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!
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!
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!
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…
Ngondro presents the core practices of Buddhist psychology, working with core needs in identity, relationality, forgiveness and repair, resources and the sense of empowerment. Join Pema Khandro and the Buddhist Studies Institute for a journey into Ngondro, the core practice of Buddhist tantra. All of the ngondro meditations are highly psychological and psycho-physical. They deal with the fundamental issues of a spiritual life, ones identity, body, relationships, past and future. Intrinsic Wisdom. This module focuses on the key theme of Vajrayana, which is empowerment, to experience the power of the indestructible buddhanature within oneself. It begins with Vajrayogini meditation and the…
About the Advanced Meditation Teacher Training Take meditation teaching to the next level by receiving an Advanced Meditation Teacher Certificate from the Buddhist Studies Institute. There is an urgent need for Meditation teachers who have rigorous, in-depth training beyond Mindfulness techniques. Mindfulness has opened the door to meditation in every possible setting from elementary schools to board rooms. This has left a gap for those interested in Buddhist meditation and Buddhist traditions; students want to learn more and need expert teachers to guide them. This course focuses on the teaching of three core practices to introduce students to the Buddhist…
The Six Yogas Intensive is a six week training which includes in-depth training in the most cherished esoteric practices of Tibetan Buddhism. This course addresses the core issues facing a life, and presents potent methods for integrating spiritual practice into every day life. The system includes meditations for living, dreaming, and dying. It features the practice of Tummo, or Inner Fire meditation, Illusory Body practice, Dream Yoga, Clear Light Meditation, Bardo, the dying practices and Phowa, the transference of consciousness at the time of death. Each practice is part of an overarching system for experiencing liminality, change, and uncertainty in…
ཆོས་དབྱིངས་མཛོད Join us for the 4th installation of the Choying Dzod, with Dr. Pema Khandro and Khenpo Yeshi Unwavering Natural Lucidity 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…
Join us for the 21 Taras. The twenty-one taras is a sublime chanting meditation and praise of the forms of the female Bodhisattva Tara, each one a contemplation of all the forms of compassion ranging from gentle to fierce. This event explores the outer, inner and secret meaning of the twenty-one taras. This will be a joyous fundraiser in honor of our beloved Pema Khandro Rinpoche’s birthday. Wednesday, December 4th 6 pm pt | 9 pm et
5pm PT San Francisco | 8pm ET New York | 11am AET Sydney
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. This includes recorded lectures, and conversations with experts in caregiving, hospice, Buddhist ministry, Tibetan Buddhist history, and scientific research on reincarnation. It also includes a self-paced training in Buddhist funerary practices, known as Zhitro, led by Pema Khandro.
Fri Nov 3rd – Kunzang Monlam with Pema Khandro
Sat Nov 4th – The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Beginners: A Guide to Living and Dying, with Lama Lhanang Rinpoche and discussion with Pema Khandro
Sun Nov 5th, 9-10:30am PT – Rainbow Body with Father Tiso
Sun Nov 5th – Zhitro for Departed Loved Ones with Pema Khandro
5pm PT San Francisco | 8pm ET New York | 11am AET Sydney
“Use the 100 days to try to evoke a contemplative life…this may be something you don’t feel like doing, your attention span may be conditioned otherwise, and it may take some kind of effort, but it is a way of creating sovereignty and reclaiming sovereignty over our attention span.” ~ Pema Khandro
The Season of Practice is held each year starting November 1st – Tibetan Lunar New Year (Losar).
9am PST San Francisco | 12pm EST New York | 5pm GMT London
The Heart Sutra for more than two thousand years has been chanted daily by Buddhists around the world. Known as Prajnaparamita, the Heart Sutra, powerfully illuminates the path of freedom from suffering. The Heart Sutra contemplates the way we perceive, and what is beyond what our dualistic assumptions portray. This course with Lama Pema Khandro & Shughin Roshi explores the Heart Sutra from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective including the pivotal teachings of the four extreme mistakes on the spiritual path, discovery of one’s true nature and one’s true purpose.
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.
The Meditation Instructor Training supplies the fundamental knowledge and experience necessary to lead meditation classes and one-day meditation intensives.
3 Modules
Traditional Meditation
Teaching Practicum
Teaching Ethics
This training is a pre-requisite for the Chaplaincy Certificate offered summer of 2024.
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.