Upcoming Events

Prices
  • $195.00 to $360.00

Date & Time Details: June 2-5th, 9am - 12pm PST 12pm - 3pm EST (UTC-7)

Location: Online

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Vajrayogini Retreat Online with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Pema Khandro

With Pema Khandro and Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche

June 2 - 5, 2022

Vajrayogini Retreat
Online with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Pema Khandro 
June 2-5th
9am – 12pm PST 

Join us for this special event, the Vajrayogini Empowerment, an initiation into the inner tantra practice of generation stage meditation ~ led by Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Lama Pema Khandro.

Vajrayogini is the female buddha embodying radical presence. To practice Vajrayogini meditation is to cut through to innermost wisdom and innate clarity. 

This exceptional program will feature four mornings of instructions, empowerment and meditations of Vajrayogini. It will be led by Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche who will give the empowerment and Lama Pema Khandro who will give the instructions for practice.

We are honored to host the most excellent interpreter, Ina Bieler! The empowerment will be translated into lucid and easy to understand English.

This retreat is offered online for the special occasion of the celebration of Saga Dawa and the anniversary of Dakini Mountain, a pilgrimage site for Vajrayogini in the Lake Tahoe National Forest of Northern California.

Join us for the most auspicious time of year to do meditation, the month of Saga Dawa, celebrating the anniversary of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and passing away into parinirvana.

More About this Retreat
The Vajrayogini Meditations taught in this retreat include
1) the torma offering song from the Dakini’s Heart Essence (the mkha’ ‘gro snying thig) known as Calling the 100,000 Dakinis

2) The Drukpa Kagyu concise generation stage Vajrayogini practice empowerment

3) The Drukpa Kagyu concise generation stage Vajrayogini practice instructions

What is Vajrayogini Meditation

The Vajrayogini meditations are skillful methods from Vajrayana Buddhism, also known as Tibetan Buddhism. Vajrayogini meditation is practiced by all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, because it is considered a key to esoteric contemplative experience. To practice Vajrayogini meditation, an empowerment is required, which will be generously offered by Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche. An empowerment is an initiation into a practice and confers the blessing and power of the lineage that activates the highest potential of the practice.

About Vajrayogini Meditation (excerpt from Pema Khandro’s explanation)

Vajrayogini meditation demonstrates that emptiness is not a nihilistic void but a vivid and visceral open presence. It is a body, speech and mind meditation of generating one’s own field of experience within the dimension of Vajrayogini’s body and mind. Vajrayogini’s visage is the domain through which innate wisdom is disinhibited. Every element of her appearance invokes a way of being that is the indestructible vehicle. Her left leg is straight and her right leg is bent in warrior posture, demonstrating her relentless ability to show up to present moment with fierce compassion. She is dancing with an aura of flames, an apocalyptic fire that transforms everything into bodhichitta, the altruistic enlightened intent. She holds a hook knife, demonstrating her ability to separate delusion from wisdom…

Pre-requisites: This event is open to the public. In order to practice the generation stage Vajrayogini meditation, Drupon Rinpoche requires that one must have completed the ngondro, or preliminary practices, of Vajrayana first. One may, however, receive the empowerment and teachings before completing ngondro to receive the blessing and prepare for later practice and to build a strong dharma connection with Vajrayogini. To do the practice in an ongoing way to accumulate the mantra, one has to have completed ngondro first. However, the Vajrayogini meditation given on the first day, Calling the 100,000 Dakinis,  may be engaged regardless of having completed ngondro or not.

Retreat Format
Thursday, Jun 2nd – Sunday, June 5th 2022
9am – 12pm PST / 12pm – 3pm EST (UTC-7)

This retreat will be offered on Zoom, an online platform for group gathering.
Participants will need a comfortable, quiet place to sit as well as a computer and internet access.

Participants will receive link to join on completion of registration and admission is approved. Links will also be sent 24hrs and 1hr before the start time each day

Please email info@buddhiststudiesinstitute.org if you have any questions.


Tuition

Sliding Scale $195-$360

Financial Aid Considerations The course costs are set at a minimum fee already, with financial aid built into all tuition rates. Because we are a non-profit organization, the costs of all activities and overhead of our organization must be covered by the participants of the courses or donations and all courses are offered at below cost. For those who are experiencing genuine financial hardship and wish to enroll in the course, Scholarship applications are available. Applications must be received in advance. Programs are always free for monastics.  

Submit Financial Aid Scholarship Application Here

 

Leaders

Pema Khandro
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…
Learn more about Pema Khandro
Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche
Drupon Rinpoche received teachings on the Fivefold Path of Mahamudra and Kunsang Lama’s Words of Profound Instruction, Dzogchen’s Great Completion Parting from Samsara and Nirvana, Pointing Out the Nature of Mind, and other teachings from Tulku Nyendrak Gyaltsen Rinpoche. Rinpoche has also received Chakrasamvara according to Drilbupa, including the empowerment, scriptural transmission, and pith instructions from Tulku Thogme Rinpoche. Drupon Rinchen Dorjee joined the Drikung Kagyu Institute in 1993, and has received instruction in philosophy, Gongchig, Theckchen Tenying, Dhagpo Thargyan, and Uttaratantra from Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen and other profound teachers of the Lineage. In 1995 Drupon received full ordination vows…
Learn more about Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche