Sera Khandro

This book presents the unabridged translation of the Buddhist visionary Sera Khandro Dewé Dorjé’s extraordinary autobiography—one of only a handful of life stories written by women in Tibetan literature.

Truly an extraordinary work, the autobiography of the famed Tibetan Buddhist female master Sera Khandro is at once worldly and sublime, candidly detailing her many life difficulties with other people, along with the spirit guides who supported her, and the many profound realizations she experienced. Translated with finesse by Jacoby and meticulously reviewed with several leading Tibetan experts, this book affords the reader a rare encounter with an exceptional woman teacher and the life of traditional tantric Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau in the early twentieth century.

Our dharma sister Sarah Jacoby has skillfully and accurately translated this great treatise over a period of many years. Jacoby has poured her heart and soul into this project and is the ideal person to have done so given that she is highly qualified as an academic Buddhist scholar and teacher, an accomplished and devoted practitioner, and a qualified literary translator authorized by Chatral Rinpoche to make this translation. May these accounts of Sera Khandro’s astonishing life inspire and uplift all who are fortunate enough to encounter this text and make a meaningful connection.

Sera Khandro Dewé Dorjé (1892–1940) was born in Lhasa, Tibet, to a wealthy and politically powerful family. She renounced her privileged upbringing and joined a group of pilgrims from the eastern Tibetan region of Golok, where she spent the rest of her life dedicated to Buddhist practice, eventually becoming a renowned visionary who discovered Buddhist revelations, a guru, and a Tantric consort.

Sarah H. Jacoby is professor of religious studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro (Columbia, 2014) and coauthor of Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience (fourth edition, 2024), among other works.