Ngondro Mountain of Jewels – Starts Today! SEND 6/19

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…

Meditation Teacher Training 2026

With Pema Khandro, Dr. Satya and Aruna Rig'dzin

January 26 - June 27, 2026

Equanimity, calm, peace, inner strength, resilience, centeredness… there are so many reasons the world needs meditation teachers. Meditation Teachers can offer important tools for relating to these tumultuous times. Meditation promotes mindfulness and equanimity – the ability to let emotional states arise and pass without becoming overwhelming. With mindfulness, we are able to become aware of our mind-states, rather than carried away by them. It promotes the state of equanimity, the ability to respond skillfully to situations. Instead of responding with knee-jerk reactions, blame, resentment and anger we can choose healthier responses, such as loving-kindness and compassion. "The new…

Buddha Nature: Longchenpa’s Treasury of Words and Meaning

With Pema Khandro and Dr David Germano

February 6 - 8, 2026

Join us for a transformative weekend with scholars-and-practitioners of the highest calibre. In this immersive course, we dive into the luminous heart of the Dzogchen tradition through the lens of the great fourteenth-century master Longchenpa. His seminal work, the Tshig-dön mDzöd (The “Treasury of Words and Meaning”), offers a profound mapping of the mind’s nature, the ground of reality, and the path of awakening. Guided by David F. Germano — distinguished Tibetologist whose scholarship illuminates Longchenpa’s philosophical architecture. And by Tulku Pema Khandro, Ph.D.— a recognized lineage holder in the Nyingma-Kagyu streams, bridging deep contemplative practice with academic clarity. Together, they will…

Closed

June 19, 2023 by Buddhist Yogis

*|MC:SUBJECT|*

*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*

Buddhist Studies Institute

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)

Join the community for an experience the perfection of wealth, gratitude, and inner resources.

Mountain of Jewels is the course that addresses the mandala offering meditation. This is 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.

This is part of a series of ngondro meditations. What are Ngondro meditations? Ngondro meditations are the foundational practices for purifying, training and empowering the body-mind. They form the basis of Vajrayana meditation and serve as the foundation for the highest practices of the nature of mind. Ngondro means ‘before going.’ In traditional Vajrayana practice, it represents the cognitive, physical, emotional and philosophical components which are keys to the practice liberation. These are done before engaging in Tantra or Dzogchen practices in order to set a stable foundation.

Because of the self-paced videos that are available, 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.

Teachings on Karma

with Pema Khandro

June 21st – July 10th, 2023

In its original traditions, meditation practice is shaped by views of karma. This course takes you beyond stereotypes of karma to understand the vision of mind, karma and transformation that led to the development of Buddhist meditation in its indigenous contexts.

Geared towards supporting Meditation Instructors, this class is open to meditation instructors from any tradition, or those interested in teaching meditation. It is also offered as part of the 180-hour Meditation Instructor Training curriculum offered through the Buddhist Studies Institute.

The Basic Space of Being Dzogchen Retreat
With Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi

August 4-6, 2023 – Online

10am – 11:30pm San Francisco (PDT)

1pm – 2:30pm New York (EDT)

Beyond effort and achievement is the state of natural ease, the basic space of being. How to effortlessly find this innate expanse is the focus of a profound Buddhist text known as The Treasury of Basic Space, The Choying Dzod (chos dbyings rin po che’i mdzod), the quintessential Dzogchen text written by the great fourteenth center Dzogchen master, Longchenpa. It refers to cho ying, the expanse of reality and pure experience of meaningfulness as the revelation of the ground of being.

“Choying Dzod is the meaning of the innate nature of mind, dharmakaya.

It elucidates naked primordial wisdom,

without affirming or negating anything.

It is the heart essence of the visions
of the Omniscient Lama Longchen Rabjam.

It is the most profound of all profound teachings.

It is the vivid arising of pure dharmakaya as the teaching.

This excellent teaching is a living buddha.

It fulfills the Buddha’s activities in this world.

It manifests the absolute vision of the Buddha.

Even if you were to see the Buddha in person,
there would not be [any] greater teaching than this.”

– Paltrul Rinpoche

The Treasury of Basic Space is a manual for meditation and liberation, as well as being a text that one reads to a dying person to introduce them to the nature of mind at death. Read during dying, The Treasury of Basic Space offers the crucial support at the most important time, by guiding the dying person to realize the nature of mind. Indeed, The Treasury of Basic Space has been read at the time of death of many great Dzogchen masters.

The Treasury of Basic Space details the elements of breakthrough meditation (trek cho), instructions which cut through misunderstandings of emptiness and point to the vivid wakefulness of sublime knowing.

Join Buddhist Studies Institute for this special program taught online by Khenpo Yeshi, Dzogchen Nyingthig scholar and Drikung Kagyu teacher and Dr. Pema Khandro, Dzogchen scholar, lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma tradition. The three days of online classes will include the lung, the oral initiation into this profound text by Khenpo Yeshi, study, and practice led by Khenpo Yeshi and Dr. Pema Khandro.

Tummo Practice

for Vajrayana Training Participants

June 23, 2023 5-5:30pm PST

and

Ngakpa Training Discussion Group

June 23, 2023 5:30 PM-6:30 PM PST

Lead by De’dzin Drolma and Namkhai Jigdral

Tummo (Tib. གཏུམ་མོ་, Wyl. gtum mo) is the spiritual practice of ‘inner heat’, one of the the ‘root of the path’ techniques of Tibetan Vajrayana, according to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

Join De’dzin Drolma and Namkhai Jigdral on the fourth Wednesday of the month for this accent practice that involves raising the body temperature to new levels using a combination of visualization, breathwork, and muscle tensing. Paying focused attention to the breath can help beginner and expert meditators by bringing them back to the present moment and reducing the influence of the “monkey mind“.

What is Karma?

pt. 2 with Pema Khandro

Pema Khandro discusses the Tibetan Buddhist idea of Karma in two parts.

Part two focuses on the idea of “karmic vision,” habitual ways of interpreting our world that get in the way of direct communication with reality and direct communication others.

Watch Here