Buddhist Yogis News

Pema Khandro and Buddhist Yogis News Archive

Letter from 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!
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…
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Fierce Compassion: Comprehensive Chod Training

With Pema Khandro

June 9 - October 13, 2025
Embark on a transformative five-month journey into the heart of Dzogchen Chod with Tulku Pema Khandro, Ph.D. and the Buddhist Studies Institute. This comprehensive Chod training offers a rare opportunity for an in-depth immersion in the Dzogchen Chod system, Healing Chod, and the Secret Black Dakini Teachings. Take your Chod practice to the next level and cultivate fierce compassion and psychological transformation while studying the Tibetan tradition.
Register now

Breakthrough Retreat (Tekchod)

With Pema Khandro

June 27 - 29, 2025
Breakthrough Retreat Online with Pema Khandro   June 27-29. 9am-12 pst, each day.   In the protected space of retreat, we will investigate the essence of Breakthrough—learning to allow thoughts and emotions to self-liberate without suppression or engagement, discovering the spaciousness that remains when we release our habitual grasping. This retreat will be led online by Dzogchen teacher and scholar, Pema Khandro. Each day will include study and practice of  breakthrough practice, Trekchö (ཁྲེགས་ཆོད་, sometimes transliterated as “tekcho”), from the Heart Essence of the Dakinis
Register now

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ENERGY AND POWER

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Dear Dharma Friends,

I turned on the news the other day and found out there was a Tsunami advisory on the West coast. Dakini Mountain is far from the coast, but it was another example of how we are in a time of multiple crisis, from the pandemic to climate change, to personal health and social change. Challenges are a part of life, and there are times like these when it is the governing theme of life, when uncertainty is more apparent. Which is why it makes perfect sense that Tibetan Buddhists spend so much time and effort training to have a stable, calm mind whatever arises – a mind that is not dull and stuck but is flexible, adaptive, present enough to be responsive. One of our primary ways of training for this in Buddhist tantra is a meditation series called “ngondro.” It is a hard-core meditation series, it takes six to nine months to complete though some people take years or even decades. It includes forty thousand to four hundred thousand repetitions of various mind, body techniques and prayers. Great yogis would even then repeat the ngondro series again, once, twice, some say it is ideal to do it four or five times. I met nuns living on a mountain top in Nepal who had done the ngondro series eleven times!  Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said that trying to do good in the world without first doing ngondro is like trying to build a palace on a frozen lake – because we cannot do good for others without having a firm foundation. Why do Tibetan Buddhists value this type of meditation training so much? Why not just do Calm Abiding? I believe it is because of the value there is on energy and power in Buddhist tantra. The idea is that one must deal with one’s own fundamental obstructions and untie one’s own knots in order to be in a clear state, the type of clarity that is required to show up in the world. In Tibetan Buddhism our greatest value is kindness and love, but these are not simple states to maintain, we have to train. Ngondro is the ideal training because we exercise and express our wisdom energies, letting go of our fictive self to find the expanse within which kindness is possible and is authentic. It also addresses a fundamental concern of tantra, which is how we are with our identity. According to Buddhism, ordinarily, human beings live in states of grasping and self-clinging. The model in Buddhism instead is a model of interdependence and care. For tantra it is additionally a matter of creativity, of engagement with sacred energies like the Buddhas, bodhisatttvas, Dakinis and other wisdom beings. The practices of tantric meditation are contemplations that these buddhas live within us as our very own innermost mind. So that way identity shifts from a locked, dualistic prison to be a domain of display, of creative altruism, an axis of liberation. As Thinley Norbu Rinpoche said, “Fish play in water, birds play in the sky, ordinary beings play on earth. Sublime beings play in display.” I often think of this when I think about the purpose of ngondro, which works in such a deep way with how we know ourselves, with what we know ourselves to be. Ngondro is a process of refuge, resource, healing and empowerment so that we can begin to play in the display of how we are in the world.
 
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. 
 
We have been fortunate to continue ngondro through the pandemic via the Buddhist Studies Institute. We had our first online training with the Iron Mice, the group who started ngondro in the year of the Iron Mice and completed it during the pandemic. Congratulations Iron Mice! Some of the Iron Mice will continue to join us again this year. This year, we will also start a new group, the Water Tigers, who will begin and complete ngondro together during the pandemic and beyond into the after times. For this year’s group we have expanded support, weekly ngondro practice meetings and we will also continue to offer practice partners. You are warmly invited to join us, there is always a place for you here.
 
Praying for your good health and for everyone you know to also be healthy or recover swiftly. 
 
May we meet at Dakini Mountain,
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NGONDRO TRAINING STARTS JAN 24TH!

2022 Ngondro Generic

2022 is the year you will finally finish Ngondro!
HEART OF THE VAST EXPANSE
 
Begins January 24th, 2022
 
Self-Paced Classes
Live Webinars
Weekly Practice Group

Register Here

Meditation is more than you think! Tibetan Buddhists engage in meditation as a dynamic system for identity transformation, healing from the past, changing karma and generating resilient compassion. Ngondro is pillar of Vajrayana meditation engaging with all the techniques that central to Buddhist Tantra. But Ngondro can be extremely difficult to complete by oneself. It is a practice best done with expert guidance and community support. In 2022, the Ngondro Training is being offered in an expanded program with extra support – weekly Monday night meetings plus live webinars and self paced material. 

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Join the Ngondro Training at the first Live Webinar Class with Pema Khandro on January 24th, 2022. Then get all your questions answered in the quarterly live classes with Pema Khandro.

Live Webinars and Self-Paced Learning

with Pema Khandro

Ngondro self-paced classes and live webinars will be led by Lama Pema Khandro, scholar and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. Khandro-la’s teachings emphasize Buddhist philosophy and practice from a trauma-informed, feminist perspective that engages tradition with the great questions of our time. Classes with Pema Khandro will be given by self-paced videos and live meetings once a quarter, with practice sessions led in between by Tsalgyur.

Register Here

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New for 2022:
Monday Nights
Ngondro Practice
Led by Tsalgyur

Ngondro students can enjoy support to accomplish the accumulations with a weekly online practice group. It is optional to join with your ngondro community every Monday night in Ngondro practice led by Tsalgyur. 

 

Also, foster a community through signing up for an accountability partner to support each other through the journey. 

About Tsal’gyur Dorje Tsalgyur has been studying with Pema Khandro since 2005. She is the Membership Co-ordinator and Registrar for the Buddhist Studies Institute and has been on the leadership team for Ngakpa International since 2012. Tsal’gyur is a certified Yoga Instructor, Meditation Teacher, and Teaching Assistant in the school. Having danced professionally for 10 years, she now teaches ballet, yoga, and meditation in group classes and private lessons.

Register Here

THE WORLD NEEDS MEDITATION TEACHERS MORE THAN EVER

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Meditation Instructor Training 2022

With Pema Khandro, Aruna Rig’dzen, & Dr. Satya

 

150 Hour Certification Training

Begins March 26, 2022

 

The Meditation Instructor 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.

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.

Learn More

UPCOMING EVENTS & OTHER NEWS

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Daily & Weekly Programs

January

February

March – Next MIT begins in March!

As more details roll out for our Upcoming Events, please visit the Event List Here.

SELF-PACED COURSES

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A Return to Sanity
Buddhist Ethics
with Pema Khandro
 
Self-Paced Course Online
Open Teaching – No Prerequisites
 
This course focuses on tantric interpretations of the Five Buddhist Precepts. The Five Precepts are a discipline of freedom, honor, openness and precision that cover the potent themes of life from the uncommon, extraordinary perspective of non-duality. 
 
Topics covered in this course include:
  • Buddhist theories about vegetarian lifestyle vs. meat-eating, 
  • Buddhist perspectives on alcohol and drug use, 
  • Conscious use of sexual energy, Buddhist philosophy about desire
  • Handling resources, money and spirituality
  • Honesty, and the speech that takes us beyond confusion.
 

PEMA KHANDRO NEW ARTICLE ON LION’S ROAR

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Breaking Open in the Bardo
By Pema Khandro Rinpoche | January 2, 2022
 
It’s when we lose the illusion of control – when we’re most vulnerable and exposed – that we can discover the creative potential of our lives. Pema Khandro Rinpoche explains four essential points for understanding what it means to let go, and what is born when we do. 

Contact

Email: info@BuddhistYogis.org