Dear friends,

For those joining the Lion-Faced Ḍākinī retreat, and for those who want to continue going deeper, the four Monday nights of November are offered as the sustaining arc.

The retreat opens the direct transmission. The Monday nights hold it in context. Each session takes up one essential figure or theme in the lineage that carries her teaching across the centuries.

November 9: She Was a Radiant Lotus. We follow the life story of Lhacham Pemasal, Padmasambhava’s eighth-century disciple and the daughter of King Trisong Detsen. Her death became the seed from which the Khandro Nyingthig lineage grew. One of the most moving episodes in the whole history of the Nyingma lineage inheritance.

November 16: The Ḍākinī’s Guide to Dzogchen. A close reading of the dialogue between Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal on the Great Perfection view, in which Yeshe Tsogyal is the one asking the probing questions. One of the oldest and most unmistakable records of a yoginī teaching inside the inner tantric transmission and her debate with Padmasambhava on the role of the female consort.

November 18: Buddhism After #Metoo
This added evening session addresses Buddhist sexualities, sexual violence, and abuse in Buddhist contexts, bringing together scholarly perspectives, a facilitated listening and discussion circle, and practice drawn from the tradition’s ethical refutations that denouce abuse.

November 23: Jetsun Lochen Chönyi and the Lineage of Lion-Faced Ḍākinī. We meet Jetsun Lochen Chönyi Zangmo (1865 to 1951), twentieth-century yoginī and abbess of Shukseb Nunnery, who held the Siṃhamukhā practice lineage within living memory. For many of you this will be the first time encountering her.

November 30: The Yoginī’s Teaching and the Nyingma Path. The closing synthesis brings together the peaceful, semi-wrathful, and wrathful faces of the sacred feminine. Reflection, discussion, dedication.

The retreat alone is already a complete teaching. The Mondays make it a practice you take home. Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My very best to you always

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

Retreat Weekend
Saturday and Sunday, November 7 & 8, 2026
9am – 1pm PT

Monday Evenings
5-6:30pm PT
November 9, 16, 23, 30
Bonus class: Wed, Nov 18

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

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

Dear friends,

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

Compassion is not always gentle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My very best to you always,

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

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

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

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

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

Dear friends,

For those joining the Lion-Faced Ḍākinī retreat, and for those who want to continue going deeper, the four Monday nights of November are offered as the sustaining arc.

The retreat opens the direct transmission. The Monday nights hold it in context. Each session takes up one essential figure or theme in the lineage that carries her teaching across the centuries.

November 9: She Was a Radiant Lotus. We follow the life story of Lhacham Pemasal, Padmasambhava’s eighth-century disciple and the daughter of King Trisong Detsen. Her death became the seed from which the Khandro Nyingthig lineage grew. One of the most moving episodes in the whole history of the Nyingma lineage inheritance.

November 16: The Ḍākinī’s Guide to Dzogchen. A close reading of the dialogue between Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal on the Great Perfection view, in which Yeshe Tsogyal is the one asking the probing questions. One of the oldest and most unmistakable records of a yoginī teaching inside the inner tantric transmission and her debate with Padmasambhava on the role of the female consort.

November 18: Buddhism After #Metoo
This added evening session addresses Buddhist sexualities, sexual violence, and abuse in Buddhist contexts, bringing together scholarly perspectives, a facilitated listening and discussion circle, and practice drawn from the tradition’s ethical refutations that denouce abuse.

November 23: Jetsun Lochen Chönyi and the Lineage of Lion-Faced Ḍākinī. We meet Jetsun Lochen Chönyi Zangmo (1865 to 1951), twentieth-century yoginī and abbess of Shukseb Nunnery, who held the Siṃhamukhā practice lineage within living memory. For many of you this will be the first time encountering her.

November 30: The Yoginī’s Teaching and the Nyingma Path. The closing synthesis brings together the peaceful, semi-wrathful, and wrathful faces of the sacred feminine. Reflection, discussion, dedication.

The retreat alone is already a complete teaching. The Mondays make it a practice you take home. Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My very best to you always

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

Retreat Weekend
Saturday and Sunday, November 7 & 8, 2026
9am – 1pm PT

Monday Evenings
5-6:30pm PT
November 9, 16, 23, 30
Bonus class: Wed, Nov 18

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

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

Dear friends,

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

Compassion is not always gentle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My very best to you always,

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

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

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

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

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

Dear friends,

For those who have never met her, the Lion-Faced Ḍākinī (Siṃhamukhā, Senge Dongma) can at first startle. She has the body of a dancing yoginī and the face of a roaring lion. She is dark blue or black, blazing within a halo of wisdom fire. In her right hand she holds a hooked knife, in her left a skull cup. She tramples the obstacles that keep practitioners from awakening.

She is a wrathful emanation of Vajravārāhī, which is to say she is Vajrayoginī herself, appearing in the form that the obstacles of our time require. Her lineage within the Nyingma school passes through Padmasambhava, through Yeshe Tsogyal, through the great treasure revealers and into our own practice today. She is traditionally invoked for protection from obstacles: the obstacles that come from without, the obstacles we generate from within, and the obstacles the tradition names as “magical,” meaning the subtle energetic interferences, slander, and projection that any serious practitioner eventually faces. And even more radically, she is invoked to stop evil.

Her practice is the practice we turn to when the obstacles are real. She is not a decorative yidam. She is the specific medicine for the specific illness of a mind under siege.

In the coming days I will say more about her compassion, which is not what most people expect, and about the retreat and Monday series that will open her teachings for us this fall.

Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My very best to you always,

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

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

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

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

Dear friends,

Something is beginning this fall at BSI that I want you to know about from the start. For the next six weeks, we are entering a sustained immersion in the ḍākinī teachings, moving from the Lion-Faced Ḍākinī retreat weekend into four Monday nights that follow its arc all the way through the end of November.

The online retreat opens on Nov 7-8. The four Monday nights that follow trace the lives, texts, and lineages that make Siṃhamukhā’s practice intelligible: an eighth-century princess whose death opened the Khandro Nyingthig lineage, Yeshe Tsogyal’s own questions to Padmasambhava, a twentieth-century yoginī who held this very practice, and a closing synthesis of the three faces of the sacred feminine.

We will meet weekly because in Vajrayāna we return to the same practice over sustained time precisely because her blessing enters by accumulation, not by a single sitting. This course is designed as such an accumulation.

More in the coming days about who she is, why her practice matters now, and what the sessions will hold. Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My best to you always,

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

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

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

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

Dear friends,

For those who have never met her, the Lion-Faced Ḍākinī (Siṃhamukhā, Senge Dongma) can at first startle. She has the body of a dancing yoginī and the face of a roaring lion. She is dark blue or black, blazing within a halo of wisdom fire. In her right hand she holds a hooked knife, in her left a skull cup. She tramples the obstacles that keep practitioners from awakening.

She is a wrathful emanation of Vajravārāhī, which is to say she is Vajrayoginī herself, appearing in the form that the obstacles of our time require. Her lineage within the Nyingma school passes through Padmasambhava, through Yeshe Tsogyal, through the great treasure revealers and into our own practice today. She is traditionally invoked for protection from obstacles: the obstacles that come from without, the obstacles we generate from within, and the obstacles the tradition names as “magical,” meaning the subtle energetic interferences, slander, and projection that any serious practitioner eventually faces. And even more radically, she is invoked to stop evil.

Her practice is the practice we turn to when the obstacles are real. She is not a decorative yidam. She is the specific medicine for the specific illness of a mind under siege.

In the coming days I will say more about her compassion, which is not what most people expect, and about the retreat and Monday series that will open her teachings for us this fall.

Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My very best to you always,

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

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

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

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

Dear friends,

Something is beginning this fall at BSI that I want you to know about from the start. For the next six weeks, we are entering a sustained immersion in the ḍākinī teachings, moving from the Lion-Faced Ḍākinī retreat weekend into four Monday nights that follow its arc all the way through the end of November.

The online retreat opens on Nov 7-8. The four Monday nights that follow trace the lives, texts, and lineages that make Siṃhamukhā’s practice intelligible: an eighth-century princess whose death opened the Khandro Nyingthig lineage, Yeshe Tsogyal’s own questions to Padmasambhava, a twentieth-century yoginī who held this very practice, and a closing synthesis of the three faces of the sacred feminine.

We will meet weekly because in Vajrayāna we return to the same practice over sustained time precisely because her blessing enters by accumulation, not by a single sitting. This course is designed as such an accumulation.

More in the coming days about who she is, why her practice matters now, and what the sessions will hold. Learn more about Lion Faced Dakini —>

My best to you always,

Lion Faced Dakini Transmission, Retreat and Program

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

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

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

Important Schedule Update:
Please note that the Empowerment will now take place from 8:00 AM–12:00 PM Pacific Time, one hour earlier than originally scheduled (9:00 AM–1:00 PM). Kindly adjust your calendars accordingly. We look forward to sharing this auspicious occasion with you!

The Vajrayogini Empowerment, Retreat and Program

Empowerment Weekend
Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11, 2026

Monday Evenings
5-6:30pm PT
October 12, 19, 26, November 2

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

Vajrayogini Empowerment, Retreat & Program
The Fierce Joyful Ḍākinī and the Yoginīs of Tibet
Weekend Empowerment Retreat: Sat–Sun, October 10–11, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Oct 12, 19, 26, Nov 2
Vajrayogini Empowerment with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche
and Teachings with Tulku Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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

The Vajrayogini Empowerment, Retreat and Program

Empowerment Weekend
Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11, 2026

Monday Evenings
5-6:30pm PT
October 12, 19, 26, November 2

Online via Zoom
with recordings for all sessions

UPCOMING PROGRAMS 

Daily Meditation Online
with BSI Certified Meditation Teachers

Vajrayana Training
1st & 2nd Wednesdays with Pema Khandro

Vajrayogini Empowerment, Retreat & Program
The Fierce Joyful Ḍākinī and the Yoginīs of Tibet
Weekend Empowerment Retreat: Sat–Sun, October 10–11, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Oct 12, 19, 26, Nov 2
Vajrayogini Empowerment with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche
and Teachings with Tulku Pema Khandro

The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program
The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection
Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026
Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30
with Tulku Pema Khandro

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