Offering the Illusory Body

Dakini Day Chod
Offering the Illusory Body

May 6th, 2021
San Francisco 1pm  |  New York 4pm  |  London 9pm  |  Sydney 6am
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This is a Tibetan meditation which is a potent, dynamic practice for cutting through fear and facing death. It is a practice of healing through ultimate compassion. The practice is the Dzogchen Chod, known as Khandro Geykyang, the Laugher of the Dakinis, the concise version. Rinpoche will lead the practice and discuss its meaning.

 

Donations Welcome ~ No one turned away for lack of funds.

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Saga Dawa Celebration

Saga Dawa Celebration

With Khenpo Gawang & Pema Khandro

 

Wednesday, May 26th, 6pm – 7:30pm PT

 

Saga Dawa is the most auspicious day of the Tibetan Buddhist Calendar and a day celebrated by Buddhists all around the world. It is the anniversary of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and the day he passed away into parinirvana. The effects of actions on this day are said to be multiplied by ten million times because of the spiritual power of this full moon on the fourth month of the lunar calendar. This year, the Saga Full Moon also takes place on an eclipse day. Join us for prayers and aspirations on this auspicious occasion.

 

Details Coming Soon

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Save the Date

             

Vajrayogini Retreat

With Pema Khandro & Drupon Rinchen Dorje

 

June 4th, 6pm – June 6th, 6pm

Details Coming Soon

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SELF-PACED COURSES

Tibetan Dream Yoga

Self-Paced Online Training with Pema Khandro

Considered the practice most similar to our experience at death, Dream Yoga is about navigating in the real and unreal aspects of our experience without falling asleep to awareness. It is a practice of recognizing the nature of our minds.

This Teaching focuses on the Tibetan Buddhist methods for navigating Dream, Waking Life, and Sleep.

Waking, dreaming, and deep sleep present transformations of perception and they highly the continuity and discontinuity of experience. Through recognizing the opportunities for meditative awareness in these states, we can understand our own minds and face all our experiences with greater presence. A teaching based on the Six Yogas of Naropa – which is a system of harnessing ordinary experience for awakening.

Click Here to Register Now

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ONLINE OPEN TEACHINGS

Daily Meditation – Online

Join our certified meditation instructors for a short free daily practice online. Each day meditation is followed by a brief discussion on Buddhist ethics.

Resuming in June

Excellent Path and Group Leader Training have been CANCELLED on Wednesday, May 26th, 2021, due to the Saga Dawa Celebration, and will resume in June. 

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MEMBERS-ONLY CLASSES

Learn More about Joining Membership

1st and 2nd Wednesdays – Vajrayana Training with Pema Khandro

Bring a deep, engaged study of Buddhist Philosophy and practice into your life! Join this intimate study group for an ongoing study for students on the path of Vajrayana, led by Buddhist studies scholar, Pema Khandro. 

 

This includes the study of Tantra and Great Perfection (Dzogchen) as it is traditionally explained in source texts of the Tibetan tradition. Students will read a combination of materials translated by Pema Khandro as well as works published in English Translation. 

 

The course examines Vajrayana with multiple perspectives, considering how Vajrayana has been understood throughout history, how it is handed down traditionally today and how it engages with current paradigms. This is a non-sectarian class, with emphasis on approaches from the Nyingma school, but simultaneously offering a deliberate embrace of the numerous contesting views of Buddhist philosophy held by the various traditions of interpretation. This is a deep, traditional Buddhist study, without dogma, with ethics intact, in a community oriented towards thorough engagement with Buddhist texts and practice.

 

Vajrayana Training meets twice a month and includes meditation, lecture, discussion in small groups and in the whole class as well as question and answer period with Pema Khandro.

3rd Wednesdays – Ngakpa Training with Pema Khandro

In-depth study of the Ngakpa Tradition for students who have completed pre-requisites. These classes continue the study of Buddhist philosophy examining source texts and discussing the main points of living a Buddhist life. 

 

A Little Story About Nepal and Advice for How to Prepare for Retreat

I remember one time when I was visiting with the great Tibetan yogini, Jomo Samphel Dechen in Nepal. I had just wandered over to her apartment, and she was there about to take tea. Her legs were having problems so she needed help to get back and forth to get the kitchen. In Kathmandu it was very hot and sticky, but the kitchen was really cool. And I realized, during our slow walk from the kitchen back to her sitting room that I could ask her anything. No one was in sight, and I was slowly getting used to her accent, hard for me at first, because I was trained in Lhasa-dialect Tibetan. So with no one around and at least a fifty percent chance of understanding her answers, I quickly assembled my thoughts about what I would like to ask, how best to use this marvelous precious time. So many possible questions – dharma practice as a woman, dharma practice after her spouse had died. I had all these scholarly interests at hand, and as usual, they were there creating my inner fireworks of fascinations and curiosities. Plus, because I had previously always visited with others, I had already asked her so much in more formal meetings with other people. So there was this space, this wide open room to ask the deeper questions in private. We had our tea and then it was time. But instead, a few hours later I realized I just got lost in the moments. I totally missed the opportunity as a historian of Buddhism to dig in, because we just sat there quietly and delightfully together doing recitations, visualizations, chatting, reciting mantras and then again having tea. She started reading from a prayer from a pecha text, a Tibetan scripture. These are the long, narrow papers with wood block printing on them. I read along. And then we had these long periods of pleasing silence and then the prayers again and more tea. That’s when I remembered (yet again) how it is really, really wonderful to do dharma practice. It is especially wonderful to do dharma practice with someone so experienced, so integrated with the aesthetics of contemplation as the core of their life. We sat in the richness of all the practices either of us had ever done and in the stark simplicity of just being human together. It is hard to describe that experience, but words do come to mind: grounded, firm, present, soft, gentle, joyful, serene, focused. And yet, the chaos of Kathmandu was not too far away, somehow still looming, but without any sense of invading our serenity.

Jomo Samphel Dechen and Pema Khandro Kathmandu 2017

This is how all things in India, Tibet and Nepal have tended to be for me. Not what I expect, impossible to control, but offering something potent. (It is easier to live in Asia if one is comfortable letting go of control.) Through these travels I found out, surprisingly, that really deep dharma practice can happen in all kinds of scenarios. Just after tea on a visit to a great yogini. At sunrise at a stupa. In a huge crowd of Troma Chod yogis and yoginis, with our long hair and red and white shawls coloring the landscape. While being assailed by mosquitos in India. By rivers and meadows in Tibet. While stuck on a remote road and eventually surrounded by giant scary yaks in Kham (If a yak steps on my legs, what will happen? And other thoughts…but they simply walked around me). When the King was murdered and there was a coup in Kathmandu, but there was the strange persistent beauty of a garden to practice in. At ground zero after 9/11. And pleasant, protected practice retreats in a nice hotel in China or Mexico. The scenes of dharma practice may change, but the sense of being centered, sane and simple has not. I try to think of words to describe this since I teach classes and words are necessary. I look for kitchen sink words, not pie in sky ones, that would fuel spiritual fantasies (or colonialist ones!). Words do come to mind: integrated, present, serene, wakeful. 

The obstacles to practice can also be what one does not expect. I remember when I had pneumonia, practicing Chod at the charnel grounds, a kind of funerary meditation, and the deceased was being cremated before us. It was a perfect place to practice Chod, but my pneumonia wanted me home. Afterall, how many charnel grounds should one visit before it is time to take a break to take care of the body again?! And yet, that night after the practice, I had these wonderful dreams, and it shifted my whole thinking about what was next in my life. I think of that dream often. Even that practice, quite half-hearted in my haze of illness while the other half just tried to keep me alive, even that practice had an interesting result.

I think its this background of shifting scenes of practice, that prepared me for the transition online. We had been preparing to launch the Buddhist Studies Institute already for many months, so online activities were already set to increase. Then the pandemic happened. Suddenly, everyone I knew (and new friends I came to know) was there with me in my home, practicing with me online. It has been such a luxury to find this way of practicing Vajrayana together and to discover that this can be so profound. There I am, on my meditation cushion and my meditation rug. No being assailed by mosquitos, not bit by scorpions, snakes, nor assailed by the smell of burning corpses or locals dressed like police trying to hassle a foreign woman, none of those obstacles that are such a hallmark of living in Asia! No visa issues looming, no smell of burning plastic outside my window like in Pharping. Just the lovely space at Khandro Ling, a peaceful place I set up just to do practice each day, but now, there are a hundred dharma friends who are there with me, in my most personal space. And I am in their home with them. 

We get to do what is the ultimate goal of our tradition as yogis, (naljormas, naljorpas, ngakpas, ngakmos) is – which is to integrate deep serious practice and study with our actual lives. To transform our home into the domain of real spiritual work. A surprising gift of zoom society. We don’t have the luxury of living in a monastery or cave. We are integrating practice and study with the complexities of modern life. Instead of scorpions, the sound of children. Instead of visa troubles, the pets need to be fed. Instead of pilgrimage sites, our own bodies. We are practicing where the rubber meets the road, where the whole of our life is present with us. 

Throughout the pandemic we have been doing this together. We are practicing alone, on our own, as we must do, but simultaneously together. We are in our own ideal or non-ideal environments. There is something incredibly intimate about practicing this way. So hard to describe. But words do come to mind: integrated, wakeful, open-hearted, sane, deep, connected, expansive. 

There is something also so honest about it, practicing at home together.  

I am supposed to be writing about preparing for a home retreat, so we should get back to the tea and the tale of my time with Jomo Samphel Dechen. That afternoon, on my way walking home from the visit, I was reflecting on what actually makes a perfect place for meditation practice. We were in her home, a humble space, put together with minimum expenditures. Yet it was an ideal space for a home retreat. She had surrounded herself with Buddhist images, there was a small shrine. There was a window so the sky and space were present ever so simply. There was tea and cookies so that we could take as long as we needed. There was a little table for texts to rest on. There were pictures of inspiring figures, including her deceased spouse, the famous tsa-lung yogi, Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche. There was a blanket for when it was cold, but it could be shed when it was warm. There were nice cushions to sit on for the guest and a bed for her, so our bodies were supported. Just like my place for practice at Khandro Ling in Virginia, 7,708 miles away. Simple, practical, intimate. In light of this cherished memory of a perfect place to practice at home, I have included some tips on setting up a home retreat space for you below.

But before closing, we should contemplate bell hooks. 

“I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. Not this ‘In order to love you, I must make you something else’. That’s what domination is all about, that in order to be close to you, I must possess you, remake and recast you.”

― bell hooks, Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies

Practicing in Times of Intensity

I love this quote from bell hooks. I have been reading her today to help prepare and process the energy of the verdict. The quote reminds me of Dzogchen in the sense that our freedom is only possible if we make friends with what we are. Until we do, we are so lost and exploitable. 

Fascinating that last year we had retreats together during protests, when the heart-wrenching George Floyd video had just been released. Now we will practice just after the guilty verdict in the trial of his murder. So we happen to meet again in a charnel grounds, in the middle of sea change in consciousness…Moving ever so step by step towards a world with empathy and respect for the dignity of beings. There is hope, but even with accountability, which was so desperately needed, there is also grief. There has been no closure in the grief about racism. There is still so much grief from all the wounds that have been scratched open. There is the continuously refreshed grief as we face the horrors of stories like Adam Toledo, a thirteen year old boy killed by police. Grief, empathy, anxiety, sorrow, a tidal wave of emotions is understandable – and we bare these while being so isolated from one another during the pandemic. There is no one right way to grieve. Some of us get angry, others withdrawn, others reach for connection, the sadness, the depression or numbness. It is part of a greater process of waking up and healing individually and collectively.

My article on grief in Lion’s Roar is here: Pema Khandro on Grief.

We can bring all this with us to our practice, carrying it on to the path as we learn to find a sane, open-hearted way to meet the whole of this life as it is. It is another scene, another charnel grounds another moment to train.

May we face what comes together, one breath at a time, one session at a time, one day at a time. 

I look forward to seeing you at the online retreat in a couple of days.

Yours always,

Pema Khandro

How To Set Up A Place To Practice

Home Retreat Preparation Details

Finding Comfort and Ease with Pema Khandro

April 23-25, 2021, 10am-6pm PT

There is something so intimate about one’s practice spot, the home shrine or meditation cushion. We can have some unique things there that make it a place of comfort and support in our lives. Mine has photos of my teachers and the beings I visualize in my refuge field. It has my glasses and a book light (I learned the brilliance of a good book light from the Zen practitioners!) As you set up for this weekend’s retreat, I recommend that if possible, you set up a place that will be yours beyond this retreat, that it will be a place you can care for your body and mind every day. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. In leaner times, I used to just use a tent in the yard outside my cabin at our first retreat center in Santa Cruz, because the temple was still a space for everyone. I needed a solitary sacred place to work within the powers of my introversion. That’s why I was so happy when someone at the summer retreat did the whole retreat in a tent in their backyard, a reminder of happy memories. I have also seen lovely retreat spaces made out of a closet. Or for those who are so lucky a shrine room or small temple. In a small house a closet may be the only way to create a place for solitude, and with some imagination that can be quite lovely. Even that darkness there can help to make it space to deescalate, to reduce the over stimulation of daily life. 

Whatever place you set up, may it be an opportunity to establish a sacred place that you can return to, with body and mind. 

Our retreat will be from Friday to Sunday, April 23rd-25th. 

The lung, or oral transmission, will happen on Friday morning, which is the traditional pre-requisite to practice.

You will need your texts for the Heart Sutra, which if you don’t have it, it will be provided.

We will study two great works of Dzogchen nyingthig, Longchenpa’s Finding Comfort and Ease and the Mirror Illuminating Heart. I will share my translations.

We will do the practices from Finding Comfort and Ease.

On the last day we will do protector practice so please have your drums, bells and text if you have them. Text will be provided if you need it.

The afternoon community tea times are optional, but highly recommended. It is necessary to know and talk to other meditators. Otherwise, a life of training the body-mind is very hard to maintain without communal support. 

We will also have the restorative yoga sessions with some of the brilliant teachers whom I have trained to teach yoga and have carried this practice on for our community.

Remember, you will also have the opportunity to sign up for private meetings one-to-one. The best way to use that time is to bring dharma questions or practice questions, but we can also just have a simple chat as well. 

Plan to have your camera on for all the practice sessions. Wear comfortable, loose fitting clothing for sitting and yoga. If you have a shawl or blanket you may wish to have it nearby. Thank you for being fully clothed so that we can all be comfortable! Not everyone lives near a beach town and it can be distracting to see dharma friends in various states of minimum dress, so we ask you to avoid wearing anything revealing. 

If you are new, you are most welcome. Diversity is beautiful and the teaching assistants are there to answer questions.

Click Here to Register Now

Online Dzogchen Retreat

Finding Comfort & Ease

Online Dzogchen Retreat with Pema Khandro

 

April 23-25th, 2021, 10am-6pm PT

This retreat focuses on the paradox of resting in buddha-nature and recognizing illusions. It offers support for exploring Buddhist philosophy experientially through alternating dharma study and practice. The retreat is lead by Buddhist scholar and teacher, Pema Khandro, founder of the Buddhist Studies Institute. As a special event during the pandemic, Pema Khandro will lead the study of and practice of the sems nyid ngal gso, Longchenpa’s instructions on Finding Comfort and Ease in the Nature of Mind, a classic text of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This retreat is led entirely online, with alternating sessions of group practice, small group discussions, yoga, meditation, lectures, question and answer sessions with Pema Khandro and private meetings at the end.

ABOUT THE RETREAT

Buddhist Philosophy
Pema Khandro teaches from “The Mirror Illuminating the Heart,” and Longchenpa’s instructions on Finding Comfort and Ease in the Nature of Mind. These are treasured teachings of Tibetan Buddhism’s Dzogchen Nyingthig teachings on the vast view. These beautiful teachings consider the fundamental nature of mind and reality.

Dzogchen

Dzogchen is the most protected and sacred practice and study cycle of Tibetan Buddhism. From the time of its early formation, it included an array of practices which center on the elements, the natural world, dynamic exercises with body and mind as well as the more restricted practices. As philosophy, Dzogchen presents a view of the world that emphasizes buddhanature and natural wakefulness as the core of one’s experience and the fabric of reality. Dzogchen is taught in the Nyingma lineage as the practice that one concentrates upon after the preliminaries (ngondro) in order to begin to work directly with ones mind in simple, dynamic and potent methods.

Group Meditation Classes
Pema Khandro will teach from the 27 Practices for training for Dzogchen meditation from the sems nyid ngal gso, Longchenpa’s instructions on Finding Comfort and Ease in the Nature of Mind.

Heart Sutra Chanting
Remember the profound teachings that unravel it all at the root. Afternoon Heart Sutra chanting will be led in English by Buddhist Studies Institute Faculty.

Dharma Conversations
Spiritual community is an important aspect of Buddhist practice, and it is even more important during the times of pandemic when in-person gatherings are limited. Join your fellow community members in dharma conversations during afternoon tea breaks (bring your own tea!). These are guided, small group conversations led by the teaching assistants.

Restorative Yoga
Unwind, let go of stress and give your body support. This simple, slow, bliss yoga class is designed to give rest and release to your body and mind. Each afternoon session will begin with an optional yoga class for you to do at home led by Buddhist Studies Institute Faculty. 

Deep Practice
Unplug. Disconnect. Take space for inner silence and chanting meditation. Share silence together. Enjoy deep dharma study. This retreat includes guidance and support for taking a break from social media and news to create space for reflection and to declutter the mind. There is an optional one hour social media period suggested each day for those who want to reduce but need to stay plugged in.

Private Meetings

Individual meetings with Pema Khandro will be set up on the days following the retreat in order to accommodate the online format. These are optional short meetings to discuss practice or Buddhist study questions. Instructions to sign up for a time will be given after registration. 

About Pre-requisites
How and when Dzogchen meditation is taught varies widely today. For this retreat, previous meditation experience and a history of meditation practice is necessary to fully appreciate and engage in the practices. It is ideal if one is comfortable doing extended periods of study and practice. The most restricted practices of Dzogchen, breakthrough and direct transcendence, are not included in this retreat. Instead the focus is on instructions for evoking peace within body and mind from Longchenpa’s great work on Dzogchen, the sems nyid ngal gso, “Finding Comfort and Ease in the Nature of Mind.”

Click Here to Register Now

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PODCAST EPISODES

Impermenance, Illness, & Health with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo & Pema Khandro Rinpoche

The Lion’s Roar Podcast

 

Author, teacher, and founder of the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery, Tenzin Palmo has a frank discussion with fellow teacher and scholar, Pema Khandro Rinpoche about what advice Buddhism has to offer about health and illness during a time of pandemic. Tenzin Palmo also shares what she’s learned about suffering and gratitude while on solitary retreat in a Himalayan cave for 12 years, and what she did after.

 

Click Here to Listen Now

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ONLINE OPEN TEACHINGS

*All times are listed in Pacific Time UTC-8 (Timezone Converter)

Daily Meditation – Online
Join our certified meditation instructors for a short free daily practice online. Each day meditation is followed by a brief discussion on Buddhist ethics.

Thursdays – Through April, 8am
A Course in Valid Cognition with Geshe Sonam
Winter Pramana Study, Join Any Time

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MEMBERS-ONLY CLASSES

Learn More about Joining Membership

1st and 2nd Wednesdays – Vajrayana Training with Pema Khandro

Bring a deep, engaged study of Buddhist Philosophy and practice into your life! Join this intimate study group for an ongoing study for students on the path of Vajrayana, led by Buddhist studies scholar, Pema Khandro. 

 

This includes the study of Tantra and Great Perfection (Dzogchen) as it is traditionally explained in source texts of the Tibetan tradition. Students will read a combination of materials translated by Pema Khandro as well as works published in English Translation. 

 

The course examines Vajrayana with multiple perspectives, considering how Vajrayana has been understood throughout history, how it is handed down traditionally today and how it engages with current paradigms. This is a non-sectarian class, with emphasis on approaches from the Nyingma school, but simultaneously offering a deliberate embrace of the numerous contesting views of Buddhist philosophy held by the various traditions of interpretation. This is a deep, traditional Buddhist study, without dogma, with ethics intact, in a community oriented towards thorough engagement with Buddhist texts and practice.

 

Vajrayana Training meets twice a month and includes meditation, lecture, discussion in small groups and in the whole class as well as question and answer period with Pema Khandro.

3rd Wednesdays – Ngakpa Training with Pema Khandro

In-depth study of the Ngakpa Tradition for students who have completed pre-requisites. These classes continue the study of Buddhist philosophy examining source texts and discussing the main points of living a Buddhist life. 

 

Dakini Day Chod

Meditation and Instructions on letting go of fictions and self-deception in Tibetan Chod meditation.

This class is by donation and open to the public. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Chod is a meditation method through meeting fear and neurosis with compassion and skill. Rather than renounce these mind states, in Chod, they are allowed to transform and be reintegrated as keys to innate wisdom.

Click Here to Register Now

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Online Dzogchen Retreat

Finding Comfort & Ease

Online Dzogchen Retreat with Pema Khandro

 

April 23-25th, 2021, 10am-6pm PT

This retreat focuses on the paradox of resting in buddha-nature and recognizing illusions. It offers support for exploring Buddhist philosophy experientially through alternating dharma study and practice. The retreat is lead by Buddhist scholar and teacher, Pema Khandro, founder of the Buddhist Studies Institute. As a special event during the pandemic, Pema Khandro will lead the study of and practice of the sems nyid ngal gso, Longchenpa’s instructions on Finding Comfort and Ease in the Nature of Mind, a classic text of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This retreat is led entirely online, with alternating sessions of group practice, small group discussions, yoga, meditation, lectures, question and answer sessions with Pema Khandro and private meetings at the end.

Click Here to Register Now

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SELF-PACED ONLINE COURSES

Buddhist Ethics

Self-Paced Course on the Five Buddhist Precepts

 

The Five Buddhist Precepts are a discipline of freedom, honor, openness and precision that cover the potent themes of a Tantric’s life from the uncommon, extraordinary perspective of non-duality. Topics covered in this course include vegetarian lifestyle, meat-eating, alcohol and drug use, conscious use of sexual energy, working with desire, handling resources, money and spirituality, honesty, and the speech that takes us beyond confusion.

 

Click Here to Register Now

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ONLINE OPEN TEACHINGS

*All times are listed in Pacific Time UTC-8 (Timezone Converter)

Daily Meditation – Online
Join our certified meditation instructors for a short free daily practice online. Each day meditation is followed by a brief discussion on Buddhist ethics.

Thursdays – Through April, 8am
A Course in Valid Cognition with Geshe Sonam
Winter Pramana Study, Join Any Time

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MEMBERS-ONLY CLASSES

Learn More about Membership

1st and 2nd Wednesdays – Vajrayana Training with Pema Khandro

A study of Buddhist philosophy for students on the path of Vajrayana and Great Perfection (Dzogchen).

3rd Wednesdays – Ngakpa Training with Pema Khandro

In-depth study of the Ngakpa Tradition for students who have completed pre-requisites. These classes continue the study of Buddhist philosophy examining source texts and discussing the main points of living a Buddhist life. 

 

Open Teaching

Excellent Path

With Pema Khandro

Buddhist Philosophy Online ~ Open Teaching Webcast

March 24th, 2021, 6-6:30pm PT

This is a monthly class to support your meditation practice and meet the challenge of integrating meditation into a full, dynamic life. This class will include meditation instruction, Buddhist teachings, and remedies for navigating through challenges to practice.

Click Here to Register Now

Dakini Day Chod

Loss and Change

Dear Friends,

A year ago today, we officially went into lockdown. I met with the board of directors and we realized that our carefully laid plans had been washed away like a sand mandala. I remember looking at my phone on the news and every story was about the coronavirus. As I talked with students and friends, the big fears were the deaths which by now in the U.S. are more than 594,000. Every one of these people had a name and wanted to be happy. 

There were other fearsome things that the pandemic brought. The looming threat of the death of our relatives and loved ones, but also the radical, abrupt and shocking change to everyday life. We were haunted by the unknowns. There was economic uncertainty and lost jobs, the restrictions and stay-at-home orders, the loneliness, anxiety and mental health crisis that swept our communities. And also the strange situation of not being able to plan everything. The bizarre effects of not seeing people’s faces, now hidden behind masks and those nightmares of being in a room where someone wasn’t wearing a mask that so many people recounted to me. For us at Ngakpa International the impact was severe, we had purchased our retreat center at the worst time, though we never could have predicted that group gatherings would no longer be allowed. And although we have hung on over the past year, I heard of the permanent closure of one dharma center after another. The world of dharma is permanently changed. Our community too was affected in so many ways and the effects continue, it has required intensive management on the behalf of myself and our leaders to adjust to the new normal.

Through all this, one thing that stood out for me was how accommodating Buddhist teachings are to this situation – the message to urgently integrate awareness of impermanence, the admonishments to face the reality of death and what it means for our daily lives, the clarion call to live a life of love that reduces suffering… The teachings were already there so when the situation arose, there was this sense for me of having a container to hold it in. I remembered that one of the determining factors of post-traumatic stress is whether we have a world-view that can accommodate the stressor. And here we were, sitting together in a worldview primed to promote resilience and acceptance in the face of radical change. I am grateful for that.

There is of course an esoteric Buddhist teaching about exactly this phenomena, the occurrence of rupture, the procession of radical changes that make up a life. That is of course the bardo teaching. Bardo refers to liminality, states in between, times in which we are not what we were nor what we will be. In Dzogchen the bardo teachings are given as a description of the nature of transition and how to move through transition without fear and without suffering. Each bardo is imperative to the next phase, because how we are in the uncertainty defines how we will be when the stability arises again. 

It is now possible to imagine that one day in the not too distant future that society will resume again, but the person who we are amidst that new beginning will not be who we once were, at least not at first. It’s the nature of the bardo, it exposes our lack of concrete existence, how readily we can lose what we were, how much that loss defines our life. But of course, after a time we could forget and fall once again under the momentum of those compelling karmic patterns that governed our lives before, falling under the sway of that not-knowing which is so apparent now. And this is why recognizing what can be seen within the bardo is so important. It is an opportunity, albeit at times a harshly delivered one. It is an opportunity to break the chains of our conditioning and wake up more free. The potential is to let change cleanse us of our pettier obsessions and toxic patterns, to let rupture point us towards what is most important so we can live a life in integrity with our authentic nature.

We started some bardo teachings online last summer, but we had such a short time we focused almost entirely on the moment of death. So I am looking forward to expanding, to zoom out into the panorama of what a life is – to expand our view through the teaching on the six bardos. 

I hope you will join us for this program. We have two extraordinary guests who will join us for the bardo series. One is Chagdud Khadro who is a specialist in Phowa, the transference of consciousness practice done at the time of death. She is also from a ngakpa lineage, of Buddhist Yogis, so it will be inspiring to connect further with our tradition. And I am also overjoyed, completely overjoyed, to be hosting Shugen Roshi as well, I have been looking forward to having you meet him. I taught with him at the Lion’s Roar retreat and this past winter I was a guest teacher at his community, the Zen Mountain Monastery. I find Zen Buddhism so compelling but also his delivery of it is so grounded and deep. I know you will enjoy him. 

If you have a loved one who has passed away in the last year, during the Bardo teachings this weekend we will also practice Zhitro together, the practice for guiding loved ones through the post-death state. You will have an opportunity to learn the practice and we will all perform the practice together. It’s a treasure teaching from Karma Chagme and Mingyur Dorje, quite simple, yet so heartfelt and potent. I have found that it is as much a practice for us as it is for the deceased because it soothes and directs our mind to be of benefit during times of great loss.

Finally, I want to thank you. It has been so touching to be together, to sit together, to talk together, to study together throughout the whole year. In the midst of all the uncertainty our collaboration and service brought us together. I am so grateful for everyone who stepped up to make this possible. 

I also feel so much respect for the deep practice we have seen in this period. We have a group of Meditation Instructors who graduated, and another group who are graduating soon. We also have a group who are using the pandemic to finish ngondro. They are currently finishing Vajrasattva accumulations which so auspiciously coincides with Chotrul Duchen, when the Buddha performed fifteen days of miracles, a time of year when Vajrasattva practice is most auspiciously done. 

So many sangha also completed the 100 days of practice this year and for the first time we had a space to do this simultaneously online. I invite those of you who did complete the 100 days to share up about this in the upcoming classes, to talk about what that experience was like. Just message me in the direct message if you would be willing to share.

May our health be strong and may we find peace through all our loss and change to come.

Yours always,

The Bardo Teachings

Mar 17, 6-7:15pm

Death & Dying with Chagdud Khadro & Pema Khandro 

By Donation. A free event open to the public. 

Mar 20, 5-6:15pm

Death in Zen & Dzogchen with Shugen Roshi & Pema Khandro

By Donation. A free event open to the public.  

Mar 19-21, 10am-6pm

The Six Bardos with Pema Khandro

Pema Khandro will give a weekend teaching on the Six Bardos, Buddhist instructions for how to live wakefully in the phases of change within our lives.

Online Dzogchen Retreat

Bardo Teachings – Death in Zen & Dzogchen

With Shugen Roshi & Pema Khandro

Saturday, March 20th, 5-6:15pm PT

Join Pema Khandro and Shugen Roshi for a conversation on Death in Zen and Dzogchen – offered as part of The Bardo Teachings. Bardos are places between the known and the unknown and can be potent moments of transformation.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi, is the Head of the Mountains and Rivers Order, abbot and resident teacher of Zen Mountain Monastery, and abbot of the Zen Center of New York City. His teachings on Zen, social justice and environmental stewardship have appeared in various Buddhist journals and The Best Buddhist Writing 2009 (Shambhala Publications). His book of poetry, “O, Beautiful End,” a collection of Zen memorial poems, was published in 2012.

Pema Khandro Rinpoche is a teacher and scholar of Buddhist philosophy. She is the founder of Ngakpa International and its three projects, The Buddhist Studies Institute, Dakini Mountain and the Yogic Medicine Institute. She is an authorized Lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions. She has led a vibrant world-wide community since 1999. Through the Buddhist Studies Institute, she also offers a complete curriculum of training in Buddhist Philosophy and practice.

Click here to Register Now for Death in Zen & Dzogchen

The Bardo Teachings

Mar 17, 6-7:15pm

Death & Dying with Chagdud Khadro & Pema Khandro 

By Donation. A free event open to the public. 

Mar 20, 5-6:15pm

Death in Zen & Dzogchen with Shugen Roshi & Pema Khandro

By Donation. A free event open to the public.  

Mar 19-21, 10am-6pm

The Six Bardos with Pema Khandro

Pema Khandro will give a weekend teaching on the Six Bardos, Buddhist instructions for how to live wakefully in the phases of change within our lives.

Online Dzogchen Retreat

BARDO TEACHINGS 

Laughter of the Dakinis:

Dakini Day Chod

 

March 8th, 2021, 1-3pm PT

Chod is a meditation method through meeting fear and neurosis with compassion and skill. Rather than renounce these mind states, in Chod, they are allowed to transform and be reintegrated as keys to innate wisdom.

This is a Tibetan meditation which is a potent, dynamic practice for cutting through fear and facing death. It is a practice of healing through ultimate compassion. The practice is the Dzogchen Chod, known as Khandro Geykyang, the Laugher of the Dakinis, the concise version. Rinpoche will lead the practice and discuss its meaning. This has been a monthly practice in Virginia for the last two years on Dakini Day, but in-person Chod practices are cancelled and Pema Khandro will now be offering Chod practice online for the first time, in order to support Vajrayana practitioners during the worldwide pandemic.

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Self-Paced Courses

Sign up for any of the self-paced courses online through the Buddhist Studies Institute under the Online Curriculum. 

Buddhism As a Way of Life

 

Online Training with Pema Khandro — Learn at Your Own Pace

Includes 6 video and audio recordings, class slides and a question/comment section.

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ONLINE OPEN TEACHINGS

*All times are listed in Pacific Time UTC-8 (Timezone Converter)

The 100 Days of Practice is being extended year round!

Starts Feb 12th, 12pm

Daily Meditation
Join our certified meditation instructors for a short free daily practice online. Each day meditation is followed by conversations about Buddhism.

Thursdays – Through April, 8am
A Course in Valid Cognition with Geshe Sonam
Winter Pramana Study

Mar 8, 1-3pm

Laughter of the Dakinis: Dakini Day Chod

Meditation and instructions on letting go of fictions and self-deception in Tibetan Chod meditation. 

Mar 17, 6-7:15pm

Bardo Teachings – Death & Dying with Chagdud Khadro & Pema Khandro 

By Donation. A free event open to the public. 

Mar 19-21, 10am-6pm

The Bardo Teachings with Pema Khandro

Pema Khandro will teach on the six bardos, Buddhist instructions for how to live wakefully in the phases of change within our lives.

Mar 20, 5-6:15pm

Bardo Teachings – Death in Zen & Dzogchen with Shugen Roshi & Pema Khandro

By Donation. A free event open to the public.  

Apr 23-25, 10am-6pm

Finding Comfort and Ease

Pema Khandro teachings on Longchenpa’s Finding Comfort and Ease in the nature of mind.

April 25

Dharma Dialogue Series

Pema Khandro and Lama Willa in the Dharma Dialogue Series on Women in Buddhism. 

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MEMBERS-ONLY CLASSES

Learn More about Membership

1st and 2nd Wednesdays – Vajrayana Training with Pema Khandro

A study of Buddhist philosophy for students on the path of Vajrayana and Great Perfection (Dzogchen).

3rd and 4th Wednesdays – Ngakpa Training with Pema Khandro

In-depth study of the Ngakpa Tradition for students who have completed pre-requisites. These classes continue the study of Buddhist philosophy examining source texts and discussing the main points of living a Buddhist life.