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 about what an empowerment actually is, because it is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Vajrayana practice, and because the tradition itself is precise about it in ways that make the question interesting rather than mystifying.
An empowerment, in Tibetan wang (dbang), literally means “power” or “authorization.” What it does is bring the practitioner into a specific lineage stream of a specific practice, so that the practice she then undertakes is not a private psychological exercise but a participation in something transmitted from teacher to student across the generations.
Without empowerment, one can read the texts of a deity practice. One can visualize the deity in a general way. One can recite the mantra. But the tradition holds that the specific transformative power of the practice, its capacity to bring about the awakening it describes, arrives through empowerment. The lineage stream itself is what carries the awakening. Empowerment is how a practitioner enters that stream.
For Vajrayogini, this matters especially, because her practice is one of the most powerful in the tantric tradition. And it is not a practice one enters through the printed word alone. Instead one enters into the relational stream of wisdom holders, whispered transmissions (lung), and rites of empowerment (wang).
The empowerment I am co-hosting with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche on October 10 and 11 is such an entry point.
Drupon Rinpoche has practiced Vajrayogini daily for decades. He was ordained by His Holiness Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang Rinpoche in 1995. He completed two traditional three-year retreats, one at Almora and one at Lapchi, the sacred cave where Milarepa practiced. He has been teaching at BSI annually since 2020. When he transmits the Vajrayogini empowerment, he is transmitting a lineage of Vajrayogini that he embodies.
Following the empowerment weekend, there are four Monday evening sessions with me. I will teach on the historical foundations of the yoginī tradition. The teachings of the Black Ḍākinī. The love and treasure-revealer yoginīs. The consorts of the esoteric Buddhist tradition. Everything I have been studying and receiving throughout my life poured into four evenings for anyone drawn to join.
You do not need to have practiced Vajrayana before to receive this empowerment. The empowerment itself creates the ground and we provide ample ngondro resources for those who want to follow with serious practice. What is asked of you is presence and intention, and the willingness to enter a lineage. Many of the practitioners who will be with us this October are entering Vajrayogini for the first time, others are on the journey to receiving the empowerment twenty-one times. All are welcome.
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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