Wendy Garling

Wendy has a BA from Wellesley College and an MA specializing in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a vajrayana practitioner and dharma teacher in the Lam Rim tradition; her root teacher was Venerable Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden. In 1976, she took refuge with His Holiness the 16th Karmapa and in 1979, after a first meeting in Dharamsala, began lifelong teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Pilgrimage has played an important role in Wendy’s life. In 2007 she journeyed with Lama Tsultrim Allione “In the Footsteps of Machig Labdron,” to sites of the sacred feminine in Tibet. In 2012, 2018 and 2022 she traveled to sacred sites of the Buddha in India and Nepal where stories of Buddhism’s first women arose. She is author of two books: the award-winning The Woman Who raised the Buddha: The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati, with Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Shambhala Publications, 2021) and  Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life  (Shambhala Publications, 2016). Wendy lives in Concord, Massachusetts and can be contacted at wendy.garling@yahoo.com.