2026 COURSES & RETREATS

Join Nina Rao, Genevieve Walker, and Lopön Chandra Easton — the trio behind the 21 Taras Collective — for an afternoon of mantra, music, and devotion celebrating their debut album, Mantra Mala Vol. 1.

Join the third reunion of this usually far-flung all-star gathering of teachers and practitioners of Indic yogic sciences and spiritual traditions! This inspiring weeklong immersion, an aspiring annual tradition, brings together Dr. Robert Svoboda, Krishna Das, Nina Rao, Chandra Easton, Michele Loew, John Campbell, and Prof. Robert Thurman for a stand-alone hybrid retreat weaving Ayurveda, Bhakti Yoga, Vajrayoga, and tantric Hatha Yoga.

Join Chandra and musical guests for an evening of sacred sound exploring the “echoes of emptiness” — the empty yet vividly appearing nature of sound, thought, and all phenomena. This is an accessible, joyful entry into devotional music and meditation for all levels.

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.

Bring in the New Year with a rejuvenating week of meditation, music, and gentle yoga, guided by Buddhist teacher and author Lopön Chandra. As winter invites us to slow down and turn inward, we’ll explore “wintering” — the art of embracing rest, renewal, and the quiet gifts of this season.

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 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.

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.