Rooted in Lineage. Guided by Realization.
The Rimé, or non-sectarian, approach to Vajrayana practice recognizes that authentic realization does not belong to any single lineage. It lives in the unbroken transmission passed from master to student across generations. At Yangti Yoga, our teachers and advisors represent a rare breadth of living lineages, each holding a distinct thread of the Vajrayana dharma. While our primary focus is holding and and offering instruction on the various dark retreat instructions that were developed by Dungtsö Repa and various Yangti Nakpo lineage holders, Yangti-based dark retreat instructions intersect with a number of wider Vajrayana lineages. In this respect, we adhere to the idea: Same vision, different missions. In this sense, we all share the vision, deep commitment towards high integrity practice of dark retreat, while also having intersecting, and at times, unique activities in relationship to dark retreat.
We are honored to hold this work in relationship with the teachers below, whose guidance shapes every aspect of how we practice, teach, and build.
Teachers & Advisors
LAMA JUSTIN VON BUJDOSS
Founder & Spiritual Director
Lama Justin von Bujdoss is an American Vajrayana Buddhist teacher, writer, the Founder and Spiritual Director of Yangti Yoga Retreat Center, and co-founder of Bhumisparsha, an experimental Buddhist sangha, along with Lama Rod Owens. His primary focus being the Yangti Yoga Retreat Center which is dedicated to the practice of Dark Retreat, or Yangti Yoga. Lama Justin’s dharma teaching focuses on Ati Yoga (Dzogchen) and Yangti Yoga (Dark Retreat).
He is the author of Modern Tantric Buddhism: Authenticity and Embodiment in Dharma Practice published by North Atlantic Books, and contributor to Buddhism and Whiteness: Critical Reflections published by Lexington Books. He is also the author of a forthcoming title on dark retreat to be published by Wisdom Publications.
From 2016 until December 2021 Lama Justin served as the Executive Director of Chaplaincy and Staff Wellness for NYC Department of Correction where he also served as Staff Chaplain supervising over 30 chaplains and guided wellness programming for staff. He has years of professional experience in home hospice and hospital settings as a pastoral caregiver. From 2018 to 2024 Lama Justin served as the chaplain for Hart Island, New York City’s public cemetery, and is currently the chaplain for the Shelburne Falls/Buckland Fire Department.
Lama Justin was ordained as a repa, a lay tantric yogin in the tradition of Milarepa, by His Eminence Gyaltsab Rinpoche, one of the heart sons of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, and is a ngakpa in the Yuthok Nyingthig tantric Buddhist lineage under Dr. Nida Chenagtsang. Lama Justin has presented on Buddhist practice at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, University of Chicago, Wellesley, Columbia University, has been a visiting instructor at Union Theological Seminary. He is passionate about helping to create the conditions for authentic embodied dzogchen practice, especially that of Yangti practice (Dark Retreat) as well as the lineage practices of the Yangti Nakpo.
H.E. CHUNG TULKU RINPOCHE
Yangti Nakpo Lineage Holder & Advisor
His Eminence Chung Tulku Rinpoche is a recognized tulku and a living holder of the Yangti Nakpo, one of the rarest and most profound cycles of dark retreat practice within the Vajrayana. Rooted in the Dzogchen tradition of Bhutan, Chung Rinpoche carries an unbroken transmission of Yangti practice that is among the most direct and complete available today.
Chung Rinpoche trained under some of the most eminent masters of the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions and has devoted his life to preserving and transmitting the Yangti Nakpo lineage in its full integrity. He is based in the Paro valley of Bhutan where he continues to teach, practice, and hold this living tradition. When he was six years old he e recognized himself as the body reincarnation of the previous Chung Rinpoche, a well-known dark retreat yogin who was a student of Lochen Shukseb Jetsun Chönyi Zangmo - a recognition that was confirmed by the previous Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Later, in 1996 at the Nyingma Monlam Chenmo in Bodh Gaya, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche recognized and enthroned Chung Tulku as the mind reincarnation of Trulshik Dongak Lingpa, the important terton who was the Yangti Nakpo teacher of Lochen Shukseb Jetsun Chönyi and an important force in revitalizing the Yangti Nakpo lineage.
Yangti Yoga’s relationship with H.E. Chung Rinpoche is one of the most treasured aspects of our work. United by a shared commitment to uplifting and preserving the rare Yangti Nakpo lineage, our ongoing partnership takes three forms:
Each year, Lama Justin and H.E. Chung Rinpoche lead a Dzogchen pilgrimage through Bhutan, tracing the footsteps of Padmasambhava, Yeshe Tsogyal, and Longchenpa through sacred sites, pristine forests, and places of living practice. Pilgrims receive transmissions, engage in retreat, and connect directly with the ground of these teachings.
Chung Rinpoche visits Yangti Yoga Retreat Center to offer teachings and transmissions directly to our community bringing the living lineage of the Yangti Nakpo to our land in the Berkshires.
Additionally we are honored to support and be affiliated with Chung Rinpoche’s nunnery in the Paro valley - Tshogyel Lungtok Tengayling Nunnery - a community of dedicated female practitioners whose continued work is itself an act of preservation of this rare and precious tradition.
DR. NIDA CHENAGTSANG
Yuthok Nyingthig Lineage Holder
Dr. Nida Chenagtsang is a physician, lineage holder, and co-founder of Yangti Yoga Retreat Center. Born in Amdo, northeastern Tibet, he completed his medical education at Lhasa Tibetan Medical University in 1996, with practical training at Tibetan Medicine hospitals in Lhasa and Lhoka.
Alongside his medical training, Dr. Nida received extensive Vajrayana instruction from teachers across all schools of Tibetan Buddhism including teachings in the Longchen Nyingthig from his root teacher Ani Ngawang Gyaltsen, and the Dudjom Tersar lineage from Chönyid Rinpoche and Sremo Dechen Yudron. He received complete transmission of the Yuthok Nyingthig — the unique spiritual lineage of Tibetan Medicine — from Khenpo Tsultrim Gyaltsen and Khenchen Troru Tsenam, and was asked to continue this lineage by Jamyang Rinpoche.
A widely published author and researcher in both Tibetan and English, Dr. Nida has revived numerous traditional Tibetan external healing therapies and trains students in Sowa Rigpa and the Yuthok Nyingthig tradition across more than forty countries. He connects us with the intersection of dark retreat and the Yuthok Nyingthig lineage practices, including more recent innovations in the further bringing together of the Yuthok Nyinthig and dark retreat.
H.E. DRUNG GOSHIR GYALTSAB RINPOCHE
Regent Of The Karma Kagyu Lineage & Advisor
His Eminence Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche serves as an advisor to Yangti Yoga Retreat Center. As one of Lama Justin’s principal teachers, His Eminence guidance on the development of our practice programs and the integrity of our lineage relationships.
The 16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje recognized the present and 12th Gyaltsab Rinpoche while he was still in his mother’s womb. His parents were from Nyimo, near Lhasa. Soon after his recognition in 1959, His Eminence fled into exile with the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa. The Gyalwang Karmapa carried Rinpoche on his back while traveling across the Himalayas into exile. He soon settled at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim and received the relevant transmissions and training associated with holding the role of regent to the Karmapas.
His Eminence studied the dharma with the other heart sons of the Karmapa such as Jamgön Kongtrül Rinpoche, Tai Situ Rinpoche and Shamar Rinpoche. Like most of his incarnations, he spends most of his life in meditation retreat and has been involved in taking care of the seat of the Karmapa. He resides in Sikkim, serving as regent representing the Karma Kagyu lineage. He oversees the activities and functions of Rumtek and at his own monasteries, such as Palchen Chosling Monastic Institute in Ralang, in Sikkim, and his own seat monastery situated above Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet
In 1992, Gyaltsab Rinpoche and Tai Situ Rinpoche enthroned the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa in Tibet. Gyaltsab Rinpoche has also served as one of the main teachers of HH the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa and already has bestowed transmissions to His Holiness.
He is a revered master who also has been a close teacher to Lama Justin for over twenty years and from whom Lama Justin received his repa ordination from in 2010. Gyaltsab Rinpoche, forms a living thread of transmission at the heart of our work with the Karma Kagyu Lineage.
PROFESSOR DAVID GERMANO
Academic & Research Advisor/Collaborator
In addition to teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has advised many doctoral students since 1992, Germano is director of the Tibet Center, director of the Contemplative Sciences Center, and director of SHANTI (Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts Network of Technological Initiatives) at the University of Virginia. He also is the founder and director of the Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL), the largest international initiative using digital technology to facilitate collaboration in Tibetan Studies across disciplines.
His personal research interests are focused on the Nyingma and Bön lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, tantric traditions overall, Buddhist philosophy, and Tibetan historical literature and concerns, particularly from the eighth to fifteenth centuries. He also does research on the contemporary state of Tibetan religion in relation to China, and non-monastic yogic communities in cultural Tibet, and has broad intellectual interests in international philosophical and literary traditions, including hermeneutics, phenomenology, literary criticism, systems theory, and so forth.
Germano is currently working on a fourfold set of works that constitute a comprehensive analysis of the Great Perfection Seminal Heart (rdzogs chen snying thig) tradition from its formation to its full expression in the fourteenth century with the corpus of Longchenpa, one of the greatest of all Tibetan Buddhist authors. This includes a translation of his major work, The Treasury of Words and Meanings (tshig don mdzod), a historical study, a philosophical study, and a literary study of the tradition.
Professor Germano’s collaboration with us is around the cataloging, translating, and analyzing the array of dark retreat instructions connected with the Yangti Dzogchen-based practice of dark retreat as well as the core practices of the Yangti Nakpo terma cycle.
AMELIA CATONE
CPE Educator & Collaborator
Amelia Catone is an ACPE Certified Educator and Board Certified Chaplain with the Association of Professional Chaplains. She is a student of Vajrayana Buddhism in the Longchen Nyingtik lineage under Dzigar Köngtrul Rinpoche, and also holds a Master of Divinity degree from St. Thomas University. Her foundational training and service as an interfaith chaplain began in 2015 at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, and continued at
Level I Trauma hospitals Albany Medical Center (Albany, New York) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. With experience in many different urban health care settings, including hospice, oncology, trauma and burns, pediatrics, transplant, and mental health, Amelia is dedicated to training spiritual caregivers who are versatile, compassionate, and committed to their own and others’ well-being. She lives outside Boston with her partner and two children.
AMELIA CATONE
CPE Educator
Amelia Catone is an ACPE Certified Educator and Board Certified Chaplain with the Association of Professional Chaplains. She is a student of Vajrayana Buddhism in the Longchen Nyingtik lineage under Dzigar Köngtrul Rinpoche, and also holds a Master of Divinity degree from St. Thomas University. Her foundational training and service as an interfaith chaplain began in 2015 at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, and continued at Level I Trauma hospitals Albany Medical Center (Albany, New York) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. With experience in many different urban health care settings, including hospice, oncology, trauma and burns, pediatrics, transplant, and mental health, Amelia is dedicated to training spiritual caregivers who are versatile, compassionate, and committed to their own and others’ well-being. She lives outside Boston with her partner and two children.
PROFESSOR DAVID GERMANO
Academic & Research Advisor/Collaborator
In addition to teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he has advised many doctoral students since 1992, Germano is director of the Tibet Center, director of the Contemplative Sciences Center, and director of SHANTI (Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts Network of Technological Initiatives) at the University of Virginia. He also is the founder and director of the Tibetan and Himalayan Library (THL), the largest international initiative using digital technology to facilitate collaboration in Tibetan Studies across disciplines. His personal research interests are focused on the Nyingma and Bön lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, tantric traditions overall, Buddhist philosophy, and Tibetan historical literature and concerns, particularly from the eighth to fifteenth centuries. He also does research on the contemporary state of Tibetan religion in relation to China, and non-monastic yogic communities in cultural Tibet, and has broad intellectual interests in international philosophical and literary traditions, including hermeneutics, phenomenology, literary criticism, systems theory, and so forth. Germano is currently working on a fourfold set of works that constitute a comprehensive analysis of the Great Perfection Seminal Heart (rdzogs chen snying thig) tradition from its formation to its full expression in the fourteenth century with the corpus of Longchenpa, one of the greatest of all Tibetan Buddhist authors. This includes a translation of his major work, The Treasury of Words and Meanings (tshig don mdzod), a historical study, a philosophical study, and a literary study of the tradition. Professor Germano’s collaboration with us is around the cataloging, translating, and analyzing the array of dark retreat instructions connected with the Yangti Dzogchen-based practice of dark retreat as well as the core practices of the Yangti Nakpo terma cycle.
DR. NIDA CHENAGTSANG
Yuthok Nyingthig Lineage Holder
Dr. Nida Chenagtsang is a physician, lineage holder, and co-founder of Yangti Yoga Retreat Center. Born in Amdo, northeastern Tibet, he completed his medical education at Lhasa Tibetan Medical University in 1996, with practical training at Tibetan Medicine hospitals in Lhasa and Lhoka. Alongside his medical training, Dr. Nida received extensive Vajrayana instruction from teachers across all schools of Tibetan Buddhism including teachings in the Longchen Nyingthig from his root teacher Ani Ngawang Gyaltsen, and the Dudjom Tersar lineage from Chönyid Rinpoche and Sremo Dechen Yudron. He received complete transmission of the Yuthok Nyingthig — the unique spiritual lineage of Tibetan Medicine — from Khenpo Tsultrim Gyaltsen and Khenchen Troru Tsenam, and was asked to continue this lineage by Jamyang Rinpoche. A widely published author and researcher in both Tibetan and English, Dr. Nida has revived numerous traditional Tibetan external healing therapies and trains students in Sowa Rigpa and the Yuthok Nyingthig tradition across more than forty countries. He connects us with the intersection of dark retreat and the Yuthok Nyingthig lineage practices, including more recent innovations in the further bringing together of the Yuthok Nyinthig and dark retreat.
H.E. DRUNG GOSHIR GYALTSAB RINPOCHE
Regent Of The Karma Kagyu Lineage & Advisor
His Eminence Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche serves as an advisor to Yangti Yoga Retreat Center. As one of Lama Justin’s principal teachers, His Eminence guidance on the development of our practice programs and the integrity of our lineage relationships. The 16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje recognized the present and 12th Gyaltsab Rinpoche while he was still in his mother’s womb. His parents were from Nyimo, near Lhasa. Soon after his recognition in 1959, His Eminence fled into exile with the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa. The Gyalwang Karmapa carried Rinpoche on his back while traveling across the Himalayas into exile. He soon settled at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim and received the relevant transmissions and training associated with holding the role of regent to the Karmapas. His Eminence studied the dharma with the other heart sons of the Karmapa such as Jamgön Kongtrül Rinpoche, Tai Situ Rinpoche and Shamar Rinpoche. Like most of his incarnations, he spends most of his life in meditation retreat and has been involved in taking care of the seat of the Karmapa. He resides in Sikkim, serving as regent representing the Karma Kagyu lineage. He oversees the activities and functions of Rumtek and at his own monasteries, such as Palchen Chosling Monastic Institute in Ralang, in Sikkim, and his own seat monastery situated above Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet In 1992, Gyaltsab Rinpoche and Tai Situ Rinpoche enthroned the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa in Tibet. Gyaltsab Rinpoche has also served as one of the main teachers of HH the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa and already has bestowed transmissions to His Holiness. He is a revered master who also has been a close teacher to Lama Justin for over twenty years and from whom Lama Justin received his repa ordination from in 2010. Gyaltsab Rinpoche, forms a living thread of transmission at the heart of our work with the Karma Kagyu Lineage.
H.E. CHUNG TULKU RINPOCHE
Yangti Nakpo Lineage Holder & Advisor
His Eminence Chung Tulku Rinpoche is a recognized tulku and a living holder of the Yangti Nakpo, one of the rarest and most profound cycles of dark retreat practice within the Vajrayana. Rooted in the Dzogchen tradition of Bhutan, Chung Rinpoche carries an unbroken transmission of Yangti practice that is among the most direct and complete available today. Chung Rinpoche trained under some of the most eminent masters of the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions and has devoted his life to preserving and transmitting the Yangti Nakpo lineage in its full integrity. He is based in the Paro valley of Bhutan where he continues to teach, practice, and hold this living tradition. When he was six years old he e recognized himself as the body reincarnation of the previous Chung Rinpoche, a well-known dark retreat yogin who was a student of Lochen Shukseb Jetsun Chönyi Zangmo - a recognition that was confirmed by the previous Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Later, in 1996 at the Nyingma Monlam Chenmo in Bodh Gaya, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche recognized and enthroned Chung Tulku as the mind reincarnation of Trulshik Dongak Lingpa, the important terton who was the Yangti Nakpo teacher of Lochen Shukseb Jetsun Chönyi and an important force in revitalizing the Yangti Nakpo lineage. Yangti Yoga’s relationship with H.E. Chung Rinpoche is one of the most treasured aspects of our work. United by a shared commitment to uplifting and preserving the rare Yangti Nakpo lineage, our ongoing partnership takes three forms: Each year, Lama Justin and H.E. Chung Rinpoche lead a Dzogchen pilgrimage through Bhutan, tracing the footsteps of Padmasambhava, Yeshe Tsogyal, and Longchenpa through sacred sites, pristine forests, and places of living practice. Pilgrims receive transmissions, engage in retreat, and connect directly with the ground of these teachings. Chung Rinpoche visits Yangti Yoga Retreat Center to offer teachings and transmissions directly to our community bringing the living lineage of the Yangti Nakpo to our land in the Berkshires. Additionally we are honored to support and be affiliated with Chung Rinpoche’s nunnery in the Paro valley - Tshogyel Lungtok Tengayling Nunnery - a community of dedicated female practitioners whose continued work is itself an act of preservation of this rare and precious tradition.
LAMA JUSTIN VON BUJDOSS
Founder & Spiritual Director
Lama Justin von Bujdoss is an American Vajrayana Buddhist teacher, writer, the co-founder of Bhumisparsha, an experimental Buddhist sangha, along with Lama Rod Owens and Founder and Spiritual Director of Yangti Yoga Retreat Center. The center is dedicated to the practice of Dark Retreat, or Yangti Yoga. The main focus of Lama Justin’s dharma teaching consists of Ati Yoga (Dzogchen) and Yangti Yoga (Dark Retreat). He is the author of Modern Tantric Buddhism: Authenticity and Embodiment in Dharma Practice published by North Atlantic Books, and contributor to Buddhism and Whiteness: Critical Reflections published by Lexington Books. His is also the author of a forthcoming title on dark retreat to be published by Wisdom Publications. From 2016 until December 2021 Lama Justin served as the Executive Director of Chaplaincy and Staff Wellness for NYC Department of Correction where he also served as Staff Chaplain supervising over 30 chaplains and guided wellness programming for staff. He has years of professional experience in home hospice and hospital settings as a pastoral caregiver. From 2018 to 2024 Lama Justin served as the chaplain for Hart Island, New York City’s public cemetery, and is currently the chaplain for the Shelburne Falls/Buckland Fire Department. Lama Justin was ordained as a repa, a lay tantric yogin in the tradition of Milarepa, by His Eminence Gyaltsab Rinpoche, one of the heart sons of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, and is a ngakpa in the Yuthok Nyingthigtantric Buddhist lineage under Dr. Nida Chenagtsang. Lama Justin has presented on Buddhist practice at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, University of Chicago, Wellesley, Columbia University, has been a visiting instructor at Union Theological Seminary. He is passionate about helping to create the conditions for authentic embodied dzogchen practice, especially that of Yangti practice (Dark Retreat) as well as the lineage practices of the Yangti Nakpo.