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Wisdom Dharma Chat | Khandro Rinpoche

June 9, 2025

In this special episode of Wisdom Dharma Chats, host Daniel Aitken welcomes Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche for an open and insightful conversation on the nature of interdependence, the power of connecting with a teacher, their and your authentic presence in spiritual life, and much more.

With clarity and humor, Khandro Rinpoche reflects on how all experiences—joyful and painful alike—arise through the web of dependent origination. She offers a compelling vision of compassion grounded in reality, where happiness is seen as a shared aspiration and suffering as a condition we can transform through wisdom. The conversation weaves together timeless Buddhist teachings with contemporary challenges, touching on themes such as identity and the innate potential for awakening in ourselves and others.

As the conversation deepens, Khandro Rinpoche offers profound reflections on key elements of the bodhisattva path: wisdom and compassion. She shares how these two realizations support each other in practice and are indispensable for anyone seeking to move beyond conceptual understanding and toward genuine inner transformation. Her insights illuminate how the cultivation of great compassion must be inseparable from the direct understanding of emptiness, if we are to bring lasting benefit to ourselves and others.

Khandro Rinpoche also speaks to the subtle yet potent power of presence—what it means to truly be in the company of a lama and how spiritual transmission depends not just on teachings but on direct connection. She reminds us that while knowledge may be increasingly accessible online, the cultivation of inner transformation still calls for guidance, humility, and devotion.

Show Links:
Learn more about Khandro Rinpoche and her upcoming teachings at khandroling.org

Meet Our Guest

Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche

Autobiography in Verse of
Khandro Rinpoche

Essence that embodies the three refuges,
Kind root lama,
Crown ornament never apart from the top of my head,
Bestow blessings of all that is wished for!

Welcomed by these auspicious pleasing words,
Now I will share the substance:

I am Khandro Tsering Kunga Bum-ma
My ethnicity is Tibetan, my birthplace in a gathering of farmers and nomads.
From age seven I sought to understand the causality of nomadic farmers.
Although I found joy in the meaning of interdependence and isolated retreat,
My parent’s village was lacking education for me.

When looking at outer objects and the mind inside
Some marvelous bliss, clarity and non-thought directly arose.
Various experiences and realizations dawned unimpeded in the mind.

Principal of all divine protectresses of the Victorious One’s teachings,
Glorious Queen, Palden Lhamo Maksor[1]—I saw her joyful face!
She said, “You must go to unfamiliar places at uncertain times.”
I received a promise to grant me prophecies and to continuously take me under her care.

From then on, conceptual fixations collapsed.
In unpredictable ways I visited the sacred sites and the Jowo shrine in Lhasa.
I then went to the great monastic seat of Tashi Lhunpo.
Due to poor sustenance and clothing, I suffered all sorts of struggles.

While on the pilgrimage path, I met an old hermit-sage.
He said in order to revive the Fifth Dalai Lama’s twenty-five hidden teachings,
I must go to the noble land of India and meet the most exalted Dalai Lama.
In that way he bestowed many prophecies,
And gave me provisions and money for the journey.

On the journey, at Mount Kailash and other places,
Within the blissful expanse of illusory relative appearances,
I encountered some spiritual guides such as Jigme Lingpa.
They granted me introduction to the heart essence of the Great Perfection.
Thus, my being was blessed through karma, aspirations, and interdependence.
I received the pith instructions for liberating unfavorable negative circumstances.

As prophesized by deities and lamas, through hardships and trials,
In 1994 I arrived in Swayambu, Nepal.
Sickened by contaminated food, I was afflicted by unbearable suffering.
In that state, pure visions and various other apparent phenomena appeared as perceptions.

Barely surviving, I made it to Dharamsala, in the noble land of India.
How I was received at Nèlen by some heartless staff!
While being denied an audience with His Holiness, a lot of time was lost.
Receiving mistreatment and scorn, this illusory body was filled with illness.

At a time when I was slightly better,
By the power of various prophesies of deities and lamas,
And help given by some spiritual friends,
I got the good fortune, the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama.

For many years a deity had sometimes taken me over.
I didn’t know who it was, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
At the end of meeting the Great Vajradhara, the Victorious Dalai Lama,
The Protectors Tseringma and Tenma entered me.
I was then authorized and enthroned as the official government oracle of Tseringma and Tenma.

I received uncommon, profound pith instructions from His Holiness on Lama, Yidam, Khandro and Protectors.
Particularly, His Holiness proclaimed I have a special karmic connection with the secret hidden pure visions of the 5th Dalai Lama,
And he authorized me as the Doctrine-holder of those teachings.

The Dalai Lama said I am a self-occurring yogini,
And gave me empowerments, transmissions, and pith instructions.
For ten years I exerted myself earnestly in meditating on approach and accomplishment on what I received from him.

For more than twenty years I received teachings from the King of Victorious Ones, Vajradhara Dalai Lama,
And empowerments, transmissions, and pith instructions on the great scriptures and so forth
Directly from various great masters of all Tibetan Buddhist lineages.
I applied myself for a long time in listening, contemplation, meditation, accomplishment, and the activities.

Realizing emptiness, compassion naturally dawned, and I arrived at faith.
May the undeceiving ocean of the three roots grant auspiciousness!

[1] ‘Queen Pāravatī’, also Shri Devi. A wrathful form of Palden Lhamo. This particular deity is the main protector of the Dalai Lamas.

Invaluable instructions on core meditations designed to bring about irreversible spiritual transformation.

For those who aspire to the total enlightenment of a buddha, the contemplative practices of śamatha and vipaśyanā play a crucial role from the beginning of the path to its culmination. Designed to free one first from the five obscurations that hinder the natural clarity and balance of the mind—and eventually from the ignorance that is the root of suffering—these practices, when imbued with bodhicitta, enable one to reach a pivotal stage within the Mahāyāna path of accumulation. This is the stage at which one gains irreversible, gold-like bodhicitta, after which one is assured of being a bodhisattva in all one’s future lifetimes until enlightenment.

The instructions gathered here are like a string of pearls spanning from the eleventh century to the present day. They include teachings from great Indian masters as well as renowned lamas of the past and present from the four major orders of Tibetan Buddhism, and many of the texts translated here stem from visionary teachings revealed by Mañjuśrī, Vajrapāṇi, Avalokiteśvara, and Padmasambhava. Introductions rich in biographical detail accompany each group of translated entries, providing historical context and drawing connections between complementary lineages. The concluding pith instructions from Lama Alan Wallace bring the anthology directly into the domain of contemporary practice, and a collection of links to a rich array of recorded oral teachings by eminent lamas, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s first teachings in the West, make this volume a treasure trove for the practitioner and scholar alike.

A groundbreaking work on the little-studied Indian origins of an influential tantric Buddhist practice along with a fresh English translation.

The deity Vajrabhairava, or Yamantaka, is well known as the central figure of tantric practice in multiple lineages of Tibetan Buddhism and is also found in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. Less is known about its foundational Indian context. The Vajrabhairava Tantra, dedicated to the buffalo-headed deity Vajrabhairava, arose around the eighth century and had a considerable impact on the formation of religious praxis in the medieval Indian Buddhist world. This book contains a translation of the Vajrabhairava Tantra from the recently discovered Sanskrit text and a comprehensive study of its elements, of its origins and Indian commentators, and of the history of its transmission to Tibet. The annotation to the translation excerpts all six Indian commentaries on the tantra found in the Tibetan canon.

One highly innovative contribution this work makes to the fields of tantric Buddhist studies and, more generally, to South Asian religions is the way it breaks down traditional disciplinary boundaries between tantra and magic. It shows that the genesis of tantric traditions cannot be reduced to a one-way influence of Hindu Shaivism on Buddhism or vice versa, but indicates a widespread “culture of magic,” a common “ritual syntax,” that crossed sectarian, linguistic, and socio-cultural boundaries, one that came to be significantly diminished in later Shaiva and Buddhist tantras.

The study comprises the first half of the book, and the second half is the translation, which explains the construction of the mandala, the magical applications of the practice, the extraction of the mantra, the visualization, and the preparation of the pata painting and the homa fire ritual. A dozen color plates illustrate Vajrabhairava in his Solitary Hero and other forms along with mandalas of five different lineages, keys for which are provided in the appendix.

The only previous study of the Vajrabhairava Tantra relied solely on Tibetan and Mongolian sources. By relying on the newly discovered Sanskrit manuscript, this new translation is able to correct numerous inaccuracies. Moreover, the earlier study included only three of six canonical commentaries on the root text incorporated here, passing over the key commentaries by Akṣobhya and Kṛṣṇācārya.

Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.

Alejandro Chaoul, Richard Freeman, and Mary Taylor: Yoga for Meditators (#208)

Posted June 6, 2025

Join Alejandro Chaoul, Richard Freeman, Mary Taylor, and host Daniel Aitken as they discuss their different traditions of yoga and how they relate to meditation. Listen as they provide insights into their yoga traditions, emphasizing historical dialogue between the traditions and shared practices. They touch on practical meditation tips, integrating the body into mindfulness, and much more!

You’ll also hear Daniel and our guests discuss:

how they each became interested in their version of yoga;
the power of Yoga to teach us stillness;
how to improve our relationship with space;
the Wisdom Academy course Yoga for Meditators; and
much more!

Wisdom Podcast listeners receive a 20% discount on Yoga For Meditators WPODY4M through July 5th.

About the Interviewees

Dr. Alejandro Chaoul is dedicated to educating individuals and communities about the ancient practice of Tibetan yoga and its transformative power to enhance physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. He serves as the scholar and founding director of the Jung Center’s Mind Body Spirit Institute (MBSI) and holds a doctoral degree in religious studies from Rice University. For the last thirty years Ale has studied with many Tibetan teachers in India, Nepal, and the United States. Since 1995, he has taught Tibetan meditation and yogic practices under the auspices of Ligmincha International across the United States, Latin America, and Europe.

Richard Freeman has been a student of yoga since 1968. He spent nine years in Asia studying yoga āsana, prāṇāyāma, Sufism, Sanskrit language, and Indian philosophy. He has studied asana with B.K.S. Iyengar and K. Pattabhi Jois and has worked with numerous Buddhist teachers to draw insights into the interfacing of Buddhism and yoga as a reflection of life. Richard’s metaphorical, humorous, teaching style appeals to students of many backgrounds and nationalities.

Mary Taylor began studying yoga in 1971 and her studies have grown into a deep interest into how yoga asana, meditation, and the interfacing of yoga with Buddhism combine to support us through complex modern times. Her main asana practice is in the internal forms of the ashtanga vinyasa tradition. She is part of the core faculty of the Being with Dying program at Upaya Zen Center and the senior faculty for the UZIT training program, both of which apply contemplative practices to improved and sustainable wellness within medical settings.

Previous Episode

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche: The Legacy of Tulku Urgyen and the Path to Kindfulness (#207)

Next Episode

Cortland Dahl: A Meditator’s Guide to Buddhism (#209)

Faced with Buddhism’s radical interdependence, one might ask, “If everything is relative, how can I be certain of anything?” Here, the descendents of Tsongkhapa plumb the nature of knowing and the tools of reasoning to come up with an answer.

This volume includes translations of three separate Tibetan works by iconic figures in the Geluk school of Buddhism. The first work, Banisher of Ignorance, is by Khedrup Gelek Palsang (1385–1438), and the second, On Preclusion and Relationship, is by Gyaltsab Darma Rinchen (1364–1432). The authors—popularly known as Khedrup Jé and Gyaltsab Jé—were the foremost disciples of the Geluk-school founder, Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa (1357–1419). The third text, Mighty Pramāṇa Sun, is a commentary on Candrakīrti’s Clear Words (Prasannapadā) by the First Jamyang Shepa (1648–1721).

These works concern themselves primarily with the Buddhist theory of knowledge—the means by which we are able to know things and how we can be certain of that knowledge. Encapsulating this theory is the notion of pramāṇa, a concept derived from India, the Buddhist understanding of which was shaped most significantly by the masters Dignāga (fifth to sixth century) and Dharmakīrti (seventh century). Based on their explanation, pramāṇa is often translated as “valid cognition,” a literal reference to the kind of cognition that they proposed could be relied upon to supply indisputable knowledge. In recognition of the crucial role that reasoning is held to play in gaining certain knowledge, the Buddhist Pramāṇa tradition is described as a logico-epistemological system.

The works in this volume demonstrate how important scholastic rigor has been to Tibetan religion. They illustrate how those who follow the tradition have viewed the systematic approach as necessary not only for textual analysis—for those seeking to unravel the complexities of the Indian Buddhist scriptures and treatises—but also for practitioners aiming to progress along the spiritual path and achieve the higher Buddhist goals.

Learn more about the Library of Tibetan Classics

Learn about becoming a benefactor of the Library of Tibetan Classics

Wisdom Dharma Chat | The Daily Buddhist (June 2025)

In this episode of Wisdom Dharma Chats, Pema Sherpa and Brendan Barca join host Daniel Aitken to explore the power of daily Buddhist practice and how small, consistent insights can lead to profound inner transformation.

They address life challenges, the impact of modern distractions on mindfulness, and the benefits of meditation. The conversation highlights the importance of self-compassion, techniques for personal growth, and practical guidance on integrating ancient Buddhist wisdom into modern daily life.

Drawing on their diverse experiences—from corporate mindfulness training to traditional study under great Tibetan masters such as Dudjom Rinpoche—Pema and Brendan offered a unique and contemporary lens on how the Dharma can support lasting happiness in today’s world.

Show Links:
Learn more about Pema and Brendan’s newsletter, and get your copy of The Daily Buddhist at thedailybuddhist.net

Meet Our Guest

Pema Sherpa & Brendan Barca

A wife-and-husband team, Pema Sherpa and Brendan Barca, teach mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhist principles to employees at companies worldwide.

Pema, born and raised in Nepal, has practiced Tibetan Buddhism since childhood. After moving to the U.S., she pursued formal studies in the field, earning a master’s degree in Buddhist philosophy at Harvard Divinity School.

Brendan discovered Buddhism in his twenties, initially turning to meditation to cope with stress and burnout. Since then, he has devoted years to studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism. Together, Pema and Brendan have studied under revered masters such as Dudjom Rinpoche.

Experiencing the transformative effects of mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhist teachings in their own lives, they cofounded Brema Solutions to bring these invaluable principles to the corporate world. Additionally, they also run the popular newsletter, The Daily Buddhist. Pema and Brendan live with their daughter Samaya in Brooklyn, NY.

Support Wisdom Publications

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche: The Legacy of Tulku Urgyen and the Path to Kindfulness (#207)

Posted May 16, 2025

Join Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche and Daniel Aitken in this special bonus episode of our celebratory Blazing Splendor Wisdom Podcast series as they discuss The Legacy of Tulku Urgyen and the Path to Kindfulness. During this episode, Daniel and Rinpoche celebrate the rerelease of Blazing Splendor, and Rinpoche shares his memories and insights he gained from the teachings of his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

You’ll also hear Rinpoche and Daniel discuss:

Rinpoche’s impactful relationships with other high lamas and spiritual practitioners;
the importance of practicing the foundational teachings of mindfulness, compassion, and ethical conduct;
the essential role of mindfulness and kindfulness; and
much more!

Wisdom Podcast listeners receive a 20% discount on Blazing Splendor WPODBLAZE through June 27th.

Remember to subscribe to the Wisdom Podcast for more great conversations on Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness. If you enjoy the show please consider giving us a 5-star rating in Apple Podcasts—it’s a great support to us and helps other people find the podcast. Thank you!

About the Interviewee

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche is the abbot of one of the largest monasteries in Nepal, with over 250 monks. He was born in 1951 in Tibet and fled that country with his family when he was eight years old. He trained in Sikkim, then founded his monastery near Kathmandu in 1976. He has focused on making authentic Tibetan Buddhist teachings available to Westerners. He has authored six books and he regularly visits and teaches at retreat centers in many countries, including his North American retreat center in California, Rangjung Yeshe Gomde.

Previous Episode

Douglas Duckworth: The Great Hūṃ (#206)

Next Episode

Alejandro Chaoul, Richard Freeman, and Mary Taylor: Yoga for Meditators (#208)

This course offers a rigorous exploration of two central Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophical traditions: Yogācāra (Mind-Only) and Madhyamaka (Middle Way). Guided by Mark Siderits, students examine the core arguments and debates that define each school, including the nature of reality and perception, the theory of the three natures, the doctrine of emptiness, and the role of philosophical inquiry in Buddhist practice. Lessons address key topics such as the subject–object distinction, reflexive cognition, origination and causation, and the practical and meditative implications of philosophical refutation. The course draws on classical sources and engages both historical and contemporary perspectives.

An ancient Buddhist guide to confronting difficult circumstances and letting go of clinging to the ego.

Severance, or Cho, is the Tibetan Buddhist practice of facing one’s fears. In three remarkable texts lucidly translated and introduced by Sarah Harding, the thirteenth-century Severance master Jamyang Gönpo shares advice that goes straight to the heart of both understanding and experiencing the practice. For hundreds of years, Severance has remained essentially an instruction on coping with stressful situations that provoke fear and, beyond that, a way to actively seek out such circumstances in order to test one’s realization of perfect wisdom.

The single overall directive of the first two texts in this volume—the Heart Essence of Profound Meaning root verses and their commentary, The Big General Guide to Severance—is to seek out and directly confront difficult circumstances. Here, these difficulties are often anxieties related to spirits in the dark of night in haunted places. This practice acts as a means to recognize emptiness—the lack of intrinsic existence of all phenomena—as well as a testing ground of one’s former realizations and studies of that emptiness from the Perfection of Wisdom. The texts are notable for their lack of instruction on ritualized Severance involving body sacrifice, which later works emphasize; in these texts, the heart of Severance is letting go of clinging to the self and reification of existence. And as Jamyang Gonpo was just a generation removed from Machik Labdron, the main progenitor of Severance, his methods seem to be closest to her actual teachings.

The third translation in this volume, The Seven-Day Severance Retreat Experiential Guide, is a very concise and precise instruction on putting the main intentions of the teachings into practice in the setting of a one-week retreat. The instructions are striking in that they contain no rituals, visualizations, deities, instruments, or liturgies. Jamyang Gönpo shows us how to turn our attention to the very mind of this person who is experiencing fear and the object of that fear—whether fear about demons or sickness or suffering—to see them for what they are. In doing so, we find that joys and sorrows, highs and lows, powers of gods and demons, and demonic obstacles are all mind made.

A Soto Zen teacher explores the core teachings of the ancient Flower Garland school of Buddhism through an innovative and engaging narrative showing how to put these teachings into practice.

Huayan Buddhism arose in the sixth century in China rooted in the Mahayana Flower Garland Sutra. The teachings of Huayan and the sutra that inspired it had a profound influence on Chan and Zen. Huayan is relational, practical, and positive. Its emphasis on interdependence, celebration of the sensual world, and diversity of people and practices provides inspiration for what Thich Nhat Hanh called “engaged Buddhism”.

With Inside the Flower Garland Sutra Zen teacher Ben Connelly explains the significance of Huayan teachings for Buddhist practice. Each chapter is a commentary on one of the thirty lines of Uisang’s “Song of Dharma Nature”—a seminal Korean text that summarizes key aspects of Huayan thought—thus providing a broad overview of Huayan teachings and their practical implications for contemporary life, with a mix of testimonies from real-life situations and references to influential Buddhist texts.

Arising fifteen hundred years ago, Huayan has made a deep impact on East Asian Buddhism, and has much to offer during this era when many folks see ever-deepening divisions. Connelly explores how Huayan offers particular wisdom for those concerned about how to care for their own lives as they work to end harms such as ecological devastation, poverty, militarism, addiction, marginalization, and exploitation.

See the formative years of Mahayana Buddhist literature through the lens of the Perfection of Wisdom, expertly analyzed by the venerable scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo.

In this work we have a rare perspective on the early history of Mahayana Buddhism and the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita), as far as this is still accessible in surviving texts. With his characteristic clarity and precision, Bhikkhu Analayo critically analyzes early Perfection of Wisdom literature based on the earliest extant versions of the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita, or the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, one in Chinese and the other in Gandhari—one of the oldest surviving Mahayana manuscripts discovered to date. In reading this text from the viewpoint of early Buddhist literature, the author shows that what has generally been considered a sharp rupture in the formation of the Mahayana turns out to be more of a gradual evolution.

With his command of the languages of the ancient Buddhist world, scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo sifts through the layers of history and unveils new perspectives on the ideas and figures in early Perfection of Wisdom and Mahayana literature, covering such topics as the rhetoric of emptiness and the emerging bodhisattva ideal, as well as the status of women and the practice of self-immolation. In doing so, Bhikkhu Analayo reveals fresh insights into the gradual development that informs the emergence of early Perfection of Wisdom literature. This is a rare opportunity to peer through a window at the beginnings of Mahayana thought—before the traditions had coalesced into the familiar forms we see today.

Dream Yoga (2025)

Cortland Dahl: A Meditator’s Guide to Buddhism (#209)

About the Interviewee

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Wisdom Dharma Chat | Khandro Rinpoche

June 9, 2025

Meet Our Guest

Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche

Samatha and Vipasyana

The Vajrabhairava Tantra

Alejandro Chaoul, Richard Freeman, and Mary Taylor: Yoga for Meditators (#208)

About the Interviewees

Buddhist Epistemology in the Geluk School

Wisdom Dharma Chat | The Daily Buddhist (June 2025)

Meet Our Guest

Pema Sherpa & Brendan Barca

Connotations of the Term “Bodhisattva”

The Visualization Stage (utpattikrama) and Its Workings

A Lost Work on the Stages of the Path (Lamrim)

Buddhism As Philosophy: Yogacara and Madhyamaka

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Support Wisdom Publications

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche: The Legacy of Tulku Urgyen and the Path to Kindfulness (#207)

About the Interviewee

The Bodhisattva Path

Buddhism As Philosophy: Yogacara and Madhyamaka

Severance

Inside the Flower Garland Sutra

The Perfection of Wisdom in First Bloom