cherished esoteric practices of Tibetan Buddhism. This course addresses the core issues facing a life, and presents potent methods for integrating spiritual practice into every day life. The system includes meditations for living, dreaming, and dying. It features the practice of Tummo, or Inner Fire meditation, Illusory Body practice, Dream Yoga, Clear Light Meditation, Bardo, the dying practices and Phowa, the transference of consciousness at the time of death. Each practice is part of an overarching system for experiencing liminality, change, and uncertainty in…
ཆོས་དབྱིངས་མཛོད Join us for the 4th installation of the Choying Dzod, with Dr. Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi Unwavering Natural Lucidity Beyond effort and achievement is the state of natural ease, the basic space of being. How to breakthrough to find this innate expanse is the focus of a profound Buddhist meditation manual known as The Treasury of Basic Space, The Choying Dzod (chos dbyings rin po che’i mdzod). It presents the essence of esoteric Tibetan Buddhism, known as Great Perfection, or Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) in verse form. Venerated as a manifestation of the expanse of reality itself, is the quintessential Dzogchen text…
Join us for the 21 Taras. The twenty-one taras is a sublime chanting meditation and praise of the forms of the female Bodhisattva Tara, each one a contemplation of all the forms of compassion ranging from gentle to fierce. This event explores the outer, inner and secret meaning of the twenty-one taras. This will be a joyous fundraiser in honor of our beloved Pema Khandro Rinpoche’s birthday. Wednesday, December 4th 6 pm pt | 9 pm et
Online & at Dakini Mountain (for members)* May 31 – June 2, 2024
Online Schedule
9am – 12pm PT | 12pm – 3pm ET | 5pm – 8pm GMT *In-Person schedule differs and is located on the registration page linked below
Laughter of the Dakini’s Chod is a profound method of psychological transformation in esoteric Buddhism. Chod is a class of meditation that points to the fearless transformation available when trusting our own innate wisdom. The practice opens a space beyond concepts that allows the inner knowing to emerge.Chod means cutting, referring to cutting through fictions to authentic presence. This cutting is not aggressive, yet it is assertive, wise and commanding, drawing from a place in being where one is capable of cutting what needs to be cut to move compassionately beyond self deception.
Morning sessions will begin with practicing the Black Dakini, the profound deity yoga meditation on the black wrathful dakini from the Jeweled Garland of Chod, (the Rinchen Trengwa) that was practiced by the first Pema Khandro and passed down from fourteenth century Tibet. This practice culminates in the generation of one’s own inner wisdom as the Black Fierce Dakini, Troma Nagmo.
*In-Person & Online: This will be a hybrid event with large group teaching sessions broadcast online. Tsok, Chod dances and Secret Chod small group sessions will be for in-person participants only. Everything else will be available for the online group. Only students who have been accepted to the Vajra Sangha, and members, are invited to attend in person. Space is limited to the first 30 to register. The In-Person Schedule varies and can be found on the registration page linked below.
Access all the Chod Resources: This retreat will include transmission and practice of all these methods and will include access to dozens of online self-paced videos on how to practice Chod. Watch the videos in advance to prepare for the retreat or watch them afterwards to continue your learning!
A Special Reunion: The 2024 Chod retreat is a profound occasion of the sangha gathering in person at the glorious land of Dakini Mountain in the scenic Tahoe National Forest of Northern California. This retreat marks the special occasion of Saga Dawa, the birthday and enlightenment of the Buddha, the most auspicious time to practice together with spiritual community.