The Eight Chariots:

A 9-week online class
Monday evenings, April 14 - June 9, 2025

Vajrayana Buddhism is not one thing. Rather, it is a rich tapestry of the vibrant spiritual and intellectual traditions that arose due to particular circumstances and the brilliance of their founders, teachers and practitioners. Looked at from the perspective of the Ri-mé (non-sectarian) Movement of Tibet, each is an invaluable expression of the Buddha’s wisdom and skillful means. Being aware of the distinct character of each tradition enriches one’s own practice, experience and knowledge, deepening one’s appreciation for the entire Buddhist tradition.

This series will cover The Eight Chariots, the major practice lineages of Vajrayana Buddhism as transmitted into Tibet from India. Each class will cover the history of each lineage and its main teachers, and include an introduction to the basic teachings and practices of each tradition.

Class Outline

This course will feature individual speakers for each class, each with particular expertise, knowledge and experience in the tradition they are speaking on.

• Class 1 (April 14) – The Eight Chariots and the Roots of the Ri-mé Movement
               with Sarah Harding

• Class 2 (April 21) – Nyingma lineage with Daniel Hirshberg

• Class 3 (April 28) – Kadampa and Gelukpa lineages with Thupden Jinpa

• Class 4 (May 5) – Sakya lineage with Khenpo Kunga Sherap

• Class 5 (May 12) – Marpa Kagyu lineage with Elizabeth Callahan

• Class 6 (May 19) – Shangpa lineage with Sarah Harding

• Class 7 (May 26) – Zhi-je & Chöd lineages with Charlotte Rotterdam

• Class 8 (June 2) – Jo Druk (Kalachakra) lineage with Michael Sheehy

• Class 9 (June 9) – Sadhana of Mahamudra Feast

Class Format

Opening chants, brief meditation practice, presentation, questions and discussion, ending chants. Each class will run two hours. There will be weekly links provided to the recordings of the classes. The class will conclude with an online practice with feast offering of The Sadhana of Mahamudra.

Speakers

Sarah Harding has been a translator for Kalu Rinpoche and many other lamas, author, professor of Buddhist Studies at Naropa University for 26 years, teacher of Tibetan language, speciality in translating the works of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, Machik Lapdrön and the Chöd tradition, Niguma and the Shangpa Tradition, Patrul Rinpoche, and others. Accomplished first three-year retreat in the West. Fellow and Translator with Tsadra Foundation. Practitioner in the Shangpa tradition. She specializes in literature with a focus on tantric practice. Her publications include Creation and Completion; The Treasury of Knowledge: Esoteric Instructions; Niguma, Lady of Illusion; two volumes on Chö and Shijé from The Treasury of Precious Instructions; Four Tibetan Lineages: Core Teachings of Pacification, Severance, Shangpa Kagyü, and Bodong; and Ornament of Dakpo Kagyü Thought: Short Commentary on the Mahāmudrā Aspiration Prayer. 

Dan Hirshberg, Ph.D. is Teaching Associate Professor of Tibetan Studies and Associate Faculty Director of Himalayan Languages in the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has held one-year fellowships at UC Santa Barbara, LMU Munich, and UVa’s Contemplative Sciences Center, and served as Visiting Faculty at Naropa University’s Center for Psychedelic Studies. His research centers on cultural memory, the narrative of Tibet’s conversion to Buddhism, and the apotheosis of its protagonist, Padmasambhava, in literature and iconography. His first book, Remembering the Lotus-Born: Padmasambhava in the History of Tibet’s Golden Age (2016), won Honorable Mention for the E. Gene Smith Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Studying and practicing Buddhism full-time for nearly 30 years, he has been a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche since 2004 and serves as a Karunika (“compassionate” senior teacher) in the Nalandabodhi sangha.

Thupden Jinpa Langri is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar, former monk and an academic of religious studies and both Eastern and Western philosophy. He has been the principal English translator to the Dalai Lama since 1985. He has translated and edited more than ten books by the Dalai Lama including The World of Tibetan Buddhism (Wisdom Publications, 1993), A Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus (Wisdom Publications, 1996), and the New York Times bestseller Ethics for the New Millennium.He received his Geshe degree from Ganden Monastic University in India. He also holds a B.A. Honors degree in Western Philosophy and a Ph.D. degree in Religious Studies, both from Cambridge University, UK. Geshe Thupten Jinpa has written many books and articles. His latest works are Tibetan Songs of Spiritual Experience (co-edited with Jas Elsner) and Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Thought: Tsongkhapa's Quest for the Middle View.

Khenpo Kunga Sherab is a monastic scholar, teacher, and translator from Lhoka, Tibet. He earned his Khenpo degree from Dzongsar Buddhist College in India, a qualification equivalent to a Ph.D. After years of teaching at Dzongsar College, he was instructed by His Holiness the Sakya Gongma Trichen Rinpoche and Dzongsar Jamyang Khentse Rinpoche to establish a Buddhist college at Zurmang Monastery in Sikkim in 2000, where he taught for many years.

In addition to his traditional education, Khenpo earned both a Master’s and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He has authored and translated several works on Abhidharma, Middle Way philosophy, and other topics, both in Tibetan and English, including The Amazing Treasury of the Sakya Lineage (Volume 1), with Volume 2 coming soon.

Khenpo has taught Buddhist philosophy and meditation across North America, Asia, and within Tibetan monastic colleges. Since 2017, he has served as a Buddhist chaplain in several prisons in southwestern Ontario, Canada, while continuing his university teaching.

Elizabeth Callahan completed contemplative training and Tibetan studies from 1980 to 1990, which included three-year retreats at Kagyu Thubten Chöling, New York. She has studied with, and interpreted for Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche from 1985. She studied and interpreted at Nitartha Institute under the direction of Dzogchen Pönlop Rinpoche, 1996 to 1999, and has been a fellow and translator for Tsadra Foundation since 2002. Her publications and translations include: The Profound Inner Principles by Karmapa Rangjung Dorje, Moonbeams of Mahāmudrā by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, and Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance by Wangchuk Dorje, the Ninth Karmapa, and Mahamudra: Ocean of Definitive Meaning by the Ninth Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorje.

Charlotte Z. Rotterdam is a Dharma teacher and contemplative educator. She is a senior teacher at Tara Mandala Retreat Center, founded by Lama Tsultrim Allione. Charlotte has been a student and practitioner of Chöd for more than two decades, and has studied extensively with Lama Tsultrim, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, Lama Wangdu Rinpoche, Adzom Paylo Rinpoche, among others. She teaches a variety of Chöd practices. Together with her husband, Charlotte is completing a book, Skymind, inspired by the nature of mind teachings of the 11th century Tibetan yogini and founder of Chöd, Machig Labdrön, forthcoming from Shambhala Publications. Her article on “Cutting through Views: Three Practice Verses by Machig Labdrön,” was published online in Lion’s Roar magazine. As an Instructor at Naropa University, she directed Naropa’s Center for the Advancement of Contemplative Education, and co-developed and teaches Naropa’s Mindful Compassion Training. She received a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and is the mother of two boys. 

Michael Sheehy:  Michael R. Sheehy is a Research Associate Professor and Director of Research at the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia.  He is the founding principal at the CIRCL, Contemplative Innovation + Research Co-Lab and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Contemplative Studies. Michael studied extensively in Tibet, including several years training in a Jonang Buddhist monastery in the Golok region where he studied Zhentong and the Kālachakra. As director of research at the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (now BDRC), he spent twelve years conducting fieldwork to preserve rare manuscripts across the plateau. Over the past decade, at Harvard Divinity School and later at the Mind & Life Institute, he has collaborated on transdisciplinary meditation research to make contemplative practices relevant to discourses in the humanities, cultural psychology, and the cognitive sciences. His research has been featured in National Geographic, is author of over two dozen articles, is co-editor of The Other Emptiness: Rethinking Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet (2019), and his forthcoming book details the history and tantric philosophy of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.