Teachers
Dr. Catherine Dalton
After receiving a BA in Religion at Middlebury College, Catherine moved to Kathmandu, Nepal in 2001 to continue her studies of Tibetan Buddhism. From 2003 to 2011 she worked as an oral interpreter and Tibetan language instructor at Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies and directed the Centre’s Translator Training program for several years. Catherine received an MA degree in Buddhist Studies from the Centre in 2008. She has been a member of the Dharmachakra Translation Committee since 2005, and her published translations include Middle Beyond Extremes (2005), A Practice of Padmasambhava (2009), Vajra Wisdom (2011), and the Lalitavistarasūtra (2013). She completed her PhD in Buddhist…
Dr. Geoffrey Barstow
Geoffrey Barstow has been a student of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche for more than twenty years, was an early graduate of RYI, and is now an associate professor of Buddhist Studies at Oregon State University. His scholarship focuses on Tibetan Buddhist ideas about animal ethics, and particularly the question of vegetarianism.
Dr. Ryan Damron
Dr. Ryan Damron is a long-time student of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and previously served as Gomde California’s Director of Studies and on its Board of Directors. Ryan holds a PhD in South and Southeast Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and has taught courses on Buddhist history, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Translation methodology at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal, and as part of Gomde California’s residential study program. He now works as an Editor for 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
Dr. Stephen Jenkins
Dr. Stephen Jenkins was trained at Harvard and is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Humboldt State. His research focuses on Buddhist concepts of compassion, their philosophical grounding, and ethical implications. Most recently, he has focused on the Indian roots of Pure Land Buddhism and the role of devas in Buddhist practice. He has lived and taught in Buddhist cultures across Asia from Tibet to Sri Lanka and from India to Japan, including a semester at Rangjung Yeshe. He has also taught for a variety of Dharma centers. Years ago, he taught a weekend retreat at Gomde California entitled “Luminous Wilderness.” His…
Graham Sunstein
Graham met the Wishfulfilling Jewel, the 16th Karmapa, at Rumtek Monastery in 1979 and began practicing Dharma. Graham received transmissions and teachings from many realized Tibetan Buddhist Masters. Foremost among those is Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, as well as Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s sons. He spent many years at Nagi Gompa in Nepal practicing under the guidance of Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. He was the meditation instructor at Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal for 5 years and was a founding member of Rangjung Yeshe Gomde California where he worked for 10 years. Graham has spent…
Khenpo Pema Namgyal
Originally from Nubri, Khenpo Pema Namgyal is a senior monk from Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling in Nepal. He serves as personal tutor to Tulku Urgyen Yangsi Rinpoche.
Lama Öser
Lama Öser is one of the senior monks of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery. He has studied under many great masters and for a number of years was the personal assistant of the great Dzogchen master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Lama Öser resides at Gomde UK for several months of the year, leading retreats and giving teachings.
Rhonda LoPresti
As an End of Life Coach, Rhonda is passionate in holding and creating sacred space, personal ritual, spiritual practice and creative choices through dying and deathcare. She believes we can learn to die and in learning to die we actually awaken to life itself. In serving the dying and grieving, Rhonda favors conversations in the art of saying good-bye, exploring what death asks of us and deserves, how to prepare oneself consciously for the dying process, the compassionate merits of home family directed funerals, green burial awareness, and the welcoming and witnessing of grief. Founder of Peacefully Prepared, Rhonda has evolved…
Tsangsar Tulku Rinpoche
Tsangsar Tulku Rinpoche was born in 1975. After finishing a three-year retreat, which he began at age 13, he took on the responsibility of Retreat Master at the seat of his father and ancestors at Tsangsar Lha Lam Osel Ling. At the age of 17, Rinpoche received full ordination from Venerable Dil Yag Dabzang Rinpoche, and at the age of 18 he was recognized by His Eminence Tai Situ Rinpoche as the fourth incarnation of Ngag Gyud Dhargye Gyatso, who was a student of Situ Pema Nyiche. Tsangsar Tulku Rinpoche spent several years studying and practicing at Ka-Nying Shedrub…
Kyabje Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is a world-renowned teacher and meditation master in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in Tibet in 1951 as the oldest son of his mother Kunsang Dechen, a devoted Buddhist practitioner, and his father Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, an accomplished master of Buddhist meditation. As a young child, Chokyi Nyima—“Sun of the Dharma”—was recognized as the 7th incarnation of the Tibetan meditation master Gar Drubchen. In 1959, following the Chinese occupation of Tibet, Rinpoche’s family fled to India where Rinpoche spent his youth studying under some of Tibetan Buddhism’s most illustrious masters, such…
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
Born in the Northern Indian province of Himachal Pradesh to Tibetan parents, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche grew up in a monastic environment. Recognized as an incarnation of Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, he received the teachings of the Nyingma lineage, especially that of the Longchen Nyingtik, from his root teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Rinpoche also studied extensively with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche and the great scholar Khenpo Rinchen. In 1989 Rinpoche moved to the United States with his family, and in 1990 began a five-year tenure as a professor of Buddhist philosophy at Naropa Institute. Rinpoche also founded Mangala Shri…
Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche
Mindrolling Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche, Lotus Garden’s founder and spiritual guide, is the daughter of Kyabje Mindrolling Trichen. Born into the Mindrolling lineage, which throughout its history has had many accomplished female masters, Rinpoche was recognized at the age of two by His Holiness the 16th Karmapa as the re-incarnation of the Great Dakini of Tsurphu, Khandro Ugyen Tsomo, who was one of the most renowned female masters of her time. Thus, the present Khandro Rinpoche came to hold the lineages of both Nyingma and Kagyu schools. Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche is one of the most renowned Tibetan teachers currently teaching in…
Lama Tsultrim Sangpo
A senior monk and chant master at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling monastery in Kathmandu, Lama completed a traditional three year retreat under the guidance of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. He currently trains the younger monks at the monastery in the practice of the ritual arts.
Lama Tenzin Sangpo
Lama Tenzin Sangpo was born in the Tingri region of Tibet in 1967. Following his escape from Tibet in 1976, he received ordination and a traditional monastic education at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s monastery, in Boudhanath, Nepal. A revered senior lama and chant master at Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche’s monastery in Nepal, Tenzin Sangpo received a rigorous monastic education and completed a traditional three-year retreat under Rinpoche’s guidance. Lama Tenzin is a key architect of the Tara’s Triple Excellence Online Meditation Program and travels throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas teaching the programs innumerable practitioners. Lama Tenzin is currently…
Lama Gerry Prindiville
Lama Gerry completed a traditional three-year retreat in Nepal, under the guidance of Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, in 2007. Since that time, Rinpoche has on numerous occasions requested Lama Gerry to give meditation instruction and practice advice to Rinpoche’s students. When Lama Gerry moved to California from Nepal in 2011, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche asked him to teach and lead retreats at Gomde.
Lama Kunzang Drolma
Lama Kunzang received her monastic vows from Tai Situ Rinpoche in 1998, and in 2009 completed a traditional three-year retreat in the Shangpa Kagyü tradition under the guidance of Lama Lodru Rinpoche. She has received teachings from a number of eminent Lamas, including Tai Situ Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche. In addition to regularly teaching in the Eureka/Arcata area, Lama Kunzang works as a speech language pathologist at the Hupa Tribal Reservation on the Trinity River in Northern California.
Lama John Makransky
Lama John Makransky, PhD, is a professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, senior advisor for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Centre of Buddhist Studies in Nepal, a fellow of the Mind and Life Institute, and developer of the Sustainable Compassion Training model for accessing innate capacities of compassion and awareness. John’s scholarly writings have focused on connections between practices of devotion, compassion and non-dual wisdom in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, on adapting Buddhist practices to meet contemporary minds, and on theoretical issues in interfaith learning. In 2000, John was ordained as a Lama, a meditation teacher of innate compassion and wisdom,…
Lama Bruce Newman
Lama Bruce Newman has studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism for 44 years, and has been teaching for 24 years, primarily in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions. He spent eleven years in India and Nepal studying under his primary teacher, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Lama Newman also completed a four-year retreat at Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland. For over two decades Lama Bruce has been practicing and teaching under the guidance of Gyatrul Rinpoche in Ashland, Oregon. He is the author of A Beginner’s Guide to Tibetan Buddhism and is a Ngondro instructor at Orgyen Dorje Den in Alameda, CA, and Tashi Choling Center in…
Khenpo Tsondru Sangpo
Khenpo Tsondru Sangpo was born in Northwestern Nepal in Mugum Bazaar. When he was eleven years old he was ordained by Kyabje Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery, in Boudhanath, Nepal. He completed his basic studies in the monastery’s elementary school, memorizing many texts and receiving the visual transmission of the monastery’s tradition of chanting. He received novice and fully ordained monastic vows from Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche. In 1998 he began his studies in the monastic college, the Sangye Yeshe Higher Shedra. He studied in the Shedra for ten years, training in the traditional way, via learning and…
Ekai Korematsu Osho Roshi
Ekai Korematsu Osho was born and raised in Japan, but began his formal Zen practice while a university student in California, where he was affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center. In 1979, he returned to Japan for formal monastic training at Eiheiji, the principal Soto Zen monastery. Returning to America in 1983, he founded Kojin-an which later became the Oakland Zen Center. At the request of his teacher Narasaki Roshi, he returned to Japan in 1987 to become the director of an International Zen monastery, Shogoji, in Kyushu. From 1994 to 1996, he was again at Eiheiji, and was…