Lama Norlha Rinpoche is the abbot of Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery and director of Kyabje Dorje Chang Kalu Rinpoche’s Dharma centers in the eastern United States.
He was born in 1938, in the Nangchen District of Kham, eastern Tibet. He entered Korche Monastery at the age of five, receiving monastic ordination at fourteen. By the age of twenty-one, Lama Norlha had completed two three-year retreats. After the communist takeover of Tibet, he escaped on foot to India where he met Kyabje Dorje Chang Kalu Rinpoche and became his close disciple, and a retreat master.
At Kalu Rinpoche's request, he went to America in 1976. His first dharma center here was Kagyu Dzamling Kunchab, New York City. Among his many other activities, he has led six three-year retreats to completion at Kagyu Thubten Choling, NY. Besides his activities in the US, Rinpoche has opened schools and clinics in rural Tibet and founded the first ever women's monastic college in Tibet.
Lama Rinpoche holds the Dagpo Kagyu and Shangpa Kagyu lineages. He is an accomplished meditation master, and the kindest of teachers.
Our religious principles and practices are based on the teachings of the Primordial Buddha Vajradhara, as passed to the indian mahasiddha Tilopa, and continuing in an unbroken succession to our own founders and teachers, the Very Venerable Kalu Rinpoche and the Venerable Lama Norlha.
The head of the Karma Kagyu lineage is His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa Orgyen Trinley Dorje.
our teacher Lama Norlha Rinpoche
Lama Norlha Rinpoche's dharma centers and monastery
the kagyu lineage