Ani Drolma - Bio
Update - Ani Drolma entered Parinirvana in late December 2025
Ani Drolma has spent over ten years as a student of Lama Tendar at The Medicine Buddha Tantrayana Meditation Centre. She recently became a nun in a special ceremony officiated by Lama’s own teacher, Gen Norsang, at Gyuto Monastery in Dharamshala, India.
During her time with Lama Tendar, she has attended many of the main deity courses – Tara, Medicine Buddha, Avalokiteshvara, notably two long Yamantaka Retreats including 100,000 mantra of the key mantras, a long Vajrasattva Retreat with 100,000 mantra recitation and a long Tara Retreat in August 2024.
She has attended four Indian pilgrimages, one including Nepal, visits to sacred sites in Varanasi, Bodghya and Lumbini, two audiences and a Manjushri empowerment with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and numerous teachings with His Holiness and other high Lamas.
Ani Drolmas’s spiritual journey started very young - she insisted on going to Sunday School with her friends - inspite of her parents “weddings, baptisms and funerals” approach to Anglicanism.
After reading and being very moved, by Paramhansa Yogananda’s inspirational work - “Autobiography of a Yogi” - she studied Transcendental Meditation and began meditating while still in her teens. In her early 20’s she left her New Zealand homeland and ventured to Perth, Western Australia, where she completed her undergraduate degree, majoring in Literature.
At the same time, she was tossing up between a spiritual journey with an Indian or a Christian mystical flavour. That “sliding door” decision resulted in her spending 15 years as part of a community dedicated to studying the early Christian mystics, and where she became a Deacon – giving sermons, singing in the choir, officiating at The Cosmic Mass, attending Healing services and so on – she would have become a “free priest”, ironically in a burgundy robe, if she had stayed.
During that time Ani-la’s career morphed from secondary school teaching at Methodist Ladies College in Kew to becoming a Senior Account Director for an advertising agency and finally to Executive Coaching.
As Karilyn Fazio, she started her own business in 2002, obtaining a Master’s Degree in Organisational Coaching (with Merit) from the University of Sydney. While running her business, she provided one-on one coaching, on-going mentoring and culture and team development to many CEO’s, Partners, Directors and Academics from companies as diverse as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Minter Ellison, nab, Nestlé, Intimo, Charles Darwin University, CSIRO, Fonterra, Transurban, Hallmark, The University of Adelaide, CBRE, King & Wood Mallesons, Lindt and Honda.
Karilyn Fazio also facilitated workshops and provided dynamic team coaching to many leadership and management teams, both face to face and on zoom.
She facilitated change and leadership development for companies such as Nestlé, Transurban, SPAusnet, The University of Adelaide, Charles Darwin University and Intimo; she designed and delivered customised programs in Leadership Development, Women in Leadership, Team Development and Cultural Transformation and Coaching and Communication skills. She is a dynamic, empathic, engaging and wise presenter.
Ani Drolma has a new name, a new forever hairstyle, new burgundy coloured clothing and a new role!