2026 COURSES & RETREATS

Explore the symbolic meaning, power, and purpose of the 21 Taras through teachings, embodied meditation, mantra, and journeys with Tara.

In this immersive and transformative program, Dorje Lopön Chandra will offer us a lens through which we can understand and integrate the contemporary context of the Taras through inspiring stories about historic and modern Buddhist and non-Buddhist women who embody their myriad qualities.

We will see how each of the 21 Taras embodies essential attributes we innately have within us, such as wisdom, compassion, strength, and the potential for liberation. This exploration of the universal aspects of the empowered feminine in her many diverse forms supports us, regardless of our gender identity, in befriending both inner and outer obstacles, helping us navigate the challenges we meet in our daily lives.

Those who attend all the classes (or watch the recordings), do the 21-day practice challenge for each Tara, attend the live retreats (in person or online), and pass the 21 Tara quizzes, will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the course.

We are living in a moment that asks a lot of the heart. There’s tenderness, fatigue, uncertainty, and pressure. Tara, a beloved female Buddha of compassion in the Tibetan tradition, invites us to see everything in our experience as part of the path—even fear, anger, and disillusionment.

In our new online course, Courageous Heart: The Healing Power of Tara Practice, dharma teacher Chandra Easton offers a clear, accessible introduction to Tara practice, helping you awaken inner courage, protection, and essential self-esteem. Through four self-paced modules and eight video lessons, you’ll explore Tara as a mirror for recognizing your own awakened capacities—working through the body, breath, voice, imagination, and awareness.

The course begins with the foundations of Green and White Tara, introducing embodied practice through meditation, visualization, and mantra. From there, you’ll be guided step by step through Tibetan deity practice, learning to work skillfully with fear and anxiety by embodying protective qualities and meeting experience with compassion. You’ll then turn toward integration—bringing Tara’s healing into relationships and everyday life, and discovering how your practice can be a source of joy and creativity.

If you’re seeking steadier footing amid fear, uncertainty, or transition, and feel drawn to explore deity practice in a clear and grounded way, this course is for you. For those wanting compassion practices that meet strong emotions with openness and care—and support a more embodied connection with oneself and others—Tara practice offers a powerful path forward.

Registration is now open for Courageous Heart, and early bird pricing is available for a limited time. We invite you to save your spot today and begin the course on February 2nd.

Step into a weekend devoted to the felt sense of Tara—the living presence of compassion, wisdom, and awakened clarity. This retreat offers a direct, embodied encounter with the 21 Taras through the initiatory arc of the Seven Initiates. Tara, the beloved female buddha of compassion, is not approached as a distant figure, but as the warm, responsive intelligence already alive within: courage in the heart, clarity in the mind, groundedness in the belly, luminosity in awareness.

Through mantra, visualization, breath, and somatic meditation, participants learn to recognize Tara’s qualities in their own bodies. Each Initiate—Listening, Intimacy, Balance, Art/Alchemy, Embodiment, Worship, and Providence—arises from BOW (Body of Worship), a living curriculum that restores the human body as an instrument of reverence and intelligent participation with life.

Each threshold is paired with specific Tara mantras and embodiment practices that illuminate its essence:

• Listening with Taras who attune perception
• Intimacy with Taras who open the heart
• Balance with Taras who stabilize clarity
• Art/Alchemy with Taras who transform obstacles
• Embodiment with Taras who anchor wisdom
• Worship with Taras who align devotion with purpose
• Providence with Taras who activate bodhichitta as a guiding force

Join us for a transformative journey through Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicaryāvatāra), a timeless Mahayana text that offers poetic and practical guidance for meeting the world with resilience, clarity, and boundless compassion.

Over 12 weeks, we’ll gather for weekly 90-minute sessions devoted to study, meditation, and sincere community dialogue. Together, we’ll explore how to live with courageous compassion—grounded in the aspiration to awaken for the benefit of all beings.

Each session includes:

• 30-minute guided meditation
• Study of selected verses from The Way of the Bodhisattva
• Group reflection and shared practice

Join Chandra Easton, renowned Tibetan Buddhism teacher and devotional chantress, for an evening of sacred sound where we experience the “echoes of emptiness”—the empty yet appearing nature of all sound, thought, and experience. This event blends Buddhist and Hindu Tantric traditions, offering an accessible, joyful exploration of devotional music and meditation suitable for all levels.

Join us for an evening where the echoes of ancient wisdom resonate through community practice, guiding us toward the realization of our true nature and the profound understanding of emptiness.

Chandra Easton is a prominent Dharma teacher, author, and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. Her journey in Buddhism began at a young age, taking refuge with the 16th Karmapa at the age of four. She later studied Buddhism and Tibetan language at the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives in Dharamsala, India, and received her degree in Religious Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara. In 2015, Easton was given the title Dorje Lopön (Vajra Teacher) of Tara Mandala under Lama Tsultrim Allione and given the name Lopön Yeshe Dawa Zangmo by H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche.

In every wisdom tradition, emotions are gateways to awakening. Joy, sorrow, longing, irritation, compassion — each carries insights that open us to clarity and equanimity. Within the mandala of our inner life, nothing is left out. Every emotion holds a teaching and a wisdom quality — and because emotions are relational, this retreat emphasizes self-reflection to foster resilience and care in our relationships.

Chandra Easton and Eve Ekman, longtime friends, lovers of the dharma, and scholars of the mind, will guide a journey into the heart of emotional awareness. This five-day workshop, rooted in Tantric Buddhism, contemplative science, and embodied practice, will honor the universality of emotions and explore the wisdom each one holds. Our time together will invite intimacy with our own hearts and a quantum view of interconnection that underlies our world.

A central thread of this immersion is the relationship between language and direct experience. As a translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts, Chandra works intimately with the subtle ways meaning is carried—and limited—by words. The teachings themselves remind us that conceptual understanding is only a doorway. Realization happens in the body, in presence, in the immediacy of practice. As the Fletcheress Dakini, Saraha’s 8th‑century teacher, expressed:

“The Buddha’s meaning can be known through symbols and actions, not through words and books.”

This course is designed to help you cross that threshold—from studying the teachings to embodying them.

Nature’s Embrace is a three‑day residential retreat inviting you to rediscover freedom by opening to your innate wisdom through Buddhist meditation, Dharma teachings, and devotional chanting (kirtan). Held in the radiant Ojai Valley beneath the Topa Topa mountains, this retreat offers a gentle, spacious container where slowing down and listening deeply reveal the spontaneous, creative essence within you.

Each day begins with a sunrise sky‑gazing meditation to cultivate spacious awareness as the foundation of practice. Mornings unfold in silence, allowing the natural world to support inner stillness. Throughout the day, we’ll explore Dharma themes, guided meditation sessions, chanting, and mindful walking beneath the oak groves. Evenings are held in song, with Chandra and special guest musicians leading devotional chanting—including selections from the 21 Taras Collective Mantra Mala Vol. 1. On the final night, we gather for a fire puja, chanting together around the fire as a consecration of intention, devotion, and the practice we carry home.

During this retreat, you’ll be invited to immerse yourself in your own innate wisdom to rediscover your freedom. Through Buddhist meditation, mindful movement, and time in nature, you’ll explore the spontaneous creative essence within you.

Surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, this guided retreat is an opportunity to slow down, listen deeply, and explore what it means to be truly present. By attuning to the elements and rhythms of the earth, you will have the space to cultivate a renewed sense of clarity, openness, and connection.