Overview
What is the dakini principle? Who are the dakinis? How do both show up in Buddhist Art? Can dakini imagery and iconography have a transformative impact on makers and viewers? If this lights up your curiosity, then join us for a weekend workshop where we open into these questions through different modalities—illustrated presentation, experiential self-inquiry, guided explorations, and Q and A-based conversation.
Bring your questions, insights, and most of all your sense of adventure for this field trip into the world of dakini wisdom. This workshop is open to anyone. It may be especially interesting as a follow-up for those who recently enjoyed Judith Simmer-Brown’s presentation on Dakini Wisdom in relation to emptiness, devastation, embodiment, and gender. If you are interested in meaning, representation, and function in Tibetan Buddhist art, or are just curious, please join us for a journey into this powerful and mysterious territory of Buddhism.
Clarify for yourself:
- what a dakini is and is not,
- the kinds of dakinis,
- their specific functions and qualities,
- well-known dakinis,
- dakinis and the dakini principle in Buddhist meditation, and
- personally connecting with the dakini principle
About the Teacher
Stephanie Johnston
Longtime Buddhist practitioner Stephanie Johnston is an alumna of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, with post graduate studies in Digital Design and Communication and Museum Studies. She has spent the last 25 years creating visuals for Buddhist non-profits, training meditation instructors, and teaching for Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies. There she designed a Buddhist Visual Literacy curriculum for the Science of Creativity and the Arts, one of the five main sciences of Tibetan Buddhism. In 2025 she published her book, Symbolizing the Awakened Heart: The Practice of Buddhist Visual Literacy. For more information visit: readingbuddhist.art
To view Stephanie’s talk, Symbolizing the Awakened Heart: Buddhist Visual Literacy, click here.
Schedule (Eastern Time)
The program will be ONSITE at Nalandabodhi Toronto and ONLINE.
All sessions will be recorded; recordings will be available until December 31, 2026.
Friday evening–Session One:
7:00 pm – 8:30 pmÂ
Saturday morning–Session Two:
10:00 am -12:15 pm
Saturday afternoon–Session Three:
2:30 pm – 4:45 pm
Sunday morning–Session Four:
10:00 am -12:15 pm
Monastics are encouraged to join us as our guests.
All amounts are in Canadian Dollars.Â
*** Money should not be a barrier to dharma. If finances are a barrier, please email toronto@nalandabodhi.ca to arrange a fee you can afford. ***
We look forward to seeing you onsite or online!
Date/Time
Date(s) - Fri, October 2, 2026 - Sun, October 4, 2026
All Day
Location Nalandabodhi Toronto & Online (Hybrid)
