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!
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…
I want to write to you personally, because these letters are, in a way, personal.
The empowerment weekend begins tomorrow.
I have been thinking, as this weekend approaches, about the students who have been receiving these emails for the past four weeks and have not yet decided. Some of you are longtime practitioners of the Nyingma tradition who already know you want this transmission and are simply choosing the moment. Some of you are practitioners of other traditions considering whether to take up something new. Some of you are newer to Buddhism and are asking whether this is the right entry point.
To each of you, differently, I want to say the same thing.
Vajrayogini has been carried in this lineage for over twelve hundred years. She was received by Yeshe Tsogyal in the eighth century. She was preserved by generations of yoginīs and treasure revealers across the centuries. This practice has come, through many hands, into the ones that will offer her to you this weekend.
The tradition holds that when a practitioner is drawn to a specific deity, that drawing is itself a sign. The deity is calling. The connection is old. What is being asked is only that the practitioner say yes.
For anyone who is asking whether this is the right entry point: yes, it is. This program is designed as a complete arc from the moment of empowerment through the four Monday evenings that ground the practice. Newcomers walk in beside longtime practitioners, and both are received, held and connected with one another.
If you have been drawn to this material, I hope you will say yes. If it is not the right moment, it is not the right moment, and there will be other openings. But if you have been circling this and waiting for permission, this is your permission!
The doors are open until the morning of the empowerment.
Vajrayogini Empowerment, Retreat & Program The Fierce Joyful Ḍākinī and the Yoginīs of Tibet Weekend Empowerment Retreat: Sat–Sun, October 10–11, 2026 Monday Evening Sessions: Oct 12, 19, 26, Nov 2 Vajrayogini Empowerment with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Teachings with Tulku Pema Khandro
The Lion-Faced Ḍākinī Retreat and Program The Wrathful Sacred Feminine and the Great Perfection Weekend Transmission and Retreat: Sat–Sun, Nov 7–8, 2026 Monday Evening Sessions: Nov 9, 16, 23, 30 with Tulku Pema Khandro
SAVE THE DATE – Dzogchen and the Body Longchenpa’s Treasury of Words and Meanings Sat & Sun December 5-6, 9am-1pm PT with David Germano, PhD and Pema Khandro, PhD
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