April 24 – 27, 2025 – Dakini Mandala: Journey Into the Enlightened Feminine
October 3 – 6, 2025 – Buddha Mandala: Journey Into the Sacred Masculine
April 23 – 26, 2026 – Yab-Yum Mandala: The Union of the Sacred Feminine and Masculine
Prague, Czechia
With Pieter & Charlotte
With great joy, we will once again welcome Dorje Lopön Charlotte Rotterdam and Lopön Pieter Oosthuizen to the Czech Republic – direct students of Lama Tsultrim Allione , who will come to teach us The Mandala Method, which you may know from Lama Tsultrim’s book Wisdom Rising.
You are invited to embark on an adventurous year-long journey (the cycle includes 3 modules) full of encounters, wisdom, creation, meditation and personal transformational practice. We will discover the ancient wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist mandala, which aids personal and spiritual transformation and serves to understand our experience in the external world.
This work goes beyond spiritual theories and serves as a meaningful tool for anyone who wishes to experience greater emotional peace and clarity (regardless of religious belief, personal philosophy, or gender).
The entire cycle will be translated from English to Czech.
The Mandala Method Cycle
The Mandala method is based on the so-called “five Buddha families”, which represent five types of emotional suffering , which we gradually transform into five manifestations of enlightened energy. Mandala guides you through a process of exploring divine femininity and masculinity and the connection of the feminine and masculine aspects of our psyche. Each of the three modules of the cycle offers a unique application of the principles of the mandala. It helps transform burdened emotional patterns (ignorance, anger and desire) into wisdom through meditation, sound, art, movement and practice with the five elements.
Dakini Mandala: Journey Into the Sacred Feminine
April 24 – 27, 2025
Prague, Czechia
With Charlotte Rotterdam
Experience transformation through the power of the mandala—a universal map for inner and outer balance, wholeness, and practical awakening. This retreat offers a journey into the Mandala of the Five Wisdom Dakinis, developed by Lama Tsultrim Allione to bring emotional transformation into alignment with the spiritual path. A template of wholeness, the mandala has as its basic structure the center and four directions, represented by five families of elements, colors, seed syllables, emotions, psychological types, and wisdoms.
The wisdom dakinis are female deities in Tantric Buddhism who embody profound wisdom and the empowered feminine. Lama Tsultrim Allione writes, “They are luminous, subtle spiritual energy, the gatekeepers and the guardians of the unconditioned wisdom and sacred earth.” In Tibetan art, they are depicted as naked, except for ornaments, dancing, wild and powerful.
This course includes:
- Introduction to the Mandala Principle
- Introduction to the empowered feminine within Buddhism
- Introduction to the five families, and teachings on the obscurations and wisdoms associated with each
- Creation of a personal altar
- Guided Life Review Practice, for each of the five families, to help you identify your own obscurations and wisdoms in your own life
- The Mandala of Five Wisdom Dakinis daily meditation practice
- Guided Journey with the Dakini of a chosen family
- Art through Mandala Work with your Hands
There are no prerequisites for this course. It is offered as a self-paced course available at any time, and periodically with additional live classes led by a Tara Mandala Authorized Teacher. This is deep inner work appropriate for individuals of all gender identities.
Buddha Mandala: Journey Into the Sacred Masculine
October 3 – 6, 2025
Prague, Czechia
With Pieter Oosthuizen
The Mandala of the Five Buddhas is for all students who long to cultivate and integrate the sacred and wise masculine within themselves. Buddhism sees the enlightened masculine as the capacity to act skillfully and with wise compassion. These are capacities that must be nurtured in all of us, regardless of our gender identity. The Jungian understanding of the psyche tells us that we all have both feminine and masculine energies moving within us, which he calls the anima and the animus. The work of healing and moving towards wholeness involves cultivating the wisdom aspects of both the feminine and masculine within us; otherwise, the hidden agenda of our anima or animus shadow can be destructive and self-sabotaging.
With the Mandala Method, we offer a unique method to work with the anima in the Dakini Mandala, the animus in the Mandala of the Five Buddhas, and the union of the two in the Yab Yum Mandala. This is deep inner work appropriate for individuals of all gender identities.
The Mandala of the Five Buddhas offers a practical method to awaken the enlightened masculine within by empowering us to bring into balance the mutually supportive inner feminine-masculine unity. It is this inner union that allows us to find strength and clarity within so that we may become “in-powered” and effective change agents in the world. The practice of the Mandala of the Five Buddhas brings together sound, visualization, and meditation, and provides an inner map and skillful means to help us transform challenging emotions into their liberated wisdom.
This course includes:
- Teachings on the Five Buddhas
- Buddhas of the Mandala attributes, including mental obscurations (skandhas) and mudras
- Intro and exploration of the ‘Sacred Masculine’
- Deeper identification and exploration of your personal obscurations and wisdoms as discovered through five family work, especially in relation to the masculine
- The Mandala of the Five Buddhas, daily meditation practice
- Guided Journey with the Buddha of a chosen family
- Art through Mandala Work with your Hands
- Element Meditation for all five families
Yab Yum Mandala: The Union of the Sacred Feminine and Masculine
April 23 – 26, 2026
Prague, Czechia
With Pieter & Charlotte
Venture into the Yab Yum Mandala to explore divine union beyond gender identifications, through the union of the feminine and masculine we each hold within ourselves. The model of Yab Yum union enables a direct experience of non-duality. The exploration of encumbered patterns as represented by the five families becomes a framework for exploring obscurations that arise in relationships, such as attachment, anger, disconnection, and jealousy, and how these may be transformed into relationship wisdom.
The work of healing and moving towards wholeness involves drawing forth and cultivating the positive aspects of both our feminine and masculine energies; otherwise, the hidden agenda of each can be destructive and self-sabotaging. With the Mandala Method program we offer a sublime method to work with the feminine through the Mandala of the Dakinis, the masculine in the Mandala of the Buddhas, and the union of the two in the Mandala of the Yab Yum. This is deep inner work appropriate for individuals of all gender identities.
We can explore the Yab Yum in outer, inner and secret ways, a traditional way to unpack various layers of any given teaching. At an outer level, the teachings of Yab Yum suggest that we can meet another being – however that “other” appears to us – as a path of practice in which we fully face our partner with no escape, no guarantee, no solid ground. At an inner level, we can understand Yab Yum as a symbol of an internal balance between energies we have come to label ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine.’ At a secret level, the Yab Yum is the union of the ground of being and the emanations of the ground, the fundamental non-duality of emptiness and form, of wisdom and compassion.
This course includes:
- Teachings on the Yab Yum figures and symbolism – Male and Female Buddhas
- Integration of Sacred Feminine and Masculine, beyond the binary understanding
- Teachings on Jung’s Anima/Animus
- Working with obscurations in relationships, inner and outer
- Teachings on inner, outer, and secret mandala
- Divine union and non-duality
- The Mandala of the Yab Yum, daily meditation practice
- Guided Journey with the Yab Yum of a chosen family
- Art through Mandala Work with your Hands
- Unblocking the Encumbered Energy (Sound and Light Practice) for all five families
- Element Meditation for all five families
