Students who successfully complete Sowa Rigpa Institute’s certificate courses demonstrate their competency in the respective purviews to the standard and level of integrity upheld by Medical Director Dr. Nida Chenagtsang and Sowa Rigpa Institute Faculty. It is important to note that our curricula serve a diverse international student community, and that while Sowa Rigpa has been continuously practiced and refined for thousands of years in Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and adjacent Himalayan regions, in many places in the world Sowa Rigpa does not have legal recognition or regulation for practice (licensure or certification).

A certificate from Sowa Rigpa Institute for our four year Sowa Rigpa Practitioner Program demonstrates that you have completed the study, practice, supervision, and assessment that the Sowa Rigpa Institute as directed by Dr. Nida Chenagtsang deems sufficient to effectively practice Sowa Rigpa professionally. However, you are ultimately responsible for researching, understanding, and when necessary deferring to your local jurisdiction’s limits, if any, on how or what modalities you may practice as an unlicensed practitioner (unless you already possess another license, of course). Individual modalities such as herbalism, bodywork, counseling, and acupuncture all have widely-variable local regulations, and students will need to determine the local regulations specific to where they intend to practice; students should be aware that in some cases they may wish to consider pursuing additional locally-specific practitioner licensure, certification, or registration from other institutions.

Sowa Rigpa Institute is registered in the United States however our faculty and students come from all over the world. Our main physical home is Pure Land Farms in Topanga (the greater Los Angeles area), California (USA). We offer in person practical classes at Pure Land Farms as well as in Nepal, Mexico, Italy, New York.

Most of our certificate courses are taught in English, with some also offered in Spanish. A selection of our shorter online courses and workshops are available with simultaneous translation into multiple languages. Many of our course books are also available in foreign languages. The complete two and four year Practitioner and Counselor programs are offered in English only and require strong proficiency in the English language to attend.

Scholarships are available by application for students in genuine financial need, with particular priority given to heritage practitioners from the regions where these traditions are living cultural transmissions, as well as monastic students, veterans, chaplains and clinicians already serving others, and BIPOC students, in recognition of the systemic inequalities that continue to limit access to education in the United States and beyond. As an American institution serving a global community, we are also committed to accounting for the vast differences in economic reality across the countries where our students live and study and tuition fees may be adjusted acoordingly.