Teachers at DharmaSun
DharmaSun is delighted to bring together online talks, courses, and live seminars offered by teachers from the Shedrub Mandala, associate professors, and guest teachers, who generously share their wisdom and advice.
Lineage holders, teachers, and associate professors
Teachers
Guest Teachers
Lineage holders, teachers, and associate professors
Teachers
Guest Teachers
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
In the 7th lunar month of 1951, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche was born into the eminent Tsangsar family of Nangchen, Eastern Tibet. He was the first-born son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, whose family has for many generations held the now rare Baram Kagyu lineage, and Sangyum Kunsang Dechen, an excellent practitioner from an illustrious family in Lhasa.
At 18 months of age, Chokyi Nyima —– “Sun of the Dharma” —– was recognized as the 7th incarnation of the Drikung Kagyu master, Gar Drubchen, a Tibetan siddha and spiritual emanation of Nagarjuna, the second-century Indian Buddhist philosopher. Rinpoche was soon enthroned at his predecessor’s monastery, Drong Ngur Tubten Shedrub Dargye Ling Monastery, in Nakchukha, Central Tibet where he resumed his role as Dharma Master to 500 monks. While Rinpoche is a Kagyu tulku by incarnation, through ancestral bloodline he is the great-great-grandson of the renowned Nyingma treasure-finder, Terchen Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa.
Shortly before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche migrated with his parents and younger brother, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, to Gangtok, Sikkim. He was then briefly enrolled in Freda Bedi’s ‘Young Lamas’ School’ in Dalhousie, India. When he turned 13, he entered Rumtek, seat of the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism, and spent the next decade studying the Karma Kagyu, Drikung Kagyu, and Nyingma traditions under the guidance of such eminent Buddhist masters as H.H. the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche, H.E. Khamtrül Rinpoche, Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, and his own father. At a young age, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche earned the degree of ‘khenpo,’ the equivalent of a ‘professor of divinity’ degree.
In 1974, Rinpoche left Rumtek, where he had been personal aide to the Karmapa, and joined his father, mother, and younger brother, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, in Boudha, Nepal where, at the command of the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, the family established Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery just north of the Great ‘Jarung Khashor Stupa’. After its completion and inauguration in March 1976, Karmapa installed Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche as the monastery’s 24-year-old abbot. His Holiness also advised him to forego lengthy personal meditative retreat and to, instead, turn his efforts towards instructing Western practitioners. To fulfill this directive, Rinpoche honed his English language skills and began instructing a growing number of Western students in meditation practice.
Having become a respected teacher and meditation master in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, in 1980 Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche began teaching annual 10-day seminars in the hallowed main temple of his monastery. Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche also gave particularly profound teachings and empowerments during the seminars. In 2003, Phakchok Rinpoche also started to offer teachings during the fall seminars. Now in their 44th year of presentation, the seminars include an introduction to the fundamental teachings of Buddhist practice and philosophy as well as the more esoteric Vajrayana views of Mahamudra, and Dzogchen. Through the years, the seminars have been translated into English, in turn, by skilled professional translators Erik Pema Kunsang, Dr. Thomas Doctor, Heidi Koppl, and Dr. Catherine Dalton. Whenever possible, simultaneous translations have also been made into other languages.
In 1981, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, embarked upon an extensive one-year tour of Dharma centers in Europe, the United States, and Southeast Asia where Tulku Urgyen gave Dzogchen and Mahamudra teachings and empowerments to countless practitioners. The high Lamas were particularly well-received by Ven. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his students in the celebrated Rocky Mountain Dharma Center in Colorado.
In 1984, Rinpoche made available an extensive lending library that has grown from 108 books to now almost 6,000 publications in 5 languages on all schools of Buddhist philosophy. Around that time, he also established Rangjung Yeshe Publications who have produced numerous Dharma books and practice texts, as well as transcripts of Rinpoche’s teachings and commentaries.
Together with his brother Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche founded the rudimentary ‘Rangjung Yeshe Institute for Buddhist Studies’ to offer local and international students the possibility to immerse themselves in the study of Buddhist philosophy and practice. In addition, to accommodate the growing Western community of Dharma practitioners in Kathmandu, through the years Rinpoche has offered ‘Saturday Talks’ in Ka-Nying’s main temple. Audiences have seldom been fewer than 100. These days many such talks are freely available for download on DharmaSun’s website.
At the request of his numerous international students wishing to study, practice, and meditate with other like-minded Buddhists in their own respective homelands, in 1989 Rinpoche established in Malaysia Ka-Nying Ling Dharma Society Kuala Lumpur as the first of a network of Buddhist centres now located in several countries throughout the world.
In Tibetan, ‘gom-dé’ means ‘a place to meditate’. Today, Rinpoche is the spiritual head of Rangjung Yeshe Gomdes founded in Denmark, the United States, Austria, England, Scotland, Russia, Ukraine, France, and Mexico. Smaller ‘Dharma House’ centres are also located in the Netherlands, Portugal, Israel, New York City, Mexico City, Australia, and elsewhere. Every summer, Rinpoche schedules visits to as many Gomdes as possible in order to offer week-long seminars. Occasionally, he also offers special seminars in Hong Kong and Vietnam. For more information about these centers, and their respective websites, please visit: www.gomde.org.
For those who wish to study and practice from home, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche very kindly founded the website: www.DharmaSun.org. Lauded as an authentic ‘gateway to knowledge,’ the website provides immediate free access to a treasury of profound teachings on all aspects of Buddhism from Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche as well as other eminent Buddhist teachers. Moreover, it is the entrance to ‘Tara’s Triple Excellence,’ an extensive online gradual meditation course that covers the entire Buddhist path. The ‘TTE’ course, which launched in 2011, has become so popular around the world that Rinpoche holds annual TTE retreats and seminars in Nepal and elsewhere in order to bestow Tara initiations and grant teachings pertaining to the various levels of the course.
When Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche entered parinirvana on 13th February, 1996, the care of his secluded retreat place, Nagi Gompa Nunnery, with its scores of resident nuns fell to his eldest son, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Located on the northern slopes of Kathmandu Valley, over the years the nunnery has become a thriving community of almost 200 resident nuns, ages 7 to 95, who are provided with the same opportunities for daily practice, retreat, and primary-through-college-level monastic education as Ka-Nying’s monks.
In 1997, Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI) began formally offering courses in Buddhist philosophy and Himalayan languages on the premises of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery. RYI has since grown tremendously and is now a respected international center of learning where students from all over the world can obtain BA, MA, and PhD degrees in Buddhist Studies and Himalayan languages. A number of esteemed Buddhist scholars studied or taught at RYI. In addition, RYI currently offers a variety of online interactive learning courses, both for academic credit or for self-study, that can be easily accessed from the comfort of one’s own home. Please visit their website for more details: https://ryi.org.
In 2004, together with Dr. David Shlim, Rinpoche co-authored the popular book “Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama and an American Doctor on How to Provide Care with Compassion and Wisdom”. With much clarity and warmth, Rinpoche and Dr. Shlim rely upon the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to introduce practical tools to help professionals in the field of medicine revitalize their caring spirit which may have waned due to the overwhelming demands of constant caregiving.
That same year, at home Rinpoche established a nonproft social work project, Rangjung Yeshe Shenpen, as a charitable outreach program to help uplift the poor and disadvantaged residents of the local communities in Nepal. With global support, Shenpen funds local charities and NGOs to help those impoverished to achieve good health, formal education, and financial security so they can achieve their full potential. Through the decades, Shenpen has successfully expanded the scope of its projects to include six core areas: education, health, skills training, animal welfare, elderly care, and disaster relief. For more details, kindly visit: https://shenpennepal.org/
To this day, Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling remains the heart of Rinpoche’s ever-growing mandala of activity. Overseeing both the monastery and its affiliate institutions, Rinpoche is responsible for the welfare and spiritual education of nearly 1000 monks and nuns. Unlike most high Lamas who head large monasteries in Asia, for four decades Rinpoche has opened his personal shrine room doors as often as possible to greet visitors from near and far who come seeking his personal counsel, his blessings, and simply to enjoy his kindness, welcoming warmth, and good humor. On weekends, his room is often filled with visitors while Rinpoche juggles such diverse daily activities as debating with one of the monastery’s young Khenpos, ordaining a bevy of new monks, greeting Tibetan refugees on pilgrimage, counseling and blessing local and international visitors, conferring with the monastery’s workers, and receiving long-distance calls on his mobile phone—all while giving an impromptu Dharma ‘chat’.
To support the spiritual path of thousands of his local students, in 2016 Rinpoche created a four-month summer program especially for Himalayans. Students of all ages and backgrounds are taught the basics of classical Tibetan language, receive teachings on core Buddhist texts such as the Jewel Ornament of Liberation, and are trained extensively in sadhana practices, such as the Buddha Sakyamuni and Tara sadhanas as well as the Tersar Lüjin Chöd practice. Of course, participants also receive teachings from Rinpoche himself. Every summer, approximately 1500 to 2000 enthusiastic locals join this course of instruction.
In December 2019, Rinpoche commenced an annual one-month ‘Ngondro’ (preliminaries) retreat offered in the spacious shrine hall of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery. Each day, about 600 mostly Nepalese and Tibetan participants engage in the full day of group practice from early morning until early evening. Students from all over the world have also joined the retreat at Ka-Nying. Beginning in 2025, the first formal one-month Ngondro retreat was held at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde Germany-Austria with around 100 participants.
In Nepal in December 2023, Rinpoche added an annual one-month ‘Tsa-Sum’ (Three Roots) retreat, for those who have already completed the Ngöndro retreat more than once. Presently, this wintertime retreat is also held at Ka-Nying. Last years, about 200 practitioners participated.
Before entering parinirvana, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche disclosed his final aspiration for the founding of a great Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Lumbini. Subsequently, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche endeavored tirelessly to fulfill their late father’s last wish. On 15th December, 2010, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, Phakchok Rinpoche, and Tulku Urgyen Yangsi Rinpoche performed a special ground-breaking ceremony to consecrate the 1.2 hectares of land within the Lumbini Monastic Zone where Pal Thubten Shedrub Ling Monastery—the Thousand Buddha Temple—would be established. On 23rd May, 2024, Saga Dawa Duchen, the magnificent temple’s impressive statues of the Buddhas of the Three Times and the 1000 Buddha statues were installed and blessed with four full days of consecration ceremonies. This was the first phase of the new monastery’s inauguration. The final phase of inauguration took place in November, 2024.
Rinpoche’s concise, lucid, humorous and always spontaneous style shines brightly in his teachings and commentaries published through the decades by Rangjung Yeshe Publication. The very heart of the Buddha’s teachings, revealing the natural simplicity of enlightened mind, are found in his books entitled: ‘Sadness, Love, Openness: The Buddhist Path of Joy’, ‘Present Fresh Wakefulness: A Meditation Manual on Nonconceptual Wisdom,’ ‘The Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen’, ‘The Bardo Guidebook’, ‘The Indisputable Truth’, ‘Song of Karmapa,’ and ‘The Collected Works of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Volumes 1 and 2’.
To learn more about the activities of Rinpoche’s vast Shedrub Mandala, please visit: https://shedrub.org
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