1. Kalu Rinpoche was a Tibetan Buddhist lama, meditation master, scholar and teacher.
17 Facts About Kalu Rinpoche
1. 2.
Kalu Rinpoche was one of the first Tibetan masters to teach in the West.
3.
Kalu Rinpoche was born in 1905 during the Female Wood Snake year of the Tibetan lunar calendar in the district of Tresho Gang chi Rawa in the Hor region of Kham, Eastern Tibet.
4.
When Kalu Rinpoche was fifteen years old, he was sent to begin his higher studies at the monastery of Palpung, the foremost center of the Karma Kagyu school.
5.
Kalu Rinpoche 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.
6.
At about the age of twenty-five, Rinpoche left Palpung to pursue the life of a solitary yogi in the woods of the Khampa countryside.
7.
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.
8.
At the order of Situ Kalu Rinpoche, he was appointed Vajra Master of the great meditation hall of Palpung Monastery, where for many years he gave empowerments and teachings.
9.
Kalu Rinpoche's disciples included the Reting Rinpoche, regent of Tibet during the infancy of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.
10.
Kalu Rinpoche remained in that position until the situation in Tibet forced him into exile in India.
11.
Kalu Rinpoche left Tibet for Bhutan in 1955, before establishing a monastery in Sonada, Darjeeling in 1965.
12.
Kalu Rinpoche raises the same theme in a number of interviews, including one with Tricycle magazine in 1996.
13.
On September 17,1990, Kalu Rinpoche's tulku was born in Darjeeling, India, to Lama Gyaltsen and his wife Drolkar.
14.
The former Kalu Rinpoche believes he chose the vessel for his reincarnation.
15.
Situ Kalu Rinpoche sent a letter of recognition with Lama Gyaltsen to the 14th Dalai Lama, who immediately confirmed the recognition.
16.
On February 28,1993, Yangsi Kalu Rinpoche was enthroned at Samdrup Tarjayling.
17.
Kalu Rinpoche is known as the Second Kalu Rinpoche.