The Hidden Happiness Tour with Ani Choyang from Jangchub Choeling
September 14 - September 21
The Hidden Happiness Tour
with Ani Choyang from Jangchub Choeling
at Maitripa College and online
Please take advantage of this rare opportunity! Join in person or online for any of the 3 talks (no online for the retreat). Details and registration links are below.
Women’s Wisdom from Monastic Life
(format: afternoon/evening conversation, moderated)
Wednesday, September 16, 6pm-7:30pm (PT)
Ani Choyang from Jangchub Choeling Nunnery moderated by our own Venerable Yonten from the Maitripa Rabjungma Community about what life as an ordained person actually looks like from the inside. Drawing on their own years in monastic community, the Venerables will speak to what sustains a spiritual life over decades, and what women in particular bring to that path. This is a rare chance to hear directly from monastics whose training few Western audiences ever encounter firsthand.
The Mind’s Potential: Dream Yoga and Contemplative Science
(format: afternoon/evening conversation, moderated)
Friday, September 18, 6pm-7:30pm (PT)
This talk turns toward the mind itself, asking how far its capacities may extend. The nuns bring dream yoga and other contemplative practices into conversation with what contemplative science has begun to confirm about awareness, attention, and change; along the way, the talk opens onto the themes at the heart of Maitripa’s year: anger, anxiety, and death, and the buddha nature that underlies all three. Attendees leave with a broader sense of what a trained mind can do, and a preview of where the year ahead will lead.
Transforming Anger, Anxiety, and Death
(format: afternoon/evening talk, moderated)
Sunday, September 20, 11am-12:30pm (PT)
Few things touch every life as directly as anger, anxiety, and the fact of death; this talk meets all three head-on, offering the Buddhist tradition’s long experience in working with what most of us would rather avoid. Ani Choyang speaks from lived monastic training and personal practice, translating ancient methods into guidance anyone can use. The talk sets up the three programs Maitripa will offer across the coming year, each devoted to one of these difficult, universal experiences.
A Day for Women: Fierce and Steady Practice
(format: all day retreat)
Saturday, September 19
On Saturday, September 19, 2026, Maitripa College will host a one-day retreat for women marking the close of the Hidden Happiness Tour’s Portland visit, led by Ani Choyang, Venerable Yönten, and Maitripa College leadership. The day will turn towards the distinct qualities women have long carried within the tradition: a fierceness capable of meeting anger, fear, and mortality without flinching, alongside a steady, strong attention that holds space for others to do the same. Through sitting practice, guided reflection, and shared conversation, participants will explore this inheritance directly, and in community. The retreat level will be for intermediate and advanced level practitioners, by application only. In person in Portland. Enquire for details at education@maitripa.org
About Ani Choyang
About Ani ChoyangAni Choyang was born in Tibet and escaped to India at age 18. She became a nun in 2003 under the guidance of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. She received the Rapjampa Degree (similar to a Master’s degree) in 2022 after completing a 17-year course of Buddhist studies. She is in the third year of Geshema program (Similar to a PhD).
She is a Tenzin Gyatso Science Scholar and was one of the first Tibetan nuns to attend a two-year science training program at Emory University as part of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative.
Ani Choyang also participated in a science research internship at Northwestern University in 2022, where she received in-depth training in the theory and methods of neuroscience.
Currently, Ani Choyang serves as Library and Learning Canter Project Coordinator at Jangchub Choeling Nunnery in Mundgod, South India. She also serves as a core committee member of the Tenzin Gyatso Science Association.
As part of her own leadership training, Ani Choyang travels extensively, deepening her connection to new people and places and sharing her journey as a traditional Tibetan Buddhist nun in a globalized, secular world.
