Program Goal

We believe in a future of both male and female realized beings and Gurus.
Through mentoring, specialized curriculum and scholarships, Dzokden aims to support exceptional female practitioners and cultivate highly-realized female role models who serve as pillars of wisdom for this new era.

Our Aspirations and Why This Matters in our World

To manifest a Golden Age of peace and harmony, we must first address the fundamental imbalance that destabilizes our modern world. Khentrul Rinpoche has observed that the crises we face across many dimensions—environmental, political, educational, and societal—stem from a deep-seated lack of balance between the masculine and feminine aspects. The potential for ultimate happiness and peace is shown through the perfect union and balance of these energies. By empowering the feminine, we are not merely seeking social equity, but restoring the essential harmony required for global transformation.

In the Kalachakra Tantra system, every human being possesses both masculine and feminine aspects regardless of gender. The Masculine represents “method” (upaya)—the active, compassionate energy that engages with the world. The Feminine represents “Wisdom” (prajna)—the empty, luminous, and nurturing space of profound insight. Just as a mother provides the space (the womb) for a life to grow, the feminine aspect provides the “Wisdom space” for enlightenment to occur. Without this nurturing space, the masculine “Method” has nowhere to ground itself. When the masculine and feminine aspects are imbalanced or one is suppressed, our world reflects that chaos. Only when Wisdom and Method are perfectly united can we actualize our ultimate spiritual potential.

Rinpoche is committed to highlighting the feminine aspect of the Kalachakra—including Taranatha’s rare empowerment of Visvamātā. His teachings honor the legacy of great Tibetan Buddhist female masters such as Machig Labdrön and Kunga Trinley Wangmo, ensuring their wisdom guides a new generation of leaders. While Tibetan culture has a long history of intensive training, the search for such potential has historically focused on male candidates.

Project to Depict Female Masters in Art

Very few women appear in traditional lineage trees—not because they were absent, but because their presence was often hidden. Many highly realized women practiced as secret consorts, family members, and close disciples of great masters, and were fully accomplished practitioners in their own right. Yet within patriarchal societies, their names, stories, and even their images were rarely recorded, preserved, or depicted.

Shar Khentrul Jamphel Lodrö Rinpoche has been very clear that this must change. He has specifically directed us to include the secret consorts of Tāranātha and other female lineage holders in our paintings, restoring women to their rightful place in the living lineage. He has also bestowed the Vishvāmātā empowerment—the rare female solitary form of Kalachakra—an extraordinary transmission that powerfully affirms the need for both our masculine and feminine natures on the complete path of awakening. These efforts are part of rebalancing the emphasis in a world where many women do not see themselves reflected in the Dharma story. Rinpoche firmly believes the limitations have never been women’s capacity for realization, but the limitations of the societies they lived within.

Below are depictions of both past female masters and the future female Kalkis and Kalachakra lineage holders—images that were remarkably difficult to commission, because even after extensive searching, we found almost no existing artistic examples to draw from. Creating them is not just an artistic project—it is a statement: women belong in the lineage, women belong in the future, and women belong in the seat of mastery.

Our Aspiration

We envision a future in which both women and men fully realize the path and stand as teachers, guides, and lineage holders.

A future where:

• Female practitioners are supported to reach the highest levels of realization
• The Dharma is held and transmitted by both masculine and feminine wisdom
• The next generation can see themselves reflected in the path

Because the yoginis and female vajra masters were never missing—only too often unseen. Now is the time to support them fully.