Chakrasamvara Empowerment & Teachings

Upcoming Events

Bardo Teachings – Self Paced Course

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!

Buddhism & Sexuality – Self Paced Course

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!

Buddhist Ethics – Self Paced Course

With Pema Khandro

Open Dates

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!

Women in Tantric Buddhism – Self Paced Course

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…

Cutting Through Fear: Dzogchen Chod Retreat

With Pema Khandro

May 28 - June 1, 2025

May 28 - June 1 San Diego and Online In a world beset with fear, profound methods are needed to reclaim intrinsic wisdom and awaken innate courage. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies institute for a contemplation of fierce compassion through the annual Chod retreat, Troma Nagmo teachings, and an optional five month Comprehensive Chod intensive training to follow. Chod is the profound method of psychological transformation in esoteric Buddhism. Chod means cutting, referring to cutting through the fictions that cause fear, anxiety, and hesitations in one’s life.

Fierce Compassion: Comprehensive Chod Training

With Pema Khandro

June 9 - October 13, 2025

Embark on a transformative five-month journey into the heart of Dzogchen Chod with Tulku Pema Khandro, Ph.D. and the Buddhist Studies Institute. This comprehensive Chod training offers a rare opportunity for an in-depth immersion in the Dzogchen Chod system, Healing Chod, and the Secret Black Dakini Teachings. Take your Chod practice to the next level and cultivate fierce compassion and psychological transformation while studying the Tibetan tradition.

Breakthrough Retreat (Tekchod)

With Pema Khandro

June 27 - 29, 2025

Breakthrough Retreat Online with Pema Khandro June 27-29. 9am-12 pst, each day. In the protected space of retreat, we will investigate the essence of Breakthrough—learning to allow thoughts and emotions to self-liberate without suppression or engagement, discovering the spaciousness that remains when we release our habitual grasping. This retreat will be led online by Dzogchen teacher and scholar, Pema Khandro. Each day will include study and practice of breakthrough practice, Trekchö (ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་, sometimes transliterated as “tekcho”), from the Heart Essence of the Dakinis

April 5, 2023 by Buddhist Yogis

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Buddhist Studies Institute

Chakrasamvara Empowerment & Teachings
with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche & Pema Khandro

April 7-9, 2023

9am-12pm San Francisco [PDT]

12-3pm New York [EDT]

5-8pm London [BST]

Join us for this special event, the Chakrasamvara Empowerment, an initiation into the inner tantra practice of generation stage meditation, led by Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Lama Pema Khandro. This exceptional program will feature three mornings of instructions, empowerment and meditations of Chakrasamvara. It will be led by Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche who will give the empowerment and Lama Pema Khandro who will give the instructions for practice. We are honored to host the most excellent interpreter, Ina Bieler! The empowerment will be translated into lucid and easy to understand English.

About the Teachers

Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche

Drupon Rinchen Dorjee joined the Drikung Kagyu Institute in 1993, and has received instruction in philosophy, Gongchig, Theckchen Tenying, Dhagpo Thargyan, and Uttaratantra from Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen and other profound teachers of the Lineage. In 1995 Drupon received full ordination vows from His Holiness Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche, and in the same year accomplished the ngondro practices to mahamudra and the grand mantra recitation of Chakrasamvara. In 1996, he received initiation into the Profound Path of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche has completed two (2) three-year retreat courses, one at Almora and one at Labchi, the holy retreat place of the great yogi, Milarepa. He has received profound instructions too numerous to mention during these retreats. In 2005, he received the five-deities Hevajra according to Marpa’s tradition of empowerment, transmission and instructions from His Holiness the Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche, and in 2006 he completed the grand mantra recitation of glorious Hevajra’s fire puja at the Almora retreat center.

Pema Khandro, PhD

Pema Khandro is an internationally renowned teacher and scholar of Buddhist philosophy. She is the founder of Ngakpa International and its three projects, The Buddhist Studies Institute, Dakini Mountain and the Yogic Medicine Institute. In her work as a Buddhist teacher she is an authorized Lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions and was enthroned to carry on the lineage of her predecessor, the first Pema Khandro, an early twentieth century yogini from Eastern Tibet. She has led a vibrant world-wide community since 1999. Through the Buddhist Studies Institute, she also offers a complete curriculum of training in Tibetan meditation and Buddhist Philosophy. She has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, a Master’s degree specializing in Tibetan studies, and a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Virginia. Her scholarly research focuses on the history of Dzogchen and on Women in Tibetan Buddhism.