Chakrasamvara Empowerment & Teachings

Embodying Natural Heroism – with Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Pema Khandro

The live course took place April 7-9, 2023

Recordings are now available for Retreat Participants, Snow Lion Members and All Access Pass Members

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Course Details
Chakrasamvara Empowerment is an initiation into the inner tantra practice of generation stage meditation, led by Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche and Lama Pema Khandro. This exceptional program features instructions, empowerment, and meditations of Chakrasamvara. 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.

What is Chakrasamvara Meditation

The Chakramsamvara meditation focuses on the non-dual union of the great hero and heroine, Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini (as Vajravarahi). They are the two key deities of esoteric Buddhist meditation. This is the practice that raises the innate wisdom to persevere, even in the face of tremendous difficulties. As the great hero, Chakrasamvara calls forward innate stability and skill. As the wheel of great bliss, Chakrasamvara calls forward the joy of non-dual union of male and female energies within being.

Deity Yoga

Tibetan tantric meditation unravels the root of suffering through addressing the mind’s relationship with self and identity. Through the deity yoga practice (yidam), tantric meditations provide a direct and potent pathway way to go beyond the limiting concept of self to disinhibit the profound wisdom within. By understanding the transformative potential of how things appear in deity yoga, one enters into a direct an experiential engagement with the view of emptiness and appearance as co-emergent, non-dual, and the basis of liberation. This wisdom is not created or constructed, it is the authentic, uncontrived wisdom that lives within being. This is not merely a mental exercise but instead, it is a transformation of embodied experience. By stabilizing deity yoga in one’s body and mind, the inner wisdom manifests as the felt sense of pervasive presence.

About the Teachers

Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche

Tibetan Lama & Spiritual Director of Chicago Ratna Shri Center

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 from His Holiness Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche, and in the same year accomplished the ngondro practices to mahamudra and the grand mantra recitation of Chakrasamvara. In 1996, he received initiation into the Profound Path of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Drupon Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche has completed two (2) three-year retreat courses, one at Almora and one at Labchi, the holy retreat place of the great yogi, Milarepa. He has received profound instructions too numerous to mention during these retreats. In 2005, he received the five-deities Hevajra according to Marpa’s tradition of empowerment, transmission and instructions from His Holiness the Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche, and in 2006 he completed the grand mantra recitation of glorious Hevajra’s fire puja at the Almora retreat center.

Pema Khandro, PhD

Founder of the Buddhist Studies Institute

Pema Khandro is an internationally renowned teacher and scholar of Buddhist philosophy. 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 from 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 studies, and a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Virginia. Her scholarly research focuses on the history of Dzogchen and on Women in Tibetan Buddhism.

Prerequisites

This event is open to the public. In order to practice the generation stage Chakrasamvara 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 Chakrasamvara. To do the practice in an ongoing way to accumulate the mantra, one has to have completed ngondro first. For more info on how to complete ngondro with the Buddhist Studies Institute: Ngondro Training