Ven Tenzin Chogkyi

Ven Tenzin Chogkyi (formerly Petra McWilliams) became interested in meditation after reading Be Here Now and Autobiography of a Yogi in the early ‘70’s. For the next 30 years, her spiritual path was meandering and haphazard, and included several dead ends, until she bought a one-way ticket to India in early 1991 with the intention of meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She became a student not only of His Holiness, but also of Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the year she spent studying at Tushita Retreat Center in Dharamsala and Kopan Monastery. In late 1991, she was asked by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to come back to the US to become the co-director of Vajrapani Institute in California. In 1995, she began working at FPMT International Office, first as co-director and then later as center services coordinator. In early 2000, she began a long, solitary retreat that lasted 6 ½ years. Tenzin Chogkyi decided to become ordained in the third year of her long retreat, and then left retreat for a quick trip to India in 2004 for novice ordination with His Holiness. Since emerging from retreat in the summer of 2006, she has been living at Land of Medicine Buddha, where she has been teaching introductory courses both at LMB and the local community center in Santa Cruz, in addition to teaching in a prison, facilitating a support group for women with chronic illness, and providing spiritual support to hospice patients.