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Compassion Is Not Always Gentle

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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

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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!
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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

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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…
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October 27, 2026 by Buddhist Yogis






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Buddhist Studies Institute

Dear friends,

There is a teaching that readers of modern dharma books rarely encounter in its full form, and the Lion-Faced Ḍākinī is one of its clearest expressions – that of fierce compassion.

Compassion is not always gentle.

In the Vajrayāna, enlightened activity is traditionally divided into four modes: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and wrathful. Pacifying activity is what most practitioners imagine when they hear the word compassion: calming, soothing, a soft reassurance. It is one of the four, and only one. Enriching activity gives abundance. Magnetizing activity draws beings in, enchants and seduces. Wrathful activity cuts.

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī is a wrathful ḍākinī. Her compassion is the compassion of the surgeon, not the compassion of the comforting friend. When the illness in a mind is aggression and harm-doing, flattery will not touch it, patience will not touch it, more time will not touch it. Only direct cutting will touch it, and only a form of the Buddha with the ferocity to cut through will be of use.

This is why her face is a lion’s face and not a human face. The lion looks nothing like our ordinary demeanor. She is not asking us to conform to ordinary expectations. She is asking for the harm to stop, the aggression to end, for evil to be cut off, and her cutting is her mercy.

For a practitioner living through a difficult season, this teaching strikes directly to the point. The wish for a gentler teaching is understandable and often inappropriate. Indeed pacifying, magnetizing and enriching energy should work ninety-nine percent of the time. However, there are states of mind, and there are moments in a life, and there are obstacles in the world, that only her kind of compassion can meet, when only the loudest most embodied lions roar of a NO will do.

But she is not punishing. She is not angry. She is a mother who will not let her child remain in the fire, and she will do what has to be done to pull them out.

When we meditate on the Lion Faced Ḍākinī, it is to call forth our strength and power to do what must be done to prevent harm, to stop harm, to protect what should be protected.

Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My very best to you always,

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

Retreat Weekend
Saturday and Sunday, November 7 & 8, 2026

Monday Evenings
5-6:30pm PT
November 9, 16, 23, 30

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

Learn More about Lion Faced Dakini

 

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with 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

SAVE THE DATE – Buddhism After #MeToo
Open to Participants in the Yogini’s Programs & Members of BSI
Wednesday, November 18th, 5-6:30pm PT
with Pema Khandro, PhD

SAVE THE DATE – Dzogchen and the Body
Longchenpa’s Treasury of Words and Meanings
Sat & Sun December 5-6, 9am-1pm PT
with David Germano, PhD and Pema Khandro, PhD

 

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