Tarthang Tulku
Tarthang Tulku (Tibetan: དར་ཐན་སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ, Wylie: Dar-than Sprul-sku Rin-po-che) (born 1934) is a Tibetan teacher (lama) in the Nyingma tradition who lives in America, where he works to preserve the art and culture of Tibet. He oversees various projects including Dharma Publishing, Yeshe-De, Tibetan Aid Project, and the construction of the Odiyan Copper Mountain Mandala. Tarthang Tulku introduced Kum Nye into the West.
Biography
As one of the last remaining lamas to have received a complete Buddhist education in pre-1959 Tibet, Tarthang Tulku left Tibet and taught in Benares, India, until emigrating to America in 1969 with his wife, the poet Nazli Nour. After settling in Berkeley, CA they established the Tibetan Aid Project (TAP) which serves the needs of the Tibetan refugee community.
In 1963, Tarthang Tulku founded Dharma Publishing in Varanasi, India. In 1971, the publishing house moved to California. The main purpose of Dharma Publishing is to preserve and distribute Tibetan Buddhist teachings and to bring these teachings to the West.
Tarthang Tulku established the Nyingma Institute in 1972. Sister organizations have been established in Brazil, Germany, Holland, and the UK. The various institutes offer classes, workshops, and retreats based on the books of Tarthang Tulku, with the main intent of spreading the teachings of the Buddha to the West.
In 1983, Tarthang Tulku established the Yeshe De project, with the purpose of preserving and distributing sacred Tibetan texts. These texts are distributed to Buddhist monks, nuns, and laypeople at the annual World Peace Ceremony, which Tarthang Tulku started in 1990 to bring the various Buddhist communities from across Asia to celebrate together at Bodh Gaya, in India. The World Peace Ceremony and the work of Yeshe De have resulted in over 20 million texts being given away to practitioners in the Buddhist community over the last 18 years.
Tarthang Tulku wrote over 40 books covering a wide variety of topics, including:
- meditation,
- Kum Nye
- Buddhist psychology (Nyingma Psychology Series)
- Skillful Means (bringing Buddhist practices to the workplace) (Skillful Means series)
- Time, Space, and Knowledge series
Among Tarthang Tulku's current projects is the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages.
