Upcoming Events with Pema Khandro

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.

Offering the Illusory Body

Dakini Day Chod
Offering the Illusory Body

May 6th, 2021
San Francisco 1pm | New York 4pm | London 9pm | Sydney 6am
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This is a Tibetan meditation which is a potent, dynamic practice for cutting through fear and facing death. It is a practice of healing through ultimate compassion. The practice is the Dzogchen Chod, known as Khandro Geykyang, the Laugher of the Dakinis, the concise version. Rinpoche will lead the practice and discuss its meaning.

Donations Welcome ~ No one turned away for lack of funds.

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Saga Dawa Celebration

KhenpoGawang_PemaKhandro-copy

Saga Dawa Celebration

With Khenpo Gawang & Pema Khandro

Wednesday, May 26th, 6pm – 7:30pm PT

Saga Dawa is the most auspicious day of the Tibetan Buddhist Calendar and a day celebrated by Buddhists all around the world. It is the anniversary of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and the day he passed away into parinirvana. The effects of actions on this day are said to be multiplied by ten million times because of the spiritual power of this full moon on the fourth month of the lunar calendar. This year, the Saga Full Moon also takes place on an eclipse day. Join us for prayers and aspirations on this auspicious occasion.

Details Coming Soon

Save the Date

Vajrayogini Retreat

With Pema Khandro & Drupon Rinchen Dorje

June 4th, 6pm – June 6th, 6pm

Details Coming Soon

SELF-PACED COURSES

Tibetan Dream Yoga

Self-Paced Online Training with Pema Khandro

Considered the practice most similar to our experience at death, Dream Yoga is about navigating in the real and unreal aspects of our experience without falling asleep to awareness. It is a practice of recognizing the nature of our minds.

This Teaching focuses on the Tibetan Buddhist methods for navigating Dream, Waking Life, and Sleep.

Waking, dreaming, and deep sleep present transformations of perception and they highly the continuity and discontinuity of experience. Through recognizing the opportunities for meditative awareness in these states, we can understand our own minds and face all our experiences with greater presence. A teaching based on the Six Yogas of Naropa – which is a system of harnessing ordinary experience for awakening.

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ONLINE OPEN TEACHINGS

Daily Meditation – Online

Join our certified meditation instructors for a short free daily practice online. Each day meditation is followed by a brief discussion on Buddhist ethics.

Resuming in June

Excellent Path and Group Leader Training have been CANCELLED on Wednesday, May 26th, 2021, due to the Saga Dawa Celebration, and will resume in June.

MEMBERS-ONLY CLASSES

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1st and 2nd Wednesdays – Vajrayana Training with Pema Khandro

Bring a deep, engaged study of Buddhist Philosophy and practice into your life! Join this intimate study group for an ongoing study for students on the path of Vajrayana, led by Buddhist studies scholar, Pema Khandro.

This includes the study of Tantra and Great Perfection (Dzogchen) as it is traditionally explained in source texts of the Tibetan tradition. Students will read a combination of materials translated by Pema Khandro as well as works published in English Translation.

The course examines Vajrayana with multiple perspectives, considering how Vajrayana has been understood throughout history, how it is handed down traditionally today and how it engages with current paradigms. This is a non-sectarian class, with emphasis on approaches from the Nyingma school, but simultaneously offering a deliberate embrace of the numerous contesting views of Buddhist philosophy held by the various traditions of interpretation. This is a deep, traditional Buddhist study, without dogma, with ethics intact, in a community oriented towards thorough engagement with Buddhist texts and practice.

Vajrayana Training meets twice a month and includes meditation, lecture, discussion in small groups and in the whole class as well as question and answer period with Pema Khandro.

3rd Wednesdays – Ngakpa Training with Pema Khandro

In-depth study of the Ngakpa Tradition for students who have completed pre-requisites. These classes continue the study of Buddhist philosophy examining source texts and discussing the main points of living a Buddhist life.

Offering the Illusory Body

Dakini Day Chod Offering the Illusory Body

Saga Dawa Celebration

Save the Date

SELF-PACED COURSES

ONLINE OPEN TEACHINGS

MEMBERS-ONLY CLASSES

Contact

Dakini Day Chod
Offering the Illusory Body