Aro Gar

Aro is a Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist tradition whose unusual characteristics make it singularly appropriate for many Westerners. Aro is principally concerned with transforming our experience of everyday being, rather than achieving an esoteric or spiritualised mode of existence. Our aim is to engender cheerful courage, perceptive consideration, sincere determination, natural gallantry, graciousness, creativity, and spaciousness.

The Aro teachings descend from a lineage of enlightened women – beginning with Yeshé Tsogyel. She was the female Tantric Buddha, who—together with Padmasambhava—founded the Nyingma tradition of Buddhism. Aro is a small family lineage within that tradition – founded by the female visionary Lama Aro Lingma in 1909.

Aro is now represented in Britain, America, and Europe by several Lamas and their senior ordained students. These teachers are Westerners, born and raised in our cultures. Accordingly, they may be better able to understand the practical concerns of Westerners than Buddhist teachers raised in the East. Nevertheless, they rigorously avoid incorporating elements of psychotherapy, ‘political correctness’, or New Age formulæ into Vajrayana Buddhism.