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"You live in illusion and in the appearance of things. There is a
reality. You are the reality. If you wake up to that reality, you will know
that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything."
Kagyu Thegchen Ling was established in December, 1974 under the guidance
of His Eminence Khyab Je Kalu Rinpoche, who had been senior meditation master
of the Kagyupa and Shangpa lineages of Tibetan Buddhism before his death in
1989. Born in Eastern Tibet in 1905, by age 25 Rinpoche had completed two
three-year retreats of advanced Vajrayana Buddhism. He then left the
monastery to lead the life of a solitary mountain yogi for the next fifteen
years. As wisdom and compassion became perfected in him, he returned to the
world with the sole purpose of helping to liberate his fellow beings from
the miseries of conditioned existence.
Lama Rinchen was born in Eastern Tibet in 1931. He began instruction in
the basic tenets of Tibetan Buddhism at age seven. At age eleven, in the
dead of winter, he left for Palpung Monastery, walking for two months with a
small group of Lamas and heavily armed laymen. Climbing and descending high
snow mountain after high snow mountain, witnessing many spectacular
avalanches and surviving an encounter with armed bandits, the small group
finally reached the remote Palpung Monastery. At Palpung Monastery he spent
two years as a tea server for the group sessions of monks at the monastery,
at the same time studying and memorizing the same texts that the monks of
the monastery were studying and memorizing. At age fourteen he took novice
monk vows from the 11th Tai Situ Rinpoche. At age twenty he entered the
traditional Karma Kagyu three-year, three-month retreat, where he met Kalu
Rinpoche, his Root Guru. At age twenty-three Lama Rinchen completed the
retreat. He took full ordination vows on the Tibetan Lunar New Year’s day of
1955.
Before assuming his assigned duties at Chubum Monastery, the monastery on
the mountainside above his home village, Lama Rinchen went on pilgrimage to
Lhasa, making the eight-hundred mile journey on foot. He then
circumambulated the holy Tsari Mountain in Southern Tibet, crossing steep
river gorges on single slippery logs felled by the local tribes, and swung
across steep cliff faces on ropes of woven vines. By then, the ravages of
the Cultural Revolution were sweeping across Eastern Tibet. Deciding to
delay his return to Eastern Tibet, he went down into India to take part in
the 2,500 year celebration of Shakyamuni Buddha’s Parinirvana. He then
returned to Tibet, hoping to take up his duties at Chubum Monastery. There
was still fierce fighting and killing in Eastern Tibet, so he stayed at a
monastery in Lhasa for the next year, studying logic.
When the fighting and killing reached the outskirts of Lhasa, Lama
Rinchen decided it was time to make an attempt to leave Tibet, and late one
night climbed over the Monastery wall. For the next few weeks, mostly
traveling alone and always on foot, he moved only at night, stopping at the
first light of dawn. He spent the daytime hours hiding alongside the
roadways and trails leading to Tibet’s western border. He finally reached
the Tibetan border and made his way to safety in Sikkhim in late January of
1959.
Lama Rinchen then lived mostly in the Darjeeling district of India for
the next seventeen years, having many adventures as a refugee, including
running through the streets of Silighri, India in his monk’s robes as a
rickshaw operator. In 1976 Lama Rinchen was one of twelve Lamas sent from
India to Europe and America by Kalu Rinpoche to become resident Lamas at
Dharma Centers established by Kalu Rinpoche. Lama Rinchen arrived in
Honolulu, Hawaii on December 1st, 1976, and has been the principal resident
Lama in Honolulu since that time, traveling to many parts of the world to
give teachings.
Lama Tempa Gyeltshen was born on October 7, 1966, in a small village in
Serthi, Bhutan. Orphaned at the age of three, he went to live with his
uncle, the yogi Tobje, and received instruction at home from Lama Gelong
Dondrub. He entered the local monastery, Tokari Gompa, at age nine and moved
to Yodra Gompa at age sixteen, studying under Yodra Tulku Rinpoche.
It was in Bhutan that he gained experience in the construction and
decoration of temples.
Inspired by stories of Kalu Rinpoche, Lama Tempa went to India in 1986
and became his student at Sonada Monastery. In 1987, Lama Tempa was sent to
Siliguri to study alongside monks assigned to the construction of the great
100-foot stupa at Salagura and to assist with its ornamentation.
Lama Tempa began a three-year retreat in 1991 under Retreat Masters Bokar
Rinpoche and Khenpo Lodrö Donyöd at Sonada and entered a second three-year
retreat in 1995. When asked what he felt was the most important lesson to be
learned from retreat, Lama Tempa responded, “After retreat, one sincerely
wishes to help all sentient beings.”
In September of 1999, Lama Tempa arrived in Honolulu to assist Lama
Rinchen in all aspects of dharma activity.
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