16 Students Completed the Teacher Training

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…

21 Taras Pema Khandro Birthday Fundraiser

With Pema Khandro

December 4, 2024

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

The first ever online version of the Meditation Instructor Training created by Pema Khandro was completed last weekend. This course has been taught in a variety of formats over the last fifteen years, a ninety-day course, a twenty-one day retreat, a once a month year-long retreat, and now as an online training. Participants completed 60 hours of training. (Read more about the training here – Pema Khandro’s Meditation Teacher Training.) This included daily meditation practice and lessons led by Assistant Teachers, Satya Shiva and Aruna Rigdzin, as well as a daily teaching on meditation led by Pema Khandro Rinpoche. The lessons focused on the practice of Calm Abiding Meditation and the science of mind in Buddhist thought.

Twenty-one lessons focused on the practice of Calm Abiding Meditation, known as Zhine in Tibetan or Shamatha in Sanskrit. It included lessons on what is mind, the stages of meditation, techniques for Calm Abiding Meditation, breathing practices for warm-ups for meditation, ethics for teaching, teaching methodology and more. There were extensive weekly exams on the material and weekend workshops on teaching. The weekend workshops were interactive for the trainees using the online format. This gave them an opportunity to see each other, receive feedback on teaching and dialogue as a group. They also completed daily meditation journals throughout the course.

There were extensive weekly exams on the material and weekend workshops on teaching. The weekend workshops were interactive for the trainees using the online format. This gave them an opportunity to see each other, receive feedback and dialogue as a group. They also had daily meditation journals.

One of the surprising elements of the course is the bond formed by all the participants, who practiced together, wrote and read each other’s daily meditation journals, met in workshops and supported each other through the teaching exams.

Twenty-students began the course and sixteen students finished. They were offered the choice to finish the final requirement, which was a teaching practicum, within the month-long period of the training or to take three months to finish it. Four students finished it within the first month and graduated. Twelve more students will have until August to complete their practicum. The practicum required the trainees to teach three meditation classes in an underserved community. This included classes for people suffering from anxiety and trauma, classes for youth with behavioral challenges, classes for mothers in a small town in Bali and classes for people with chronic stress.

Congratulations to the four graduates and best wishes to the twelve students as they complete their practicum.

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