V. V. K A L U R I N P O C H E
Very Venerable Kalu Rinpoche was a renowned Tibetan Buddhist Lama who in his early years practiced yoga and solitary meditation in caves before becoming the head of his own monastery, Jangchub Chöling in Kurto, Bhutan in 1955. Later he became the abbot of Palpung Monastery in Eastern Tibet. In addition to leading the daily practices of the monastery, he became an acclaimed teacher of three year retreats. When he was forced to leave Tibet in 1961, he founded Samdrup Dargyeling monastery in Sonada, northern India.
He was requested by his Holiness the 16th Karmapa to come to the West to introduce the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. His first journey took him as far as Scotland and Canada in 1971. In 1974 he was invited to San Francisco, CA to bring the Kagyu teachings to the United States, where he founded centers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, OR, Santa Fe, NM, and Wappingers Falls, NY.
