[1] Since the mid-1980's she has served as spiritual director for Kunzang Odsal Palyul Changchub Choling, a Buddhist center in Poolesville, Maryland, which includes a large community of western monks and nuns.

[8] She studied with a New Age teacher named Jim Gore and led classes at the Black Mountain Light Center in North Carolina.

[15][16] In 1984, Zeoli's students met a Tibetan man named Kunzang, Penor Rinpoche's main lay attendant, who was selling rugs to support Namdroling Monastery.

[18][19] Penor Rinpoche then gave Ahkon Lhamo's students the traditional refuge and bodhisattva vows, which constitute formal entry into Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism, respectively.

She traveled to receive the Kama transmission at Tashi Choling in Ashland, Oregon, in 1988,[25] and the Nam Cho a second time from Karma Kuchen in McDonough, New York, in 2018.

[26] In 1985, her center formed a corporation and purchased an antebellum-style mansion in Poolesville, Maryland where her temple was established, which Penor Rinpoche named Kunzang Palyul Choling.

They also purchased numerous large crystals[27] weighing hundreds of pounds and held a three-day retreat to instate the 24-hour prayer vigil at the new location.

In September 1988, toward the end of Penor Rinpoche’s conferral of the Rinchen Terdzod, 25 of Ahkon Lhamo's students underwent the traditional ordination ceremony to become monks and nuns, creating a large monastic community.

During the cremation of her body, her kapala (top half of the skull) is said to have flown three kilometers and come to rest at the foot of the teaching throne of her brother.

Found to be miraculously embossed with the sacred syllable AH, the kapala became an important relic housed at Palyul monastery in Tibet.

He recounted that as a young tulku in Tibet (he was recognized and brought to Palyul Monastery in 1936, at the age of four),[47] inspired by seeing the skull relic, he made prayers to find Ahkon Lhamo's incarnation.

[3][48] Though most of the kapala relic was pulverized into dust during the Cultural Revolution, one Tibetan man managed to save a silver dollar-size piece on which the syllable "AH" appears.

He had it preserved in a crystal lotus bowl and presented it to Ahkon Lhamo just prior to the occasion of her enthronement ceremony at Kunzang Palyul Choling (KPC) in 1988.

In 1994, Terton Orgyen Kusum Lingpa indicated in a long-life prayer he composed that Ahkon Lhamo was an emanation of Lhacham Mandarava, the Indian princess of Zahor and one of the consorts of Padmasambhava, a tantric master who helped establish the Buddha's teaching in Tibet.

[52] Inspired by these events, several of Ahkon Lhamo's students sought out and found a copy of Mandarava's middle-length spiritual biography, revealed as a terma in the 17th century by Samten Lingpa, at the U.S. Library of Congress.

Under this program, taught by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso, students received complete commentary teachings on classic Buddhist texts by Shantideva, Chandrakirti, Asanga, Ngari Panchen, and Mipham Rinpoche.

This curriculum was supplemented by annual 30-day retreats teaching the traditional Nyingmapa sequence of the inner tantra: Ngondro, Tsa Lung, Trekchod, and Togyal.

[58] Ahkon Lhamo had already begun composing music in the 1990's with her CD "Invocation," a prayer to Guru Rinpoche, the founder of Buddhism in Tibet.

In Sedona, she experimented and combined mantra, Tibetan instruments, and popular musical styles on her albums "Revolution of Compassion," "Delog," and "Trilogy" as a form of passive outreach.

[65] [66] While her temple's sandwiches for the homeless program was forced to pause during the pandemic, Ahkon Lhamo personally packed large boxes of food for local charities such as UpCounty Hub, WUMCO, IROC, Poolesville Little Free Pantry, the First Baptist Church of Silver Spring, and Shepherd's Table.

At her urging, KPC Buddhist Relief expanded to offer 1,000 pounds of food per day to these partners, and fulfilled the needs of refugees.