Lopön Karla Jackson-Brewer, M.S., Tara Mandala Senior Teacher, has been practicing Chöd for 31 years and has assisted Lama Tsultrim on many Chöd retreats. She has co-taught Chöd since 2013 with Lama Tsultrim and Dorje Lopön Chandra Easton. She has also taught and led Chöd Practices for the NYC Tara Mandala Sangha which she leads. In October 2012, she received the Chod Empowerment from His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje. She leads a monthly BBAIPOC meditation practice for Tara Mandala. Lopön Karla is a founder of Sine Qua Non: Allies in Healing, an Integrative Therapy Practice in New York City. She is an adjunct Professor in the Women’s & Gender Studies Department and the Africana Studies Department at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Lopön Karla is an initiated priest in the West African system of Ifa.
Lama Tsultrim Allione is founder and resident lama of Tara Mandala. She is author of Women of Wisdom and Feeding Your Demons. Born in New England to an academic/publishing family, she traveled to India in her late teens and was ordained as a Buddhist nun at the age of 22 by H.H. the 16th Karmapa. She was the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun in the Karma Kagyu lineage. After living in the Himalayan region for several years she returned her vows and became the mother of three, while continuing to study and practice Buddhism, particularly focusing on the lineage of Machig Labdron and Dzogchen teachings. In 1993, Lama Tsultrim founded Tara Mandala, a 700-acre center in southwest Colorado where an extraordinary three-story temple in the form of a mandala, dedicated to the sacred feminine in Buddhism has been constructed and consecrated. In 2007 while traveling in Tibet she was recognized as an emanation of Machig Labdron at the historic seat of Machig Zangri Khangmar by the resident lama. This recognition was confirmed by several other lamas, and in 2012 she was given the Machig Labdron empowerment by HH the 17th Karmapa.
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