Pema Khandro is an internationally renowned teacher and scholar of Buddhist philosophy. Ordained in the Nyingma lineage, enthroned as a tulku, and trained as an academic, her teachings celebrate the dynamic coalescence of tradition and the modern context. She is the founder of Ngakpa International and its three projects: The Buddhist Studies Institute, Dakini Mountain and the Yogic Medicine Institute. In her work as a Buddhist teacher she is an authorized Lama and lineage holder of the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions and was enthroned to carry on the lineage of her predecessor, the first Pema Khandro, an early twentieth century yogini in Eastern Tibet. She has led a vibrant world-wide community since 1999. Through the Buddhist Studies Institute, she also offers a complete curriculum of training in Tibetan meditation and Buddhist Philosophy. She has a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, a Master’s degree specializing in Tibetan buddhism and she is currently completing her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia. Her scholarly research focuses on the history of Dzogchen and upon Women, Gender and Sexuality in Tibetan Buddhism.
For full bio and website, visit: PemaKhandro.org
Pema Khandro’s Extended Biography
Events with Pema Khandro
Women in Tantric Buddhism – Self Paced CourseOpen 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…
Buddhist Ethics - Self Paced CourseOpen 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!
Buddhism & Sexuality - Self Paced CourseOpen 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!
Bardo Teachings - Self Paced CourseOpen 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!
Vajrayogini Retreat & EmpowermentMay 3 - 5, 2024
Join us for this special event, the Vajrayogini Empowerment, an initiation into the inner tantra practice of generation stage meditation. Vajrayogini is the female buddha embodying radical presence. To practice Vajrayogini meditation is to cut through to innermost wisdom and innate clarity. This special weekend will feature three days of instructions, empowerment and meditations of Vajrayogini. It will be led by Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche who will give the empowerment and Tulku Pema Khandro, Ph.D, who will give the explanation and instructions. TRANSLATION We are honored to host the most excellent interpreter, Ina Bieler! The empowerment will be translated into…
Black Dakini Chod Retreat at Dakini MountainMay 31 - June 2, 2024
THE BLACK DAKINI CHOD TRADITION This is a Tibetan meditation which is a potent, dynamic practice for awakening compassion and facing death. It is a practice of healing through love towards one’s own mind; through releasing the fictive self, the dualism that caused the appearance of “other” dissolves and an expansive intelligence becomes available. Morning large group sessions will focus on the Black Dakini, the profound deity yoga meditation on the black wrathful dakini from the Jeweled Garland of Chod, (the Rinchen Trengwa) that was practiced by the first Pema Khandro and passed down from fourteenth century Tibet. This practice…
Choying Dzod: Treasury of SpaceJune 28 - 30, 2024
ཆོས་དབྱིངས་མཛོད Treasury of Space Khenpo Yeshi and Pema Khandro return for the next chapter of the Choying Dzod. 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 by the fourteenth…