Spring Calendar of Events

Winter Meditation Retreat in Santa Cruz, California – March 4th 2017 – with Pema Khandro

“Joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, these experiences are facts of our lives. It is not a matter of whether we will experience joy and sorrow, it is a matter of how we will meet these experiences. Because we usually respond to strong emotions with habitual reactions, we miss the opportunity for further presence. Buddhist meditation offers us a way to meet mind with simplicity, straightforwardness and therefore with a natural resilience.”
– Pema Khandro

Meditation is widely respected for its powers to heal the body and mind, reduce stress, encourage neuroplasticity of the brain, increase speed of recovery during illness, impart peace of mind, increase empathy, increase powers of concentration and so much more. In Buddhism, meditation is used as a practice to awaken a capacity to see reality more clearly, to see things as they are, while remaining present and open-hearted. This one day retreat offers a day of meditation practice – for all these purposes. In a time when quite, simple sanity is most needed, a meditation retreat offers a space to restore a sense of clarity, freshness and resilience.

This retreat focuses on meditation and prayers drawn from one of the most important figures in Buddhist history, the female Buddha, Yeshe Tsogyal. Yeshe Tsogyal is an inspiring symbol of enlightened wisdom demonstrated in real life circumstances. The legend of this female Buddha of Tibet and founding figure of the Nyingma lineage is an example of authentic discipleship, enlightened romance, facing violence, dealing with spiritual politics and transforming obstacles, demonstrating the entire path from beginning to ultimate fruit. A story of overcoming incredible obstacles, she became the student and partner of Padmasambhava, the Indian Yogi who is credited with converting Tibet to Buddhism.

This weekend we learn Yeshe Tsogyal’s mantra and meditation, contemplate her teaching on transforming misfortune into the path and practice the prayer for Carrying Joy and Sorrow on the Path from the Pegyal treasure teaching.

Some retreats are practice oriented, some are study oriented, some are community or discussion oriented.
*This retreat is practice oriented.

Members Only Event
Dzogchen Day Webcast with Pema Khandro

Wed Jan 11th, 6pm PST / 9pm EST

This 30 minute online class includes guided meditation, Q&A. Connect with Pema
Khandro and the Buddhist Yogi’s worldwide. To join this monthly event, simply
Become a Member.

Women Meditation & Power
Sun Jan 22nd, 1pm – 3pm
Washington DC

Click Here to Register

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Online Classes
Wednesdays at 6pm PST / 9pm EST

1st Wednesdays:     Vajrayana Training

2nd Wednesdays:   Dzogchen Day Webcast – for Members Only

3rd Wednesdays:    Ngakpa Training – for Vajra Sangha Members

4th Wednesdays:    Dakini Day Webcast – Free & Open to the Public

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Berkeley Community Meditation
White Tara Stream of Nectar

Sunday Jan 15th, 3pm – 4:30pm
Free & Open to the Public. All are Welcome.

MahaSiddha Center
2328 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

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Carrying Joy & Sorrow Onto the Path
Yeshe Tsogyal Retreat
with Pema Khandro Rinpoche

​Santa Cruz, CA
March 4th, 2017
Click Here to Register

Thank you to everyone to who donated to our end of year fundraiser!
With your help, we raised $8,111 toward our goal!
Every kind donation contributes to fulfilling our mission:
Sustaining and Sharing the Tradition of Tibet’s Buddhist Yogis!

What happy news- Pema Khandro’s recent article as chosen for Lions Roar and Buddhadharma magazine stories- as one of the editors picks for favorite article of the year!

http://www.lionsroar.com/what-are-our-editors-favorite-lions-roar-and-buddhadharma-stories-of-2016/

Ngakpa International
Buddhist Wisdom in Family, Work and Society

Dear Friends,
If you have been meaning to make a donation to our year-end Buddhist Yogis Thrive! Fundraising Appeal – now is the perfect time to do it. Click here to make a donation now!

Our fundraising goal is $18,000 by January 1st 2017. So far we have raised $6,496 and we have $11,504 to go! We still need your help.

We are a grass roots organization – so every donation is pivotal.

We are completely supported by a few friends and students. We are not a mass institution, we don’t rely on government, corporate grants or an inheritence – our work is made possible entirely on the grass roots level – by individual donations made by our friends from the past and present. So when you remember Ngakpa International in your year-end giving – your donation makes a huge difference. We have continued our work entirely due to one act of generosity at a time.

It is simple act to make a donation online now, but the effect will be far reaching. Your gift will allow Ngakpa International to continue to serve many hundreds of people in the West and East.

My heart-felt gratitude goes out to all of you who have already donated, contributed membership pledges and volunteered in 2017 – we truly could have not had our activities without your support. And we will not be able to continue without your support!

Click here to make a donation to help us reach our goal and also consider other ways you can help. If you aren’t already, become a member or consider upgrading your membership level.

May this season of giving bring you great peace and a sense that it is possible to co-create a world of wisdom together.

Yours Always,

“When we give love, we have more of it.
When we give kindness, we live in a world of kindness.
A wealth of goodness is in us, but we realize it by sharing it.
Generosity really is the path to happines.”
– Pema Khandro

Donate Any Amount Here 

Our Thank you Gift To You for Your Donation:
Audio teaching with Pema Khandro “Cultivating Lasting Change”

Pema Khandro will be a presenter at the International Buddhist Women’s Conference. 15th Sakyadhita International Conference

“Contemporary Buddhist Women:
Contemplation, Cultural Exchange & Social Action”

June 22 to 28, 2017
University of Hong Kong

Pema Khandro’s presentation will be:

Becoming VajraYogini
Buddhist Identity & Self Esteem Without Self

This will focus on an psychological and philosophical background for why Identity is important in Buddhist thought and especially for Buddhist Women. Since Buddhism’s primary teaching is non-self – that people have no fixed, essential self – people often assume this contradicts the need for an identity altogether. However there are many examples in Tibetan Buddhism in which psychological identity can be quite healthy and even robust, even while maintaining the notion of non-self.

For an abstract about her paper and more details about the conference visit:

https://awakeningbuddhistwomen.blogspot.com/2016/12/15th-si-con-khandro.html#more

To learn more about the conference and to register visit:

http://www.sakyadhita.org/

She was also a presenter at the last Sakyadhita Conference in Indonesia.

To read Pema Khandro’s presentation from the last conference click here

To read an account of her travels click here: Pema Khandro at Sakyadhita

Buddhist Wisdom In Family, Work and Society

Seventeen years ago, when I founded our community, I could never have imagined all that we have achieved and gone through together. Thank you to everyone who has been with me on this journey. Welcome all the dear new friends who are joining with us now. And greetings to all our friends who are connected with us and stay connected through letters.

 

We have grown into a robust and diverse community, more diverse than most Tibetan Buddhist communities in America.
I feel proud to be a part of our vibrant sangha. We have an opportunity together to show the beauty and power of a
diverse community in harmony – a gift our world needs.

It is greatly important for us to continue our mission – to embody a community of practitioners dedicated to integrating Buddhist wisdom with work, family and society. Especially in this time in which we are having a national struggle over basic human values and a crisis in communication –  it is more important than ever that embodied Buddhist wisdom shows up to the world. Our world needs this embodied wisdom.

 

I founded Ngakpa International to promote a rare, understudied aspect of Tibetan culture. The world has already seen abundant examples of the power of the Buddhist celibacy and renunciation – so much so that it has become the face of Tibetan Buddhism. But that is only a partial picture. Tibet’s Buddhist Yogis have played pivotal roles in the preservation and propagation of Tibetan culture at every major point in Tibetan history. However, they have been largely invisible as the world has adopted the pathways of larger institutions at the center of Tibetan political structures. This has been so positive but Tibetan Buddhism has more to offer and there has been at times an unfortunate assumption of false homogeneity. Our world needs Buddhist diversity.

The consequence of the assumption of a Buddhist monoculture is that many serious spiritual people believe that their desire to remain married, care for their families and keep their careers somehow disqualifies them for the most serious Buddhist practice. Many others have the mistaken assumption that such a style of practice – integrated with relationship, work and family – is a modern innovation. On the contrary – Tibet’s Buddhist Yogis have integrated Buddhist practice with marriage, work, family and society for over a thousand years. They have passed on a rich tradition of support for those who seek to bring Buddhist wisdom into a demanding and complex life. Our world needs this knowledge.

This is what drives me each day – the knowledge that the wisdom of Buddhist Yogis is sorely needed – a wisdom tradition that integrates with the world as much as it celebrates internal development. And now we see how badly such holistic wisdom is needed in our culture.

Maybe a small group such as ours can’t change the whole world or the whole nation all at once – but we can create a potent and impeccable space – a community of wisdom, joy, dignity, warriorship and kindness – right where we are. We can create a community which serves as a resource and spiritual refuge for everyone who is connected to it. Today, there is such a great potential power of spiritual communities of all religions – perhaps it is the only way that institutional corruption can be contested on a massive social scale – because spiritual communities are organized, connected and have a voice.

What is your voice? What does it mean to speak out, resist and also have inner peace and cultivate love? These are the big questions of our time which will take training, introspection and a thorough ‘higher’ education to make sense of.

Four years ago I started offering Vajrayana Training and Ngakpa Training online because of this conviction: education is liberation. Buddhism teaches that every person has goodness in them, it is only ignorance that blocks it from manifesting. Education is the path out of ignorance. This is what Buddhism offers, a higher education on the issues that count; what is mind? what is the purpose of life? how do we live ethically? what does it mean to have compassion and set healthy boundaries? how can we uproot the cause of suffering? what is true joy? The answers to such questions can be found through training – a combination of learning and practice.

For such training to be accessible and sustainable over the long term, I have found that the combination of retreats and online study formats are ideal. Over the last few years, students have met with me twice a month, coming along with me on my travels all over the world through the power of the online format. We have met in my home, in my dharma centers and even in Tibet! I created this curriculum and teach these courses because –  if people can really understand Buddhist wisdom in-depth – it is the source of the greatest empowerment possible.

If we don’t understand, or even try to train, then we would remain forever on the outskirts of a foreign tradition, living like the beggar who slept each night on a pillow made of gold and died without ever recognizing its value. But because education is liberation, through study and training we can discover the great wealth of wisdom that lies waiting within us. But it is not just within, it is also in our world, in our sacred good world, a world that needs us.

 

Because we share the conviction that education is liberation, we have also now for almost two full decades, supported orphans and ngakpa children in the Himalayas. This has given us the opportunity to make a huge difference in small communities which would otherwise be forgotten. In larger efforts to preserve Tibetan culture, it is the micro-communities and their unique traditions which get left behind. The ngakpa families whose children we have supported grow up in a life very different than most of ours, subsisting on farming, deprived of literacy, deprived of high school education and in the middle of a massive cultural annihilation under hegemonic forces. Our continued work to support these children is necessary. But in order to do that, we need to care for our non-profit organization on the home front, to catch up to some big changes we have recently gone through.

December for us is known as “the season of practice,” and it is also the month of my birthday! This year I will be forty-two years old! Usually I use my birthday to fundraise for children in the Himalayas, but this year, I am asking for your help and asking you to join me supporting my mission and my life’s work  – Ngakpa International – because without Ngakpa Intl, none of our projects at home or abroad can be sustained. For us to continue all of our activities, at this time donations are necessary and your contributions to this fundraising appeal will make a decisive difference.  

For the past two years, ourselves and other dharma organizations went through a major overhaul to comply with changes in non-profit laws for religious organizations. This was a massive expense. To add to that, the last two years contributions have been more lean, leaving us with an additional deficit. Meanwhile our programs have all been packed to the maximum attendance and our membership has grown and grown – so there is a great need to support Ngakpa International – so that it can continue to support so many positive activities, including all of the courses I have planned to offer you.

This year, my birthday wish, and Christmas wish combined is for donations to support Ngakpa International.

Please join me in donating to sustain our beautiful community and the source of all our projects – dharma programs, children’s education, community meditations, a clinic, three centers, five communities, vajrayana training, ngakpa seminary, Buddhist Yogis Sangha worldwide membership, hosting guest teachers and so much more.

Every donation makes a difference! Without larger donations, we will not be able to realize our mission and without smaller donations we would not ever have made it this far – every act of giving counts. And every donation is an encouragement to me and the volunteers who work so tirelessly to make Ngakpa Intl possible. Every donation creates the world we long for – one of wakefulness, love and knowledge, one of profound wisdom integrated with family, work and society.

Join our 2016 Fundraising Campaign – Buddhist Yogis Thrive

by making a donation now!

In 2017 we have many programs planned – we have two new online classes led by me every month – Dakini Day and Dzogchen Day. This will allow me to guide you in meditation practice on a regular basis. It will also allow us to converse together as a community on a regular basis. I am so excited about this! We also have three trainings planned and of course our annual Dzogchen retreat. But none of this will be sustainable without donations. Tuition for programs covers only a fraction of the cost of these events. It is easy to donate online now to support Ngakpa International.

Our fundraising goal is $18,000 by January 1st 2017. So far we have raised $2750 and we have $1650 to go! Making a donation is joyful – giving is the new getting!

If you aren’t already, please become a member or consider upgrading your membership level to provide ongoing support. Click here to view our new membership structure. You may also wish to include Ngakpa International in an endowment to ensure that our activities continue into the future.

Thank you to all of you who have donated and volunteered in 2017. It is the great joy of my life to study dharma alongside you.

Yours always,
Pema Khandro

Join the joyful Community of Buddhist Yogis in Berkeley

for an evening of Prayer, Practice and Celebration

of our Lama Pema Khandro Rinpoche’s Birthday!

White Tara Meditation with Gyaldak Rinpoche
&
Birthday Celebration for Pema Khandro Rinpoche