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Welcome to Tara Mandala Bay Area Sangha
We are a satellite sangha of Tara Mandala Retreat Center in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, established by Lama Tsultrim Allione. We offer sangha meetings where we focus on the practices such as Shamatha, Vipassana, Prajña Paramita, Chöd, Feeding Your Demons, Green Tara, and others. Many of our practices are based on the Tibetan Buddhist lineage of Machig Labdrön, the 11th century Tibetan yogini who established the lineage of Chöd..
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In addition to offering annual teachings with Lama TsultrimAllione, we also offer regular courses with authorized teachers Ellen Booth Church, Lopön Chandra Easton, Robin Gayle, Polly Ryan, Karla Jackson Brewer, Jeff Tipp, Roberta Godbe-Tipp, and others. These courses explore traditional texts and practices as well as their application in the Western world.
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About Lama Tsultrim Allione
Lama Tsultrim Allione, author and international teacher, founded Tara Mandala in 1993. While living in the Himalayas in the 1970s, she was inspired by the vision of creating a retreat center in the West. She was ordained as a Tibetan nun in 1970 at the age of 22 by His Holiness the 16th Karmapa. At the age of 26, after four years as a nun, she returned her monastic vows, then married and raised a family of three children. While raising her children, she earned a Master’s degree in Buddhist Studies and Women’s Studies from Antioch University. Author of Women of Wisdom, a groundbreaking book on the lives of great Tibetan women practitioners, Lama Tsultrim also authored Wisdom Rising: A Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine, and the National Best Seller, Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict now translated into sixteen languages. Feeding Your Demons presents Lama Tsultrim’s pioneering technique based on Chöd, using five steps to nurture the parts of ourselves we usually fight against. Numerous audio programs, DVDs, and magazine articles have been produced about her life and work, including "Feeding Your Demons: The Life and Work of Lama Tsultrim Allione," a one-hour documentary by Jaap Verhoeven produced by Dutch TV.
For many years, she has focused on the teachings from the lineage of Machig Labdrön, the 11th century Tibetan yogini who founded the Chöd lineage. In 2007 while traveling in Tibet, Lama Tsultrim was recognized as an emanation of Machig Labdrön by the resident lama at Machig Labdrön’s monastery in Tibet, Zangri Khamar. In 2012 she was given the Machig empowerment by H.H. the 17th Karmapa at Chang Chub Jong in India.
In 2009, Lama Tsultrim Allione was selected by an esteemed committee of scholars and practitioners to receive the international “Outstanding Woman in Buddhism” Award given in Bangkok, Thailand. Her teaching inspiration comes from her sublime Tibetan lamas and her experience as a Western woman and a mother. She is now enjoying being the grandmother of four and is currently writing a book with the working title, Meeting the Mandala, to be published by Simon and Schuster, while continuing to guide Tara Mandala and thousands of students around the world.
To learn more about Lama Tsultrim Allione visit: www.taramandala.org
Make a tax-deductible Donation and Support your Local Sangha
About Tara Mandala Retreat Center
Tara Mandala is an international Vajrayana Buddhist community with its home base at 7,500 feet above sea level in the mountains of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. It is guided by Lama Tsultrim Allione, author of Women of Wisdom and Feeding Your Demons. Lama Tsultrim has studied Tibetan Buddhism under traditional teachers for more than 45 years. Today, opportunities for quiet contemplation are rare, and places dedicated to long-term retreat are even more scarce. Meditation has a profound effect on the individual and its benefits emanate into the rest of the world.In a chaotic and stressful world, Tara Mandala retreat center offers refuge, renewal and traditional Buddhist training through our residential Living Dharma program as well as group and solo retreats. Bordered by the San Juan National Forest and Southern Ute Tribal Land, the retreat center is on 700 acres of rolling hills and meadows adorned with many varieties of wild flowers, ponds, and forests. The land itself is a mandala with a stunning peak in the middle surrounded by four valleys. Retreat cabins are scattered across the landscape, and at its heart is the extraordinary three-story mandala Tara temple.Visit www.taramandala.org to learn more.