Ven. Gyatrul Rinpoche

The Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche was born in the Sichuan Province of China near the Tibetan border in Eastern Tibet in 1925. At the age of seven, he was recognized as the "tulku," or consciously reincarnated spiritual being, as the great Payul contemplative, Sampa Kunkyap, and was reinstated as Tulku of Dhomang Monastery, where he took his education. Rinpoche spent many years in retreat with some of Tibet's greatest Lamas and is a fully qualified teacher of Vajrayana Buddhism.

Trained by renowned adepts, he spent much of his life in Tibet in meditative retreat. In 1959, due to the Chinese invasion of Tibet, Rinpoche fled his homeland and lived in India for twelve years. In 1972, he came to teach in America at the request of H.H. the Dalai Lama. In 1976, H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche appointed Gyatrul Rinpoche as his spiritual representative and Director of Pacific Region Yeshe Nyingpo.

Rinpoche has established several centers on the West Coast and continues to travel and teach thousands of students abroad and in the United States. With his direct style, inimitable sense of humor and genuine humility, Rinpoche's teachings provide a bridge into the direct insights of practical Buddhism, and, drawing on his extensive experience in traditional Tibet and the modern West, he brings these profound teachings to contemporary students of meditation.

For more information, visit http://www.orgyendorjeden.org, the website for Orgyen Dorje Den, the center he founded in 1978.