Jowo Rinpoche

This is the most famous statue of Buddha in all of Tibet . The golden statue was a dowry gift of the Chinese Princess Wengcheng when she arrived in Lhasa to be married with the thirty third king of Tibet , SongTsen Gampo in the 7 th century. Tibet 's most sacred temple, called the “Jokang,” was built to house this Buddha statue, which contains 1,702 pounds of pure gold on its body. King SongTsen Gampo was the first king to actively promote Buddhism in Tibet and abroad. He is also known for introducing the Tibetan alphabet as it stands today, and initiating the translation of the Buddhist canon into Tibetan. His military conquests were far and wide, extending to Turkestan to the West, China to the East and Nepal to the south.

Guru Rinpoche

This is a statue of the master Guru Padmasambhava. The historical Sakyamuni Buddha predicted the birth of Guru Padmasambhava who would be the transmitter of Buddhist Dharma to Tibet and would be a master of Vajrayana tantric Buddhism.

In Tibetan, “Guru” means “teacher,” “Padmasambhava” means “the one born from a lotus.” It is said that on the tenth day of the sixth month of the Monkey year, the time for Guru Padmasambhava to liberate the beings of this world approached. At that moment, the Buddha Amitabha appeared miraculously above the lake Kosha , in South West Odiyana, which is currently located on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier. From the Buddha Amitabha's tongue emanated a light ray; where it touched the water grew a large lotus and from within the lotus sat an eight year old boy. The boy was taken into the kingdom of Odiyana as the son of King Indrabhuti and named Padmasambhava, or Lotus Born One. Padmasambhava grew up to make realizations about the unsatisfactory nature of existence, which led to his renunciation of both kingdom and family in order to teach the Dharma to those entangled in samsara. The prayer for Guru Padmasambhava is: OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUNG.

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

The second Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche* (1893-1959) was the greatest master of many lineages of this century. He had many visions, accomplished many attainments, and manifested many spiritual powers. Some examples of his display of power include: when he blessed a new image it would became hot to the touch; when he blessed the Mahakala image of the Dzang Mahakala temple, the image moved as if it were alive; when he prepared ambrosia, beams of light arched around the temple; at the time of an empowerment of Vaishravana, gold dust rained through the air; and many times the distribution of a small amount of blessing pills or nectar became an inexhaustible supply for a huge assembly of devotees.

At the age of sixty-seven, on the sixth day of the fifth month of the Earth Pig year of the sixteenth Rabjung (1959), he passed away amid signs of lights, earthquakes and sounds. Today most of his remains are preserved in a small golden stupa at the Royal Chapel of Sikkim.

* A Rinpoche, by the way, is defined as a “highly realised being that has control over its birth and that chooses to take rebirth amongst mortals for their benefit”. Rinpoches are recognised through elaborate tests, precise rituals and divinations, and they come back life after life, in an unbroken lineage. Their minds are “vast and stable”, and Rinpoche means “precious”.

His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

was respected in Tibet and the world at large as his generation's most extraordinary poet, scholar, philosopher and meditation master of the Mahayana, Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions. He was one of the main lineage holders of the Dzogchen Longchen Nyingthig traditions and was head of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism following the death of HH Dudjom Rinpoche in 1987 until his own death in 1991.

He became the spiritual leader of all Bhutan and the King of Bhutan's personal spiritual advisor, but also traveled extensively to teach in Europe , the United States and on three occasions in Tibet as well. Although a Nyingma Master he was an exponent of the Rime movement and was well known for his ability to teach each Buddhist Lineage from within its own tradition. Even when he was in the last year of life he went to Dharamsala to give transmissions and empowerments for a month to HH the Dalai Lama who regarded him as his principal Dzogchen teacher.

He established dharma centers in Bhutan , India and the West. He inaugurated the reconstruction of Shechen Monastery, which had been destroyed in during the Cultural Revolution in 1960. He built a new stupa at Bodhgaya where Shakyamuni Buddha attained realization under the Bodhi Tree. He instigated a major program of reprinting important texts, which might otherwise have been lost to future generations as a result of the continuing problems in Tibet and wrote 25 books himself. He also established a traditional three-year retreat program in European and American Centers including at his European Seat, Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling in Dordogne .

His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche died in Bhutan on 28 th September 1991 .

Khandro Tsering Chodron

Khandro was the spiritual wife of Jamyang Kyentse Choki Lodro and is regarded as the foremost woman master in Tibetan Buddhism. She is the embodiment of devotion, teaching through the simplicity of her loving presence.

Sakya Trizin Rinpoche

His Holiness Sakya Trizin is the supreme head of the Sakya Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He is a direct descendant of the Khon Lineage and is the 41st in an unbroken lineage of masters that dates back to 1073 AD. His Holiness is the emanation of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom.
His Holiness was born in 1945 in Tibet . But owing to the change of circumstances in Tibet , in 1959, His Holiness left Tibet for India where He, his wife, Dagmo Kusho Tashi and his two sons, Ratna Vajra Rinpoche and Gyana Vajra Rinpoche now resides in Rajpur , India .

There are about 25 Sakya monasteries, institutes and retreat centers under the guidance of His Holiness in Nepal and India . His Holiness also established the Sakya Centre and Sakya College in Rajpur , India , to preserve and promote religious studies, tradition and culture of Tibet . His Holiness, being well versed in English, also travels around the world to spread Buddha Dharma for the benefits of all.

16th Gyal wang Karmapa

Karmapa means "the one who carries out buddha-activity" or "the embodiment of all the activities of the buddhas." The Karmapas have incarnated in this form of nirmanakaya, or manifestation body, for seventeen lifetimes, as of the present, and all have played the most important role in preserving and propagating the Buddhist teachings of Tibet . The arrival of a master who would be known as the Karmapa was been prophesied by the historic Buddha Shakyamuni and the great tantric master of India , Guru Padmasambhava. Throughout the centuries, Karmapas have been the central figure in the continuation of the vajrayana lineage in general and Kagyu lineage in particular, and have played a very important role in the preservation of the study and practice lineages of Buddhism.

Foreseeing the communist Chinese invasion of Tibet , and the inevitable destruction of Buddhist institutions in Tibet , the 16th Karmapa informed the Dalai Lama of his intention to leave his homeland in the spring of 1959. The Sixteenth Karmapa, accompanied by a large entourage, left Tsurphu, and fled Tibet . The escape was organized by Dhamchoe Yondu, the General Secretary for His Holiness. The party also carried with them the sacred statues, paintings, reliquaries, and other precious items of the lineage of the Karmapas. The timing and organization of the departure made for a relatively easy journey to Bhutan . After three weeks, the party arrived safely in northern Bhutan , where the most senior Bhutanese government officials received them.

Yongdzin Ling Rinpoche

During his full meditational retreat on Vajrabhairava, lasting over three years, he composed one of his many well-known writings between sessions of his daily meditations. Called The Eighteen Rung Ladder of Vajrabhairava Ekavira , it was published by Tibet house, New Delhi in 1981. This is the most complete and authoritative manual available for the practice and study of Vajrabhairava, as this lineage is highly esteemed as the human manifestation of the deity Vajrabhairava himself. The Fifth Ling Rinpoche was in turn the incarnation of Ngawang Lungtog Yonten Gyatso, Tutor to His Holiness Khedrub Gyatso, the Eleventh Dalai Lama, and Seventy-fifth Gaden Throneholder. There are many other manifestations of the lineage of Ling Rinpoche extending back to the time of the Buddha.

To the shock and despair of every one, he had a serious stroke in September 1983. The abbots and heads of the major Gelug monasteries and many individuals immediately came to Dharamsala from all over India and abroad to offer dedicated prayers for his long life. Despite all possible treatments, at the conclusion of his eighty-first year on December 25th just before noon , he passed into the state of peace for the benefit of the beings who cling to the views of permanence. It so happened that at that moment all his personal attendants were in the room with him and with his last breath he smiled. He then remained in the absorption of the clear light state until January 7th, his body staying in perfect condition. Sounds of celestial music and the melodious chanting of male and female voices were heard from the room where his body lay alone in state during the absorption of the clear light. Thereafter, his attendants knocked softly on the door before entering the room.

Even the elements and nature paid tribute on this sad occasion to his past and perpetual greatness. In the early hours of the morning of his entrance into the state of peace, on Christmas day, the weather became turbulent and strong wind swept across Dharamsala, with much agitation. The same phenomenon recurred after dark, with thunder and lightning, and left a blanket of snow. A few days later, while the late Most Venerable Kyabje Ling Dorjechang remained in the state of clear light, there was a mild earthquake in the Dharamsala area, reported in the papers the next day. Wondrous cloud formations were seen throughout this period. On the morning of the departure of his enlightened mind, there was a fall of large snowflakes like a shower of flowers and a rainbow halo around the moon early in the day. People who saw the rainbow took this as a celestial omen that his consciousness was to depart on that day. In the same morning his complexion changed and definite signs indicated that his consciousness had left his body. His Holiness was the Senior Tutor to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, as well as was a tutor to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.

His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche

His Holiness was the supreme head of the Nyingmapa Order. Poet, author of many books, terton (visionary discoverer of hidden teachings), historian (wrote two volumes called History and Fundamentals of the Nyingmapa), meditation master and tantric yogi, he was one of the most beloved and grandfatherly of the grand lamas of Tibet .

After establishing Yeshe Nyingpo Dharma Centers in Kalimpong , Nepal , Europe and America , he passed away in 1988 in Dordogne , France , and was enshrined in a stupa in a monastery in Bodhanath, Kathmandu , Nepal .

HH Minling Trichen Rinpoche - The Head of the Mindroling Lineage of the Nyingma Tradition. Minling Trichen Rinpoche is the present throne holder of Mindroling. He lives in relative seclusion in Clement town near Dehra Dhun, in northern India , where Mindroling monastery has been re-established. From the age of three to eight years old, Minling Trichen lived in Kham in an area called Kham Lumo-ra. His family lived mostly in the wilds but after his father passed away his family came back up to central Tibet and he began his studies of the Tantras at Mindroling. There were three sets of tantras which he had to memorize and recite by heart in front of the general assembly of Mindroling. This was followed by the studies of ritual texts of the oral tradition and the Nyingma and Sarma Tantras. He also studied chant, “gar 'cham” (Tantric dances), calligraphy, poetry, and grammar. When he was eighteen, he entered into a four-year retreat, during which he completed the practices of the Oral Tradition, Phurba, and the ‘Essence of Secret Tantra'. Minling Trichen's family lineage is the lineage of Nyo which originates from the “lha” (an extra-dimensional being) who descended from heaven and thus being affected by people's obscurations could not return and remained in the human world. He met a girl from Kharag-ri and through their union she gave birth to a son who was gTérdag Lingpa. Since there have been thirteen generations from gTérdag Lingpa up to present Mingling Trichen.

His Holiness Lobsang Nyima carries the title Ganden Tripa , or "Holder of the Ganden Throne," the official head of the Gelukpa School of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the one hundredth successor to this exalted position, which comes in a direct and unbroken line from Lama Tsongkhapa (I357-1419), the founder of the Gelukpa School and guru of the First Dalai Lama. H.H. Ganden Tri Rinpoche was born in 1928 in Tsawa Rong, a small village in Kham, Eastern Tibet . He became a novice monk in the local monastery at the age of twelve, where he received his basic Buddhist training. At the age of seventeen he was transferred to Drepung Loseling Monastery near Lhasa for higher education.

In 1959 he followed H.H. the Dalai Lama into exile in India , where he continued his training and was awarded the degree of Gesher Lharampa, the highest degree of leaming in Tibetan Buddhism. Later he was appointed Abbot of Gyumey Tantric College, and then Abbot of Namgyal Dratsang, the private monastery of H.H. the Dalai Lama. In 1984 he was appointed Jangtse Choje, or"Jlangtse Throne Holder," one of the three highest spiritual positions in the Gelukpa School , and in 1995 became Ganden Tripa, the head of the school. For the past decade H.H. Ganden Tri Rinpoche has mainly resided in Drepung Loseling Monastery, from where he oversees much of the training program of the young monks in Gelukpa monasteries around the world. He occasionally travels to the West in order to teach and provide guidance to seekers of spiritual knowledge.

Kyabje Chadral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche is one of the very few great masters of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage and of the Dudjom Tersar lineage still living today. Rinpoche was born in the village Apse of Nyarong province of Kham and soon migrated to Amdo with his family.
Rinpoche received the transmissions of the Ter cycles of Dudjom Lingpa, Sera Khandro, and others from the great wisdom dakini Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje herself and Tulku Dorje Dradul, the youngest son of Dudjom Lingpa. At the age of fifteen, he abandoned his ties with his family and went to many teachers to study and practice. He insisted on travelling on foot and refused to enter the residences of householders, staying only in hermitages, caves, or his own little tent.

He then lived as a hermit for decades and became known as "Chadral" (a hermit), one who has abandoned mundane activities.
At the end of the 1950s, Rinpoche moved to Bhutan and then to India . He restored a simple temple of "Bhuntsok Ngayab Choling “ near Darjeeling in 1962, and later started a drupdra, where meditators were trained in Longchen Nyingthig practice. Rinpoche also built many temples, stupas, and a number of other drupdras in Nepal and India .

Today, he lives primarily at Pharping (Yangleshod), an important pilgrimage place in Nepal where Guru Rinpoche took the form of Vajrakumara, and attained the Vidyadhara stage of Mahamudra realization. Rinpoche refrains from any involvement in monastic or bureaucratic structures and maintains a hermit tradition. He has numerous disciples from Tibet , Bhutan , India and Nepal , as well as many from the West.

Khenchen Pema Tsewang Rinpoche is well versed in the Nyigma tradition. After many years in the monastery of Pugong in Tibet . At the end of the cultural revolution, he was invited to a Buddhist institute called Dzogchen Shri Singha in Sichuan province, China . It is there that Khenchen Pema Tsewang after completing an intensive period of practices became the principal Khenpo (realized teacher). Numerous monks pursue studies at Pugong under the Kagyupa tradition and all together more than two hundred monks have received complete Nyigma teachings.
Khenchen Pema Tsewang Rinpoche was recently invited to teach at the Buddhist seminary established by the Panchen Lama in Beijing .

Khenchen Pema Tsewang Rinpoche is not only unanimously respected as an erudite in Buddhist philosophy, but is also considered as an incarnate of the qualities of a bodhisattva.
Sadly however, in the spring of 2002 he passed into Parinirvana.

Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche was born in 1923, in Yardrok Takloung, central Tibet . He was recognized as of a youth to be the reincarnation of the terton Dongak Lingpa and is also regarded as the reincarnation of other major Masters of Tibet and India . Rinpoche studied with the greatest masters of his time and received a complete traditional education. Trulshik Rinpoche was a 14-year old boy when the last pre-war British expedition to chart the way to Mount Everest stopped by the Rongbuk monastery in 1938. Two years later, Trulshik became the head lama at this Nyingma monastery upon the demise of its founding monk. During the invasion of Tibet , Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche took refuge with his disciples in a remote place to the south of Everest, a mountain retreat to which no motor-road leads to today. He spent many years in retreat there and founded a monastery, Tubten Ch?ling.

Today, Trulshik Rinpoche, 79, is a “guru among gurus”, and widely respected even by the heads of the Gelug, Sakya and Kagyu traditions, and is the closest and most realized disciple of the late master, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. It was prophesied in Khyentse Rinpoche's visionary teachings (terma) that Trulshik Rinpoche would be the spiritual heir to his teachings, and in his absence, Khyentse Rinpoche referred all-important matters to Trulshik Rinpoche. Upon Khyentse Rinpoche's passing in 1991, Trulshik Rinpoche was entrusted to find his reincarnation. He has visited the West several times to give teachings to fortunate students.

According to his disciples, Trulshik Rinpoche is so highly revered because his past lives have included Ananda (the disciple closest to Gautama Buddha), Thonmi Sambhota (inventor of the written Tibetan characters) and Lotsawa Vairochana (one of Guru Padmasambhava's 25 disciples held as the first great translator of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit to Tibetan).

Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok worked very hard for the preservation and promotion of the unique religious faith of all Tibetans educating thousands upon thousands of teachers, both monks and nuns.

Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok had become a well-known Buddhist figure not just in Tibet and among the Tibetan people, but also throughout China and the Chinese-speaking Buddhist world. The Buddhist Institute that he founded in Larung Gar, near Serthar which in 1980 with fewer than 100 disciples expanded and by 2002 it had over 8,000 disciples, including a sizable Chinese population.

Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was known for his scholarship. He was the first monk in modern Tibet who succeeded in building a major, successful monastic teaching center. His religious charisma was matched by an ability to work with authorities and to push them to their limits.
Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok's name means "The master scholar of fearless sublimity." His disciples referred to Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok simply as "Yeshe Norbu" or "Wish Fulfilling Jewel."

Lama Kalu Rinpoche was born in 1905 in eastern Tibet . During his early years, he was tutored by his father at home and received a thorough grounding in the meditative and ritual traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.

When Kalu Rinpoche was fifteen years old, he was sent to begin his higher studies at the great monastery of Palpung, the foremost center of the Karma Kagyu school. He remained there for more than a decade, during which time he mastered the vast body of teaching that forms the philosophical basis of Buddhist practice and completed two three-year retreats.

At age twenty-six, Rinpoche left Palpung to pursue the life of a solitary yogi in the woods of the Khampa countryside. For nearly fifteen years, he strove to perfect his realization of all aspects to the teachings and he became renowned in the villages and among the nomads as a true representative of the Bodhisattva's path. Rinpoche's simple and direct style of teaching is in many ways the product of the need to bring the living experience of the Buddha's teaching to those who had not benefited from the sophisticated educational system of the monastic system.

It was thus with an established mastery of meditative practice that Kalu Rinpoche returned to Palpung to receive final teachings from Drupon Norbu Dondrup, who entrusted him with the rare transmission of the teaching of the Shangpa Kagyu.

During the 1940's, Rinpoche visited central Tibet with the party of Situ Rinpoche, and there he taught extensively. His disciples included the Reting Rinpoche, regent of all Tibet during the infancy of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

Returning to Kham, Rinpoche became the abbot of the meditation center associated with Palpung and the meditation teacher of His Holiness the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. He remained in that position until the situation in Tibet forced him into exile in India .

Sogyal Rinpoche

Born in Kham, in Eastern Tibet , Sogyal Rinpoche was recognized as the incarnation of Lerab Lingpa Tert?n Sogyal, a teacher to the thirteenth Dalai Lama, by Jamyang Khyentse Ch?kyi Lodr?, one of the most outstanding masters of the twentieth century. Jamyang Khyentse supervised Rinpoche's training and raised him like his own son. In 1971, Rinpoche went to England where he studied Comparative Religion at Cambridge University . He went on to study with many other masters, of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, especially Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche and Kyabjé Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, serving as their translator and aide. With his remarkable gift for presenting the essence of Tibetan Buddhism in a way that is both authentic and profoundly relevant to the modern mind, Sogyal Rinpoche is one of the most renowned teachers of our time. He is also the author of the highly-acclaimed and ground breaking book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying . Over 1.6 million copies of this spiritual classic have been printed, in 27 languages and 54 countries. It has been adopted by colleges, groups and institutions, both medical and religious, and is used extensively by nurses, doctors and health care professionals. Rinpoche has been teaching for over 25 years and continues to travel widely in Europe , America , Australia , and Asia , where he addresses thousands of people on his teaching tours and is a frequent speaker at major conferences

17th Gyalwang Karmapa

The 16th Gyalwa Karmapa died in 1981. His reincarnation, the 17th Karmapa, born in 1985, was found in 1992 , in exact accordance with the prediction letter he had written not long before his death, and subsequently formally enthroned.

After months of careful planning, on December 28, the fourteen-year-old Karmapa pretended to enter into a solitary retreat, and instead, donned civilian garb and slipped out a window. Leaving Tsurphu Monastery with a handful of attendants, he began a daring escape by car, foot, horseback, helicopter, train and taxi, a heroic journey that was to become the stuff of headlines throughout the world. On January 5, 2000 he arrived, to the the great surprise and overwhelming joy of the world, in Dharamsala, India, where he was met by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. He received refugee status from the government of India in 2001.

Dodrupchen Rinpoche

Jigme Lingpa's main lineage-holder, the first Dodrupchen Rinpoche

Terton Tashi Phuntsok

This is Ahyang rig Drobpa's master, he is one of Guru Padmasambhava's reincarnations, has already achieved enlightenment and has many miraculous characteristics. In addition, he wrote eleven “terma” (hidden teachings of Tibet ) books on Buddhist practice.