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…
For anyone still considering whether to join us, here is a closer look at what we will do together in the empowerment weekend and the four Monday evenings that follow.
Saturday morning: The Empowerment. Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche opens the retreat with the Vajrayogini empowerment itself, transmitted in the traditional form. He will guide the participants through the visualization, the samaya commitments, and the entry into the lineage stream. This is the ritual heart of the retreat, and it is what the entire program is built around. The day will end with an hour long mantra accumulation led by Buddhist Studies Institute Umdze’s, the group practice leaders.
Sunday morning: Yeshe Tsogyal’s Opening of the Vajrayogini Lineage. This is a class with me. We turn from the empowerment itself to the eighth-century woman whose visions opened this lineage into the Tibetan tradition. Her biography. Her secret visions. The transmission she carried, and how that transmission comes down through the lineage into what we are receiving now.
Sunday afternoon: Vajrayogini as the Sacred Feminine. This is also a class with me. A guide to the practice led by me as well as a practice session from beginning to end in English. We will study why the tantras describe Vajrayogini as both wrathful and joyful. What Vajrayogini specifically offers that other yidams do not.
The Four Monday Evenings. Also led by me. Foundations of the yoginī tradition in Tibetan Buddhism (October 12). The teachings of the Black Ḍākinī and the Chöd lineage of Machig Labdrön (October 19). Love and the treasure-revealer yoginīs (October 26). Consorts in esoteric Buddhism (November 2).
You will receive, over the arc of these four weeks: the empowerment itself; the lineage story from Yeshe Tsogyal forward; the theological foundations of the sacred feminine in Vajrayana; access to over eighteen self-paced video teachings on the Vajrayogini practice from my previous transmissions; a full year of recordings you can return to at your own pace; and a community of practitioners walking this path with you.
The program is open to everyone and complete in itself. No prior background in Tibetan Buddhism is required, though anyone who has practiced Vajrayana before will find this a natural deepening. The material is presented with full context and accessibility for newcomers alongside depth for longtime practitioners. Those who wish to take on Vajrayogini as a daily practice and to accumulate the 100,000 mantras will be advised to do ngondro first and we will offer that course again for you next year. Wherever you are entering from, this program is designed to meet you there and carry you forward.
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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