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!
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…
Sometimes enlightened wisdom appears in forms we least expect it. And in a sense, the entire journey of Vajrayana is a journey to realizing how it appears within us, just exactly as we are. It reminds me of the story in Tāranātha’s Origin of the Tārā Tantra, one of the most important scriptural sources for the Tara tradition, we are told that Tara was once a princess named Yeshe Dawa, Wisdom Moon. Yeshe Dawa had the wish to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings. She had also reached the threshold, in the accounts we have, of full realization.
At that moment, a group of monks approached her with what they intended as encouragement. If you continue to practice with such devotion, they told her, you will surely be born as a man and attain enlightenment in a future life.
Her response is one of the most powerful statements in the entire history of Buddhism.
She refused. She said, in essence, that the idea that only a male body can attain enlightenment is a delusion, and that she would take rebirth as a woman for as long as beings needed liberation. She would return, life after life, in a female body, and she would attain enlightenment as she was.
And she did.
Tara, in all her forms, is the ongoing enactment of that vow. White Tara, Green Tara, the Twenty-One Taras, and every color and function and mood in which she appears, is the manifestation of Yeshe Dawa’s original refusal to conform to everyone’s picture of what enlightenment should look like. She chose to awaken as she was. That is the weight underneath every mantra we recite in her name.
This is the story we begin with in the White Tara weekend. Her origin, her lineage as it comes down through the Longchen Nyingthig, and the transmission of her practice.
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Best to you Always,
The White Tara Retreat & Program
Part 1 of The Yoginis Teachings – Online with Pema Khandro
Weekend Retreat 9am-1pm Sat–Sun September 12–13, 2026
4 Monday Evenings 5-6:30pm PT Sept 14, 21, 28, and Oct 5
THE YOGINIS TEACHINGS – FALL 2026 White Tara Retreat & Program The Peaceful Sacred Feminine and the Women of the Great Vehicle Weekend Retreat: Sat–Sun, Sept 12–13, 2026 Monday Evening Sessions: Sept 14, 21, 28, Oct 5 with Tulku Pema Khandro
Vajrayogini Empowerment, Retreat & Program The Fierce Joyful Ḍākinī and the Yoginīs of Tibet Weekend Empowerment Retreat: Sat–Sun, October 10–11, 2026 Monday Evening Sessions: Oct 12, 19, 26, Nov 2 Vajrayogini Empowerment with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Teachings with Tulku Pema Khandro
The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026 Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30 with Tulku Pema Khandro