From Fire to Light: Embodied Wisdom for Transforming Trauma

With Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, Joe Loizzo, Diego Hangartner and Chantelle Brown

Co-sponsored by Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science and Sowa Rigpa Institute

Livetreamed from Pure Land Farms Tuscany

This in-person/online hybrid retreat explores the uncharted interface between embodied
approaches to transforming trauma and the powerful embodied wisdom and healing arts of the
Tibetan Tantras. In this intensive weekend, Drs. Nida and Loizzo continue their historic dialogue
on “Vajra Therapy,” exploring how the top-down arts of healing imagery and empowering
narrative meet the bottom-up arts of self-massage, movement and breath-work to forge a
crucible for transforming our habitual trauma body into fully awakened and embodied humanity.
They will be joined by Mind & Life researcher Diego Hangartner and decolonizing family-
systems therapist Chantelle Brown, who will help unpack how this embodied work transforms
the microcosm of the human nervous system, at the same time as it transforms the macrocosm
of our social and natural environment.

Our main focus together will be tasting how the flow of inner fire/sublimated energy fuels the
clear light of the supreme yoga (atiyoga), the embodied transformational form of emptiness
meditation also known as the great communion (chagchen/mahamudra) or great perfection
(dzogchen/mahanispanna). We conclude by exploring how the lucid intuition and joyful
engagement accessed by this profound practice can be applied through the work of embodied
psychotherapy and psychosocial change to transform our individual and collective trauma into
the diamond nervous system and rainbow planet prophesied by the Clockwork Kalachakra
Tantra.
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Schedule:

April 24 - 26 2026

This retreat will be livestreamed from Pure Land Farms Tuscany. In person attendance will be prioritized for students enrolled in Nalanda Institute's Contemplative Psychotherapy program.

Online Livestream is open for all.

Approximately 15 hours of livestream teaching content (Friday, Saturday and half day Sunday)

All sessions are recorded. Retreat registration includes one year access to video recordings.

In Person Registration in Tuscany is hosted by the Nalanda Institute. DETAILS HERE

Dr. Nida Chenagtsang

Tibetan Physician and Buddhist Teacher, SRI Founder

Dr. Nida Chenagtsang is a traditional Tibetan physician, author, and lineage holder of the Yuthok Nyingthig, the spiritual heart of Tibetan medicine. Born in northeastern Tibet, he trained at Lhasa Tibetan Medical University, completed his clinical work at the Tibetan Medicine hospitals in Lhasa and Lhoka. Alongside this rigorous medical training, Dr. Nida immersed himself in Vajrayana Buddhism with teachers from all the major Tibetan traditions and spent extensive periods in meditation retreat in Tibet. A pioneering researcher and teacher of Sowa Rigpa, he is the founder and academic director of the Sowa Rigpa Institute and trains students in over forty countries worldwide. His life’s mission is to make the Medicine Buddha’s lineage and the wisdom of Tibetan medicine accessible and alive for people today.

Dr. Joe Loizzo

Psychiatrist and Buddhist Scholar, Nalanda Institute Founder

Joseph (Joe) Loizzo, MD, PhD, is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and Columbia-trained Buddhist scholar with over forty years’ experience studying the beneficial effects of contemplative practices on healing, learning and development. He is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in Integrative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, where he researches and teaches contemplative self-healing and optimal health. He has taught the philosophy of science and religion, the scientific study of contemplative states, and the Indo-Tibetan mind and health sciences at Columbia University, where he is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Columbia Center for Buddhist Studies.

Diego Hangartner

Mind & Life Researcher


Diego Hangartner, PhD, PCC, is a clinical pharmacologist and certified coach (PCC), using neuroscientific, performance and clinical scientific insights, combining them to strengthen mental fitness and wellbeing. He spent many years at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in India, studying, translating and publishing several Tibetan works, and organized many large events with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Asia, Europe and the USA. Diego was COO of Mind and Life Institute in the US and co-founder and director of Mind and Life Institute in Europe until 2015. Today, he continues his research and teaching with the Max Planck Institute, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich University of Applied Sciences, and is a lecturer at the Business School of the University St.Gallen. 

Chantelle Brown

Decolonizing Family-
Systems Therapist

Chantelle Brown, LCSW is meditation teacher, graduate of Nalanda Institute’s Contemplative Psychotherapy Program, and a clinical social worker at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Chantelle received her MSW from the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and holds a post-graduate certification in Couple and Family Therapy from the Ackerman Institute for the Family. Chantelle is a cultural worker and relational therapist working at the intersection of social justice and clinical practice utilizing contemplative methods for personal and collective transformation. Her work revolves around her commitment to providing culturally attuned, trauma-informed care to patients and families while advocating for health equity within medical systems. Chantelle has a special interest in taking an integrative approach to addressing intergenerational trauma of those who have survived the Middle Passage and beyond.