Dorje Lopön Chandra Easton is a Dharma teacher, author, and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. She serves on Tara Mandala’s Prajna (Teacher) Council, Executive Committee, and Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Council. She develops programs and curricula for Tara Mandala, as well as teaches nationally and internationally. She is the author of Embodying Tara: Twenty-One Manifestations to Awaken Your Innate Wisdom (Shambhala Publishing, 2023).
In 1996, Lopön Chandra studied Buddhism and Tibetan language at the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives in Dharamsala, India, founded by H.H. Dalai Lama. She later received her degree from UCSB’s religious studies department at which time she co-translated Sublime Dharma, A Compilation of Two Texts on the Great Perfection, published by Vimala Publishing, 2012.
From the very beginning of her Buddhist studies, Lopön Chandra recognized the profound need to bring forth the voice of the empowered feminine in Buddhism. Due to this, in 1999 during her first pregnancy, she met and then later began to study with Lama Tsultrim Allione, pioneering female Buddhist teacher, national best selling author, and founder of Tara Mandala Retreat Center.
In September of 2015, during the final day of the White Dakini Drubchen, Lopön Chandra was given the title of Dorje Lopön (Vajra Teacher) of Tara Mandala under Lama Tsultrim Allione and given the name Lopön Yeshe Dawa Zangmo by H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche who presided over the ceremony with Lama Tsultrim.
Lopön Chandra has had the good fortune to study with many Tibetan and Western Buddhist teachers such as H.H. 16th Karmapa (with whom she took refuge at the age of three), H.H. Dalai Lama (with whom she took her Bodhisattva Vow), Lama Tsultrim Allione, Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche, Jennifer Welwood, B. Alan Wallace, Gyatrul Rinpoche, A.dzom Paylo Rinpoche, and Lama Pema Dorje Rinpoche, Sogan Rinpoche, and Adzom Gyalse Rinpoche.
She co-founded the 21 Taras Collective (www.21tarascollective.org) with Nina Rao and Genevieve Walker, to record music for the twenty-one Taras mantras found in her book, Embodying Tara. Her talks, writings, guided meditations, and teaching schedule can be found at www.chandraeaston.com