Ngondro Mountain of Jewels + Dzogchen Retreat SEND 6/6

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…

Cutting Through Fear: Dzogchen Chod Retreat

With Pema Khandro

May 28 - June 1, 2025

May 28 - June 1 San Diego and Online In a world beset with fear, profound methods are needed to reclaim intrinsic wisdom and awaken innate courage. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies institute for a contemplation of fierce compassion through the annual Chod retreat, Troma Nagmo teachings, and an optional five month Comprehensive Chod intensive training to follow. Chod is the profound method of psychological transformation in esoteric Buddhism. Chod means cutting, referring to cutting through the fictions that cause fear, anxiety, and hesitations in one’s life.

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.

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Buddhist Studies Institute

Teaching Meditation
in a Multicultural World

Mondays 1 – 1:30pm, PDT
June 5, 12, 19, 2023

We are not practicing meditation in a monoculture!

This is not the same world that mindfulness was created in, awareness of race, class, and culture absolutely define the context of your meditation classes. Teaching in a way that minimizes harm requires acute sensitivity of the diversity that is present in your class.

Multicultural awareness involves appreciating the uniqueness of every student and what they can bring to the class. If you are not sure how to make your meditation class inclusive, this training is for you.

This series is led by Dr. Pema Khandro, Aruna Rig’dzin & Dr. Satya.

Geared towards supporting Meditation Instructors, this class is open to:

Meditation Instructors certified through the Buddhist Studies Institute
Students currently enrolled in the 180-hour Meditation Instructor Training curriculum offered through the Buddhist Studies Institute.
Meditation instructors who received their instruction and training through other programs and schools.

Dr. Pema Khandro will teach June 12th and the focus groups are June 5th and 19th led by Aruna Rig’dzin and Dr. Satya.

Mountain of Jewels

Ngondro Training Module 3 – Online with Pema Khandro

Starts Monday, June 19 – Online

5-6:30pm San Francisco (PDT)

8-9:30pm New York (EDT)

10-11:30am Sydney (AEST)

Mountain of Jewels addresses the mandala offering, the practice of discovering our vast resources and abundance through generosity. Through the mandala offering we learn to discover our sense of vast resources, interdependence and connection.

It is possible to join Ngondro Training at any time, and it can be taken in any order. Join current modules live and take previous modules at your own pace. This module will focus on Mountain of Jewels including Mandala Offering, Vajrayogini Practice and the Seven Line Prayer.

Annual Dzogchen Retreat: The Choying Dzod

with Khenpo Yeshi and Pema Khandro Rinpoche

August 4-6, 2023 – Online

10am – 11:30pm San Francisco (PDT)

1pm – 2:30pm New York (EDT)

Don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to receive transmission in one of the most important Dzogchen texts.

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, The Treasury of Basic Space is the quintessential Dzogchen text by the fourteenth century master, Longchenpa.

Join Buddhist Studies Institute for this special program taught online by two esteemed Dzogchen scholars, Khenpo Yeshi, and Dr. Pema Khandro. Experience the power of the coinciding of study and practice.

Why the World Needs Ngakpas

An Introduction to the History of Tibetan Buddhist Yogis – the Ngakpa Lineage by Dr. Pema Khandro

The Ngakpa tradition is important for the future of Buddhism. This tradition has a long history of literature and philosophy that is relevant to male and female practitioners. Buddhism outside institutions developed brilliant resources for a very direct access to spiritual experience and philosophical inquiry. Such practices are tailored towards the complex lives of people with jobs, families, children; it offers resources that a purely monastic celibate Buddhist lineage does not.