Buddhist Yogis News

Pema Khandro and Buddhist Yogis News Archive

Happy Losar!

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

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Buddhist Studies Institute

Wishing you a Happy Losar from Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute!


Meditation Instructor Training Starts Soon

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

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Buddhist Studies Institute

Meditation Instructor Training 2024

February 19 – August 5

Buddhist meditation is a practice of wakeful presence. During meditation, everything outside ourselves is left as it is. Attention is focused on the present moment. In our modern complex world, this skill of developing and harnessing our awareness can be a profound and helpful way to navigate not only our busy lives but also the relentless nature of our own thoughts and emotions.

If you’re searching for a way to slow down, remain more present and understand the nature of your own mind, join our 2024 Meditation Instructor Training for practical and applicable techniques that you can seamlessly incorporate into your own life as well as teach to others in your community. Led by internationally renowned Buddhist scholar and teacher Pema Khandro, this course will teach you the foundations of Buddhist meditation, philosophy and ethics as well as a plethora of functional tools for rousing and stabilizing awareness in any circumstance.  

The Meditation Instructor Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives.

3 Modules

Traditional Meditation

Teaching Practicum

Teaching Ethics

This training is a pre-requisite for the Chaplaincy Certificate offered summer of 2024.

Learn More about Meditation Instructor Training

Losar ~ Tibetan New Year Celebration
with Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute
Online – February 12th, 2024

5pm – 7pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 10pm ET New York

12pm- 2pm AEDT Sydney

All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public.

  • Vajrakilaya Dances Performed

  • Losar Address with Pema Khandro

  • Celebration of 40-Day Meditation Marathoners

  • Dedications of Merit

  • Year of the Wood Dragon Begins!

Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.

Register Now

The Freedom of Being: The Choying Dzod Retreat

Online with Khenpo Yeshi & Pema Khandro

February 23 – February 25

9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pmGMT

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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation of the ground of being.

The Treasury of Basic Space is a manual for meditation and liberation, as well as being a text that one reads to a dying person to introduce them to the nature of mind at death. Read during dying, it offers the crucial support at the most important time, by guiding the dying person to realize the nature of mind. Indeed, The Treasury of Basic Space has been read at the time of death of many great Dzogchen masters.

The Treasury of Basic Space details the elements of breakthrough meditation (trek cho), instructions which cut through misunderstandings of emptiness and point to the vivid wakefulness of sublime knowing.

Join Buddhist Studies Institute for this special program taught online by Khenpo Yeshi, Dzogchen Nyingthig scholar and Drikung Kagyu teacher and Dr. Pema Khandro, Dzogchen scholar, lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma tradition. The three days of online classes will include the lung, the oral initiation into this profound text by Khenpo Yeshi, study, and practice led by Khenpo Yeshi and Dr. Pema Khandro.

Register for Choying Dzod – The Freedom of Being Retreat

January 1st is the kick-off to our 40-day meditation marathon. This is an invitation to practice every single day for 40 days from January 1st to Losar (Tibetan New Year) on February 10th. It’s so wonderful to be able to share this commitment with others and we invite you to join us every day for our free Daily Meditation sessions. Each 30-minute session is led by a Certified Meditation Instructor from the Buddhist Studies Institute. Whether you practice on your own time or join us live, we will celebrate all those who complete the 40-day marathon at our Losar Event on February 12.


Join the 40-day Meditation Marathon

How to Open Your Heart Further
by Pema Khandro for Lion’s Roar

“Don’t give up on love. When love is hard or painful, open your heart even further,” says Pema Khandro.

Read more from Pema Khandro for Lion’s Roar Here

Are you interested in helping us spread the dharma?

The Buddhist Studies Institute is actively seeking a Manager to be available for 5-10 hours a week. This is a volunteer position.

Manager Responsibilities Include:

  • Create clear project plans and goals.

  • Establish a work plan at each stage of the project, and allocate resources accordingly.

  • Create and manage project budgets.

  • Review project plan to determine time frames

  • Remind team members of deadlines and keep team members on deadlines

  • Identify and remove any obstacles that might hinder the team’s ability to meet deadlines.

  • Effectively communicate project-relevant details throughout the organization.

  • Facilitate project-related team meetings.

  • Share project reports with governance committee

  • Collaborate on the Organization’s plans and priority

  • Design and launch evaluation surveys among team and community members.

  • Be the main point of contact for projects.

For more information, please email info@buddhiststudiesinstitute.org or simply click the box below.


Interested? Email Us.

2024 Schedule of Events

ONGOING MONTHLY TRAINING

Daily Meditation Online
Vajrayana Training – 1st & 2nd Wednesday of each month
Ngakpa Training – 3rd Wednesday of each month

FEBRUARY

Losar Celebration – February 12

Meditation Instructor Training – February 19 – August 9
Choying Dzod: The Freedom of Being – February 23- 25

APRIL

Touching Earth: Buddhism and the Environment – April 5- April 7

MAY

Vajrayogini Retreat – May 31 – June 2


*All Times are noted in Pacific Time (PT) – Check your Timezone


Fundraising SEND 1/30/24

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

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Buddhist Studies Institute

Dear Members, Supporters and Friends,

We are happy to announce that due to your generosity and support, $18,000 was raised for the Technology Upgrade. While falling short of the $50,000 needed, the $18,000 will allow the work on the digital upgrade to progress.

Our next fundraising campaign will continue to raise the balance of needed funds!

While it’s true the goal was not reached, $18,000 is still significant and very helpful towards our goal of taking our technology to the next level.  Thank each of you for contributing!  Whether your donation be called large or small, each donation has made an important difference and your intention to support the work of Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute is most strongly appreciated.

May your 2024 be full of happiness, good fortune and increasing bodhichitta!

Wishing you an abundance of blessings,

Janak

Janak Kimmel

Director of Fundraising

Ngakpa International
Buddhist Studies Institute

www.BuddhistStudiesInstitute.org


SEND 1/29/24

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

by






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Buddhist Studies Institute

Ngondro Starts Today!

Ngondro Training
Heart of the Vast Expanse with Pema Khandro

Module 1 begins January 29, 2024


Mondays Online

5pm – 6:30pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 9:30pm ET New York

12pm- 1:30pm AEDT Sydney

Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngongro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.

Ngondro meditation is the foundation of a solid experience of spiritual growth. Ngondro refers to a series of meditation practices for purifying, training and empowering the mind & body. 

“There are different approaches to Ngondro, for some schools of Tibetan Buddhism it is reserved for much later. But for the Nyingma tradition we open the door to Ngondro meditations sooner, because for us it is the core or nucleus of spiritual training.”  – Pema Khandro on Ngondro

Register for Ngondro Module 1

The Freedom of Being: The Choying Dzod Retreat

Online with Khenpo Yeshi & Pema Khandro

February 23 – February 25

9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pmGMT

Last day for Early Registration – January 29!

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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation of the ground of being.

The Treasury of Basic Space is a manual for meditation and liberation, as well as being a text that one reads to a dying person to introduce them to the nature of mind at death. Read during dying, it offers the crucial support at the most important time, by guiding the dying person to realize the nature of mind. Indeed, The Treasury of Basic Space has been read at the time of death of many great Dzogchen masters.

The Treasury of Basic Space details the elements of breakthrough meditation (trek cho), instructions which cut through misunderstandings of emptiness and point to the vivid wakefulness of sublime knowing.

Join Buddhist Studies Institute for this special program taught online by Khenpo Yeshi, Dzogchen Nyingthig scholar and Drikung Kagyu teacher and Dr. Pema Khandro, Dzogchen scholar, lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma tradition. The three days of online classes will include the lung, the oral initiation into this profound text by Khenpo Yeshi, study, and practice led by Khenpo Yeshi and Dr. Pema Khandro.

Register for Choying Dzod – The Freedom of Being Retreat

Meditation Instructor Training 2024

February 19 – August 5

People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. The practical benefits of meditation are well documented. Research shows it improves mood, reduces stress (Brown & Warren 2003), it improves memory, visuospatial reasoning, sustained attention and executive brain function (Zeidan et al. 2010). It reduces sub-clinical depression and anxiety (Schreiner and Malcolm 2012).

From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human goodness by making peace with our mind. Ultimately it is a method for getting free from dissatisfaction, resolving confusion and waking up to see reality more clearly.

The Meditation Instructor Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives.

3 Modules

Traditional Meditation

Teaching Practicum

Teaching Ethics

This training is a pre-requisite for the Chaplaincy Certificate offered summer of 2024.

Learn More about Meditation Instructor Training

January 1st is the kick-off to our 40-day meditation marathon. This is an invitation to practice every single day for 40 days from January 1st to Losar (Tibetan New Year) on February 10th. It’s so wonderful to be able to share this commitment with others and we invite you to join us every day for our free Daily Meditation sessions. Each 30-minute session is led by a Certified Meditation Instructor from the Buddhist Studies Institute. Whether you practice on your own time or join us live, we will celebrate all those who complete the 40-day marathon at our Losar Event on February 12.


Join the 40-day Meditation Marathon

Losar ~ Tibetan New Year Celebration
with Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute
Online – February 12th, 2024

5pm – 7pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 10pm ET New York

12pm- 2pm AEDT Sydney

Tibetan New Year Celebration

All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public.

  • Vajrakilaya Dances Performed

  • Losar Address with Pema Khandro

  • Celebration of 40-Day Meditation Marathoners

  • Dedications of Merit

  • Year of the Wood Dragon Begins!

Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.

Register Now

You’re Ready Enough
by Pema Khandro for Lion’s Roar

“Wherever you find yourself, says Pema Khandro, that’s the starting point of the bodhisattva path—all you need to do is take that first step.”

Read more from Pema Khandro for Lion’s Roar Here

Are you interested in helping us spread the dharma?

The Buddhist Studies Institute is actively seeking a Manager to be available for 5-10 hours a week. This is a volunteer position.

Manager Responsibilities Include:

  • Create clear project plans and goals.

  • Establish a work plan at each stage of the project, and allocate resources accordingly.

  • Create and manage project budgets.

  • Review project plan to determine time frames

  • Remind team members of deadlines and keep team members on deadlines

  • Identify and remove any obstacles that might hinder the team’s ability to meet deadlines.

  • Effectively communicate project-relevant details throughout the organization.

  • Facilitate project-related team meetings.

  • Share project reports with governance committee

  • Collaborate on the Organization’s plans and priority

  • Design and launch evaluation surveys among team and community members.

  • Be the main point of contact for projects.

For more information, please email info@buddhiststudiesinstitute.org or simply click the box below.


Interested? Email Us.

2024 Schedule of Events

ONGOING MONTHLY TRAINING

Daily Meditation Online
Vajrayana Training – 1st & 2nd Wednesday of each month
Ngakpa Training – 3rd Wednesday of each month

JANUARY

Buddhist Fasting Retreat – January 26 – January 28

Ngondro Training – January 29 – October 28

FEBRUARY

Losar Celebration – February 12

Meditation Instructor Training – February 19 – August 9
Choying Dzod: The Freedom of Being – February 23- 25

APRIL

Touching Earth: Buddhism and the Environment – April 5- April 7

MAY

Vajrayogini Retreat – May 31 – June 2


*All Times are noted in Pacific Time (PT) – Check your Timezone


Send 1/28/24

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

by






*|MC:SUBJECT|*






Buddhist Studies Institute

Ngondro Training
Heart of the Vast Expanse with Pema Khandro

Module 1 Starts Tomorrow!


Mondays Online

5pm – 6:30pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 9:30pm ET New York

12pm- 1:30pm AEDT Sydney

Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngongro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.

Ngondro meditation is the foundation of a solid experience of spiritual growth. Ngondro refers to a series of meditation practices for purifying, training and empowering the mind & body.

“There are different approaches to Ngondro, for some schools of Tibetan Buddhism it is reserved for much later. But for the Nyingma tradition we open the door to Ngondro meditations sooner, because for us it is the core or nucleus of spiritual training.”  – Pema Khandro on Ngondro

Register for Ngondro


Send 1/25/24

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

by






*|MC:SUBJECT|*






Buddhist Studies Institute

Buddhist Fasting Retreat

Online with Pema Khandro

STARTS TOMORROW!

January 26 – January 28, 2024
9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pm GMT

Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a weekend of fasting, purification, and re-envisioning ones life.

A profound cleansing of body and mind, the Buddhist Fasting practice, “Nyungne” is a practice of disintegrating previous ways of being to re-emerge within the ground of one’s own intrinsic liberation. The fasting practice includes vows, mantras, Avalokiteshvara meditation, and silent practice to purify karma and heal body and mind.

This Buddhist fasting tradition comes from a Tibetan nun, Gelongma Palmo, from the eleventh century, who used fasting for liberation in the face of extreme illness. The online retreat will follow the journey of Palmo and by engaging in the meditation of the Buddha of Compassion, Chenrezig. The weekend will include instructions on Buddhist Fasting practice, along with supportive instructions for nutrition and detoxification according to Tibetan Medicine and Ayurveda to support those both new to fasting and those whose bodies are familiar with it.

Worried about fasting? Fasting can be done in ways that are helpful or harmful to the body. Let our experts in Tibetan Medicine, Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda guide you in fasting safely for your body.


Register for the Buddhist Fasting Retreat


SEND 1/23/24

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

by






*|MC:SUBJECT|*






Buddhist Studies Institute

FREE 40-Day Meditation Marathon

This is an invitation to join us for practice every single day until Losar (Tibetan New Year) on February 10th. It’s so wonderful to be able to share this commitment with others and we invite you to join us every day for our free Daily Meditation sessions. Each 30-minute session is led by a Certified Meditation Instructor from the Buddhist Studies Institute. Whether you practice on your own time or join us live, we will celebrate all those who complete the 40-day marathon at our Losar Event on February 12.


Join the 40-day Meditation Marathon

Buddhist Fasting Retreat

Online with Pema Khandro

January 26 – January 28, 2024
9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pm GMT

Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a weekend of fasting, purification, and re-envisioning ones life.

A profound cleansing of body and mind, the Buddhist Fasting practice, “Nyungne” is a practice of disintegrating previous ways of being to re-emerge within the ground of one’s own intrinsic liberation. The fasting practice includes vows, mantras, Avalokiteshvara meditation, and silent practice to purify karma and heal body and mind.

This Buddhist fasting tradition comes from a Tibetan nun, Gelongma Palmo, from the eleventh century, who used fasting for liberation in the face of extreme illness. The online retreat will follow the journey of Palmo and by engaging in the meditation of the Buddha of Compassion, Chenrezig. The weekend will include instructions on Buddhist Fasting practice, along with supportive instructions for nutrition and detoxification according to Tibetan Medicine and Ayurveda to support those both new to fasting and those whose bodies are familiar with it.

Worried about fasting? Fasting can be done in ways that are helpful or harmful to the body. Let our experts in Tibetan Medicine, Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda guide you in fasting safely for your body.


Register for the Buddhist Fasting Retreat

Ngondro Training
Heart of the Vast Expanse with Pema Khandro

Module 1 begins January 29, 2024


Mondays Online

5pm – 6:30pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 9:30pm ET New York

12pm- 1:30pm AEDT Sydney

Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngongro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.

Ngondro meditation is the foundation of a solid experience of spiritual growth. Ngondro refers to a series of meditation practices for purifying, training and empowering the mind & body. 

“There are different approaches to Ngondro, for some schools of Tibetan Buddhism it is reserved for much later. But for the Nyingma tradition we open the door to Ngondro meditations sooner, because for us it is the core or nucleus of spiritual training.”  – Pema Khandro on Ngondro

Register for Ngondro Module 1

Losar ~ Tibetan New Year Celebration
with Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute
Online – February 12th, 2024

5pm – 7pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 10pm ET New York

12pm- 2pm AEDT Sydney

All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program. Open to the public.

  • Vajrakilaya Dances Performed

  • Losar Address with Pema Khandro

  • Celebration of 40-Day Meditation Marathoners

  • Dedications of Merit

  • Year of the Wood Dragon Begins!

Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.

Register Now

Meditation Instructor Training 2024

February 19 – August 5

People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. The practical benefits of meditation are well documented. Research shows it improves mood, reduces stress (Brown & Warren 2003), it improves memory, visuospatial reasoning, sustained attention and executive brain function (Zeidan et al. 2010). It reduces sub-clinical depression and anxiety (Schreiner and Malcolm 2012).

From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human goodness by making peace with our mind. Ultimately it is a method for getting free from dissatisfaction, resolving confusion and waking up to see reality more clearly.

The Meditation Instructor Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives.

3 Modules

Traditional Meditation

Teaching Practicum

Teaching Ethics

This training is a pre-requisite for the Chaplaincy Certificate offered summer of 2024.

Learn More about Meditation Instructor Training

The Freedom of Being: The Choying Dzod Retreat

Online with Khenpo Yeshi & Pema Khandro

February 23 – February 25

9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pmGMT

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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation of the ground of being.

The Treasury of Basic Space is a manual for meditation and liberation, as well as being a text that one reads to a dying person to introduce them to the nature of mind at death. Read during dying, it offers the crucial support at the most important time, by guiding the dying person to realize the nature of mind. Indeed, The Treasury of Basic Space has been read at the time of death of many great Dzogchen masters.

The Treasury of Basic Space details the elements of breakthrough meditation (trek cho), instructions which cut through misunderstandings of emptiness and point to the vivid wakefulness of sublime knowing.

Join Buddhist Studies Institute for this special program taught online by Khenpo Yeshi, Dzogchen Nyingthig scholar and Drikung Kagyu teacher and Dr. Pema Khandro, Dzogchen scholar, lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma tradition. The three days of online classes will include the lung, the oral initiation into this profound text by Khenpo Yeshi, study, and practice led by Khenpo Yeshi and Dr. Pema Khandro.

Register for Choying Dzod – The Freedom of Being Retreat

How to Open Your Heart Further
by Pema Khandro for Lion’s Roar

Pema Khandro writes for Lion’s Roar about a bodhisattva’s love, “Don’t give up on love. When love is hard or painful, open your heart even further.”


Read the Full Article Here

Are you interested in helping us spread the dharma?

The Buddhist Studies Institute is actively seeking a Manager to be available for 5-10 hours a week. This is a volunteer position.

Manager Responsibilities Include:

  • Create clear project plans and goals.

  • Establish a work plan at each stage of the project, and allocate resources accordingly.

  • Create and manage project budgets.

  • Review project plan to determine time frames

  • Remind team members of deadlines and keep team members on deadlines

  • Identify and remove any obstacles that might hinder the team’s ability to meet deadlines.

  • Effectively communicate project-relevant details throughout the organization.

  • Facilitate project-related team meetings.

  • Share project reports with governance committee

  • Collaborate on the Organization’s plans and priority

  • Design and launch evaluation surveys among team and community members.

  • Be the main point of contact for projects.

For more information, please email info@buddhiststudiesinstitute.org or simply click the box below.


Interested? Email Us.

2024 Schedule of Events

ONGOING MONTHLY TRAINING

Daily Meditation Online
Vajrayana Training – 1st & 2nd Wednesday of each month
Ngakpa Training – 3rd Wednesday of each month

JANUARY

Buddhist Fasting Retreat – January 26 – January 28

Ngondro Training – January 29 – October 28

FEBRUARY

Losar Celebration – February 12

Meditation Instructor Training – February 19 – August 9
Choying Dzod: The Freedom of Being – February 23- 25

APRIL

Touching Earth: Buddhism and the Environment – April 5- April 7

MAY

Vajrayogini Retreat – May 31 – June 2


*All Times are noted in Pacific Time (PT) – Check your Timezone


SEND 1/16/24

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

by






*|MC:SUBJECT|*






Buddhist Studies Institute

FREE 40-Day Meditation Marathon

This is an invitation to join us for practice every single day until Losar (Tibetan New Year) on February 10th. It’s so wonderful to be able to share this commitment with others and we invite you to join us every day for our free Daily Meditation sessions. Each 30-minute session is led by a Certified Meditation Instructor from the Buddhist Studies Institute. Whether you practice on your own time or join us live, we will celebrate all those who complete the 40-day marathon at our Losar Event on February 12.


Join the 40-day Meditation Marathon

Buddhist Fasting Retreat

Online with Pema Khandro

January 26 – January 28, 2024
9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pm GMT

Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a weekend of fasting, purification, and re-envisioning ones life.

A profound cleansing of body and mind, the Buddhist Fasting practice, “Nyungne” is a practice of disintegrating previous ways of being to re-emerge within the ground of one’s own intrinsic liberation. The fasting practice includes vows, mantras, Avalokiteshvara meditation, and silent practice to purify karma and heal body and mind.

This Buddhist fasting tradition comes from a Tibetan nun, Gelongma Palmo, from the eleventh century, who used fasting for liberation in the face of extreme illness. The online retreat will follow the journey of Palmo and by engaging in the meditation of the Buddha of Compassion, Chenrezig. The weekend will include instructions on Buddhist Fasting practice, along with supportive instructions for nutrition and detoxification according to Tibetan Medicine and Ayurveda to support those both new to fasting and those whose bodies are familiar with it.

Worried about fasting? Fasting can be done in ways that are helpful or harmful to the body. Let our experts in Tibetan Medicine, Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda guide you in fasting safely for your body.


Register for the Buddhist Fasting Retreat

Ngondro Training
Heart of the Vast Expanse with Pema Khandro

Module 1 begins January 29, 2024


Mondays Online

5pm – 6:30pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 9:30pm ET New York

12pm- 1:30pm AEDT Sydney

Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngongro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.

Ngondro meditation is the foundation of a solid experience of spiritual growth. Ngondro refers to a series of meditation practices for purifying, training and empowering the mind & body. 

“There are different approaches to Ngondro, for some schools of Tibetan Buddhism it is reserved for much later. But for the Nyingma tradition we open the door to Ngondro meditations sooner, because for us it is the core or nucleus of spiritual training.”  – Pema Khandro on Ngondro

Register for Ngondro Module 1

Losar ~ Tibetan New Year Celebration
with Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute
Online – February 12th, 2024

5pm – 7pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 10pm ET New York

12pm- 2pm AEDT Sydney

All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program. Open to the public.

  • Vajrakilaya Dances Performed

  • Losar Address with Pema Khandro

  • Celebration of 40-Day Meditation Marathoners

  • Dedications of Merit

  • Year of the Wood Dragon Begins!

Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.

Register Now

Meditation Instructor Training 2024

February 19 – August 5

People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. The practical benefits of meditation are well documented. Research shows it improves mood, reduces stress (Brown & Warren 2003), it improves memory, visuospatial reasoning, sustained attention and executive brain function (Zeidan et al. 2010). It reduces sub-clinical depression and anxiety (Schreiner and Malcolm 2012).

From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human goodness by making peace with our mind. Ultimately it is a method for getting free from dissatisfaction, resolving confusion and waking up to see reality more clearly.

The Meditation Instructor Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives.

3 Modules

Traditional Meditation

Teaching Practicum

Teaching Ethics

This training is a pre-requisite for the Chaplaincy Certificate offered summer of 2024.

Learn More about Meditation Instructor Training

The Freedom of Being: The Choying Dzod Retreat

Online with Khenpo Yeshi & Pema Khandro

February 23 – February 25

9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pmGMT

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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation of the ground of being.

The Treasury of Basic Space is a manual for meditation and liberation, as well as being a text that one reads to a dying person to introduce them to the nature of mind at death. Read during dying, it offers the crucial support at the most important time, by guiding the dying person to realize the nature of mind. Indeed, The Treasury of Basic Space has been read at the time of death of many great Dzogchen masters.

The Treasury of Basic Space details the elements of breakthrough meditation (trek cho), instructions which cut through misunderstandings of emptiness and point to the vivid wakefulness of sublime knowing.

Join Buddhist Studies Institute for this special program taught online by Khenpo Yeshi, Dzogchen Nyingthig scholar and Drikung Kagyu teacher and Dr. Pema Khandro, Dzogchen scholar, lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma tradition. The three days of online classes will include the lung, the oral initiation into this profound text by Khenpo Yeshi, study, and practice led by Khenpo Yeshi and Dr. Pema Khandro.

Register for Choying Dzod – The Freedom of Being Retreat

Speaking for the Silenced
by Pema Khandro

The Opening Dharma Access Podcast interviewed Pema Khandro about listening to BIPOC teachers. Check out the podcast below.  

Listen Here

Are you interested in helping us spread the dharma?

The Buddhist Studies Institute is actively seeking a Manager to be available for 5-10 hours a week. This is a volunteer position.

Manager Responsibilities Include:

  • Create clear project plans and goals.

  • Establish a work plan at each stage of the project, and allocate resources accordingly.

  • Create and manage project budgets.

  • Review project plan to determine time frames

  • Remind team members of deadlines and keep team members on deadlines

  • Identify and remove any obstacles that might hinder the team’s ability to meet deadlines.

  • Effectively communicate project-relevant details throughout the organization.

  • Facilitate project-related team meetings.

  • Share project reports with governance committee

  • Collaborate on the Organization’s plans and priority

  • Design and launch evaluation surveys among team and community members.

  • Be the main point of contact for projects.

For more information, please email info@buddhiststudiesinstitute.org or simply click the box below.


Interested? Email Us.

2024 Schedule of Events

ONGOING MONTHLY TRAINING

Daily Meditation Online
Vajrayana Training – 1st & 2nd Wednesday of each month
Ngakpa Training – 3rd Wednesday of each month

JANUARY

Buddhist Fasting Retreat – January 26 – January 28

Ngondro Training – January 29 – October 28

FEBRUARY

Losar Celebration – February 12

Meditation Instructor Training – February 19 – August 9
Choying Dzod: The Freedom of Being – February 23- 25

APRIL

Touching Earth: Buddhism and the Environment – April 5- April 7

MAY

Vajrayogini Retreat – May 31 – June 2


*All Times are noted in Pacific Time (PT) – Check your Timezone


Early Registration Ends Tomorrow for the Buddhist Fasting Retreat – Send 1/11/23

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

by






*|MC:SUBJECT|*






Buddhist Studies Institute

Early Registration Ends January 12!

Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a weekend of fasting, purification, and re-envisioning ones life.

A profound cleansing of body and mind, the Buddhist Fasting practice, “Nyungne” is a practice of disintegrating previous ways of being to re-emerge within the ground of one’s own intrinsic liberation. The fasting practice includes vows, mantras, Avalokiteshvara meditation, and silent practice to purify karma and heal body and mind.

This Buddhist fasting tradition comes from a Tibetan nun, Gelongma Palmo, from the eleventh century, who used fasting for liberation in the face of extreme illness. The online retreat will follow the journey of Palmo and by engaging in the meditation of the Buddha of Compassion, Chenrezig. The weekend will include instructions on Buddhist Fasting practice, along with supportive instructions for nutrition and detoxification according to Tibetan Medicine and Ayurveda to support those both new to fasting and those whose bodies are familiar with it.

Worried about fasting? Fasting can be done in ways that are helpful or harmful to the body. Let our experts in Tibetan Medicine, Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda guide you in fasting safely for your body.

Register Early (before January 13) and pay only $175


Register for the Buddhist Fasting Retreat

2024 Upcoming Events

ONGOING MONTHLY TRAINING

Daily Meditation Online
Vajrayana Training – 1st & 2nd Wednesday of each month
Ngakpa Training – 3rd Wednesday of each month

JANUARY

Buddhist Fasting Retreat – January 26 – January 28

Ngondro Training – January 29 – October 28

FEBRUARY

Losar Celebration – February 12

Meditation Instructor Training – February 19 – August 9
Choying Dzod: The Freedom of Being – February 23- 25

APRIL

Touching Earth: Buddhism and the Environment – April 5- April 7

MAY

Vajrayogini Retreat – May 31 – June 2


*All Times are noted in Pacific Time (PT) – Check your Timezone


SEND 1/9/23

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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!
Register Now

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…
Register Now

Ngondro Module 1

With Pema Khandro and Tsal'gyur Starbuck

January 27 - April 7, 2025
Build your life on a solid foundation. Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.   This module focuses on the purification of speech as the basis for Buddhist tantric practice. It then focuses on generating the refuge field. This is a practice of getting resourced, learning one’s own lineage and understanding the field of support for one’s spiritual journey. This section concludes with a…
Register now

Meditation Teacher Training 2025

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

February 10 - August 4, 2025
Meditation Teacher Training 2025 For Teachers Beholding a Diverse Beautiful World   The Meditation Teacher Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives. People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human…
Register now

Love as a Path to Liberation

With Holly Gayley, Sarah Jacoby and Pema Khandro

February 21 - 23, 2025
Love as a Path to Liberation
Register now

Losar 2025

With Pema Khandro

March 5, 2025
All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program; open to the public. Vajrakilaya Dances Performed Losar Address with Pema Khandro Celebration of 21-Day Meditation Marathoners Dedications of Merit Year of the Wood Snake Begins! Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.
Register now

Choying Dzod 5: Unwavering Awareness

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

March 21 - 23, 2025
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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation…
Register now

by






*|MC:SUBJECT|*






Buddhist Studies Institute

Buddhist Fasting Retreat

Online with Pema Khandro

January 26 – January 28, 2024
9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pm GMT

Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a weekend of fasting, purification, and re-envisioning ones life.

A profound cleansing of body and mind, the Buddhist Fasting practice, “Nyungne” is a practice of disintegrating previous ways of being to re-emerge within the ground of one’s own intrinsic liberation. The fasting practice includes vows, mantras, Avalokiteshvara meditation, and silent practice to purify karma and heal body and mind.

This Buddhist fasting tradition comes from a Tibetan nun, Gelongma Palmo, from the eleventh century, who used fasting for liberation in the face of extreme illness. The online retreat will follow the journey of Palmo and by engaging in the meditation of the Buddha of Compassion, Chenrezig. The weekend will include instructions on Buddhist Fasting practice, along with supportive instructions for nutrition and detoxification according to Tibetan Medicine and Ayurveda to support those both new to fasting and those whose bodies are familiar with it.

Worried about fasting? Fasting can be done in ways that are helpful or harmful to the body. Let our experts in Tibetan Medicine, Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda guide you in fasting safely for your body.


Register for the Buddhist Fasting Retreat

FREE 40-Day Meditation Marathon

This is an invitation to practice with us every single day until Losar (Tibetan New Year) on February 10th. It’s so wonderful to be able to share this commitment with others and we invite you to join us every day for our free Daily Meditation sessions. Each 30-minute session is led by a Certified Meditation Instructor from the Buddhist Studies Institute. Whether you practice on your own time or join us live, we will celebrate all those who complete the 40-day marathon at our Losar Event on February 12.


Join the Free 40-Day Meditation Marathon

Ngondro Training
Heart of the Vast Expanse with Pema Khandro

Module 1 begins January 29, 2024


Mondays Online

5pm – 6:30pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 9:30pm ET New York

12pm- 1:30pm AEDT Sydney

Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngongro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra.

Ngondro meditation is the foundation of a solid experience of spiritual growth. Ngondro refers to a series of meditation practices for purifying, training and empowering the mind & body. 

“There are different approaches to Ngondro, for some schools of Tibetan Buddhism it is reserved for much later. But for the Nyingma tradition we open the door to Ngondro meditations sooner, because for us it is the core or nucleus of spiritual training.”  – Pema Khandro on Ngondro

Register for Ngondro Module 1

Losar ~ Tibetan New Year Celebration
with Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute
Online – February 12th, 2024

5pm – 7pm PT San Francisco

8pm – 10pm ET New York

12pm- 2pm AEDT Sydney

Tibetan New Year Celebration

All are welcome to join Pema Khandro for our annual Tibetan Lunar New Year Celebration This is a free online program and open to the public.

  • Vajrakilaya Dances Performed

  • Losar Address with Pema Khandro

  • Celebration of 40-Day Meditation Marathoners

  • Dedications of Merit

  • Year of the Wood Dragon Begins!

Donate below any amount to celebrate The Buddhist Studies Institute’s mission to help the Buddhist Teachings flourish.

Register Now

Meditation Instructor Training 2024

February 19 – August 5

People all over the world have turned to Buddhist meditation as a source of wisdom. Meditation offers a powerful method to access a sense of spaciousness, peace and authentic presence. The practical benefits of meditation are well documented. Research shows it improves mood, reduces stress (Brown & Warren 2003), it improves memory, visuospatial reasoning, sustained attention and executive brain function (Zeidan et al. 2010). It reduces sub-clinical depression and anxiety (Schreiner and Malcolm 2012).

From a Buddhist point of view, when we know how to meditate, we learn how to work with mind and emotions. We have a practice for unraveling conditioned scripts and unconscious habits. Meditation is a pathway to discovering human goodness by making peace with our mind. Ultimately it is a method for getting free from dissatisfaction, resolving confusion and waking up to see reality more clearly.

The Meditation Instructor Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives.

3 Modules

Traditional Meditation

Teaching Practicum

Teaching Ethics

This training is a pre-requisite for the Chaplaincy Certificate offered summer of 2024.

Learn More about Meditation Instructor Training

The Freedom of Being: The Choying Dzod Retreat

Online with Khenpo Yeshi & Pema Khandro

February 23 – February 25

9am – 12pm PST | 12pm – 3pm EST | 5pm – 8pmGMT

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 by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.  It refers to the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation of the ground of being.

The Treasury of Basic Space is a manual for meditation and liberation, as well as being a text that one reads to a dying person to introduce them to the nature of mind at death. Read during dying, it offers the crucial support at the most important time, by guiding the dying person to realize the nature of mind. Indeed, The Treasury of Basic Space has been read at the time of death of many great Dzogchen masters.

The Treasury of Basic Space details the elements of breakthrough meditation (trek cho), instructions which cut through misunderstandings of emptiness and point to the vivid wakefulness of sublime knowing.

Join Buddhist Studies Institute for this special program taught online by Khenpo Yeshi, Dzogchen Nyingthig scholar and Drikung Kagyu teacher and Dr. Pema Khandro, Dzogchen scholar, lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma tradition. The three days of online classes will include the lung, the oral initiation into this profound text by Khenpo Yeshi, study, and practice led by Khenpo Yeshi and Dr. Pema Khandro.

Register for Choying Dzod – The Freedom of Being Retreat

One Nun’s Hardship & Beauty
The Story of Gelongma Palmo

by Pema Khandro

Our upcoming Buddhist Fasting Retreat in January will feature practices based on the founder of this fasting tradition, Gelongma Palmo. Read what Dr. Pema Khandro shares about her fascinating story.

Read More

Are you interested in helping us spread the dharma?

The Buddhist Studies Institute is actively seeking a Manager to be available for 5-10 hours a week. This is a volunteer position.

Manager Responsibilities Include:

  • Create clear project plans and goals.

  • Establish a work plan at each stage of the project, and allocate resources accordingly.

  • Create and manage project budgets.

  • Review project plan to determine time frames

  • Remind team members of deadlines and keep team members on deadlines

  • Identify and remove any obstacles that might hinder the team’s ability to meet deadlines.

  • Effectively communicate project-relevant details throughout the organization.

  • Facilitate project-related team meetings.

  • Share project reports with governance committee

  • Collaborate on the Organization’s plans and priority

  • Design and launch evaluation surveys among team and community members.

  • Be the main point of contact for projects.

For more information, please email info@buddhiststudiesinstitute.org or simply click the box below.


Interested? Email Us.

2024 Schedule of Events

ONGOING MONTHLY TRAINING

Daily Meditation Online
Vajrayana Training – 1st & 2nd Wednesday of each month
Ngakpa Training – 3rd Wednesday of each month

JANUARY

Buddhist Fasting Retreat – January 26 – January 28

Ngondro Training – January 29 – October 28

FEBRUARY

Losar Celebration – February 12

Meditation Instructor Training – February 19 – August 9
Choying Dzod: The Freedom of Being – February 23- 25

APRIL

Touching Earth: Buddhism and the Environment – April 5- April 7

MAY

Vajrayogini Retreat – May 31 – June 2


*All Times are noted in Pacific Time (PT) – Check your Timezone


Contact

Email: info@BuddhistYogis.org