Celebrate the Lunar New Year with Gyaldak Rinpoche & Pema Khandro

Upcoming Events

Bardo Teachings – Self Paced Course

With Pema Khandro, Father Francis Tiso, Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, Chagdud Khadro, Shugen Roshi, Julie Rogers, Jim Tucker, M.D., Koshin Paley Ellison and Dr. William McGrath

Open Dates

Teachings on Death and Dying Facing realities of dying, death, and grief are central to our human experience. This program offers practical instructions for helping others in the process of dying and an overview of essential knowledge on death, bardo, and rebirth. This includes self-paced lectures on dying, loss, grief, and illness from Lamas and scholars of Buddhist Studies. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for these precious teachings. Your contribution, big and small, helps makes in-depth Buddhist training and education more accessible for all. May the teachings spread and flourish!

Buddhism & Sexuality – Self Paced Course

With Dr. Nicole Willock, Julie Regan, Ph.D., Pema Khandro, Lama Willa Miller, Amy Langenberg , Dr. Ann Gleig, Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, Lama Rod Owens, Dr. Jim Hopper, Dr. Elizabeth Call and Damchö Diana Finnegan

Open Dates

Join Pema Khandro and a group of esteemed Buddhist Studies scholars for an exploration of the history of Buddhist Sexualities from celibacy, to sacred sexuality in Buddhist Tantra and a simple approach to embodied integration with nature in Dzogchen. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for these precious teachings. Your contribution, big and small, helps makes in-depth Buddhist training and education more accessible for all. May the teachings spread and flourish!

Buddhist Ethics – Self Paced Course

With Pema Khandro

Open Dates

This course on Buddhist Ethics goes through the Five Buddhist Precepts. The five precepts form the basis of a Buddhist way of life and the vows that Buddhists Seek to follow. The Five Precepts are a discipline of freedom, honor, and precision that cover the potent themes of life from the extraordinary perspective of non-duality. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for these precious teachings. Your contribution, big and small, helps makes in-depth Buddhist training and education more accessible for all. May the teachings spread and flourish!

Women in Tantric Buddhism – Self Paced Course

With Holly Gayley, Judith Simmer-Brown, Sarah Jacoby, Amy Langenberg , Damchö Diana Finnegan, Venerable Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Pema Khandro

Open Dates

This is the missing history of women in Tantric Buddhism. This course addresses the fascinating story of nuns, mothers, teachers, consorts, prophets, and disciples. Taught by scholar-practitioners whose groundbreaking research on women and Buddhism has changed the way we think of Buddhist history. This course will address the history of women in Buddhism, the history of yoginis and dakinis in India and Tibet, the stories of important Buddhist women, Buddhist philosophy on gender, sex, and sexuality, and the role of the consort in historical Tibet, and contemporary manifestations and so much more. Support the Buddhist Studies Institute by donating for…

Awakening Innate Wisdom: 21 Semdzin Dzogchen Retreat

With Pema Khandro

August 6 - 10, 2025

In-person in San Diego, and Online This retreat provides a rare opportunity to receive authentic guidance in these essential Dzogchen methods within a supportive environment conducive to deep practice. Through direct instruction, guided sessions, and periods of integration, participants will learn how these seemingly simple yet profound techniques can cut through ordinary conceptual mind to reveal what has been present from the beginning – one’s own intrinsic wisdom. Join us to explore how the Semdzins—practices not of concentration or fabrication, but of discovery—can open doors to experiencing the natural perfection that is our primordial condition, with practical applications that…

Choying Dzod Online: Awakening to the Expanse

With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

September 5 - 7, 2025

Join us for the 6th installation of the Choying Dzod, with Dr. Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi Awakening to the Expanse 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…

February 20, 2017 by Khandro News

Join Gyaldak Rinpoche and Pema Khandro Rinpoche to celebrate the Tibetan New Year ( the lunar new year), known as Losar.

Saturday, February 25th from 11am – 12:30pm
2328 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

We will practice the Milarepa meditation, prayer and feast practice (tsok).

This is a Tibetan meditation and prayer which involves visualizations, mantras and recitation of the Milarepa Tsok liturgy. Tsok means ‘gathering’ or feast – it is a central practice of Buddhist Tantra. Tsok is used to accumulate merit, set in motion positive momentum for one’s spiritual life, clear negative karma and strengthen one’s connections with the Buddhist teachings, teachers and community.

Participants should bring a dish of food or drink to share with everyone at a Tsok. You may also bring kombucha tea, red wine, flowers, money offerings or butterlamps. In a Tsok, all the food is shared during a break in the prayer. It is similar to a potluck in that everyone shares the food they bring in a great feast. However, unlike an ordinary potluck, in the Tsok, there are prayers and visualizations. Through the combination of praying, meditation, feasting and sharing, we connect with the buddha-nature of everyone in attendance.

What kind of food should I bring?
Traditionally one brings unopened food (which one has not eaten yet) and one brings wonderful, favorite foods to symbolize giving what is most precious as an act of generosity. *This is a vegetarian tsok, so all the food should be vegetarian.

This is an open program held on Saturday, February 25th from 11am – 12:30pm. All are welcome.

To register or for more information visit:

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