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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…

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.

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

September 3, 2021 by BuddhistYogis

Dear Friends and Members,

Congratulations and a hearty thank you to all who have helped raise the first segment of the 2021 Dakini Mountain Fundraising goal, $15,500. We have done it!

Dakini Mountain is the new Buddhist Retreat Center in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Northern California founded by Pema Khandro.

The critical funds you donated will help keep Dakini Mountain fire safe through this fire season and beyond.

We are so fortunate to be able to meet and get the Buddhist teachings online in today’s world. If you came to all the online teachings provided by the Buddhist Studies Institute, you could attend one every day and an additional 4 or more per month with Pema Khandro Rinpoche. It’s an incredible resource for those who love Buddhism and want support in their practice.

Yes, the blessing of online teaching is miraculous and abundant, and at the same time, I can’t help but remember the unique power of in-person meetings with the Lama and other practitioners.

Attending a live empowerment with sonorous Tibetan trumpets, resounding drumbeats and ringing cymbals, combined with the sound of mantras, the visual display of mudras and the ensuing stillness is not easily duplicated.

Many of us have vivid memories of being at Dakini Mountain – extraordinary Dharma conversations on the Lodge patio; lying in the Dakini Mountain meadow looking up at the sky in Dzogchen sky gazing practice; dining, laughing and meditating together.

I hope we can all come to Dakini Mountain in the not too distant future and have these experiences again. If you haven’t already been there, I hope you will come. The next Dakini Mountain Retreat is planned for early June 2022.

In the meantime, critical financial support is needed to complete the overall Dakini Mountain fundraising goal of $50,000 for 2021.

These funds will be used to pay for essential maintenance, insurance and property tax. Perhaps these are not glamorous but they are absolutely necessary.

Please help by making a donation, large or small. You will be helping to keep Buddhism alive in today’s world.

Thank you! And I hope to see you at Dakini Mountain!

For more information about Dakini Mountain, visit www.DakiniMountain.org

Gifts can also be made by check, payable to Ngakpa International, and mailed to Dakini Mountain, P.O. Box 2396, Nevada City, California 95959, USA.

Ngakpa International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit EIN 68-0529687 and all gifts are tax deductible as allowed by law.

Wishing you joy and happiness,

2016FI_JanakKimmel_HeartofCompassion_Ngakpa

Janak

Director of Fundraising

Ngakpa International

Buddhist Studies Institute

Dakini Mountain Retreat Center

P.O. Box 2396

Nevada City, California 95946

USA

Dear Friends and Members,

Contact