H.E. Tarthang Rinpoche has dedicated his life to caring for the rich, endangered heritage of Tibet. All his books and projects are efforts to manifest the sacred forms of Kaya, Vaca, Citta, Guna, and Karma—enlightened embodiment, speech, mind, qualities, and actions.

Rinpoche, also known as Kunga Gellek Yeshe Dorje, was born in Golok, Eastern Tibet, in 1935; he is one of the last surviving Tibetan lamas to have received a comprehensive traditional education in Old Tibet. As a young tulku, he studied intensively with more than twenty celebrated masters, traveling widely throughout Eastern Tibet. His root guru was Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, one of the most remarkable Tibetan masters of the twentieth century. In 1958, Tarthang Tulku followed this master on a journey to Sikkim, just escaping the annexation of his country by the Chinese. At the young age of 23, he became a refugee in India. After a short stay at the Young Lamas Home School in Dalhousie, he was asked by H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche to represent the Nyingma school at Sanskrit University in Varanasi. There he established Dharma Mudranalaya to print Tibetan Buddhist texts. In 1968 he left India for the United States, becoming the first Nyingma lama in America.

In 1969, Rinpoche founded the Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center (TNMC), a California corporation sole, as the nucleus of his activities. He established Padma Ling as the residential headquarters of TNMC, and in 1972-73 founded the Nyingma Institute, where he taught publicly until 1978. During these years, he published the first of his nearly three dozen original books in English. He also founded the Tibetan Aid Project to support Tibetans in exile; Dharma Press and Dharma Publishing, which have now printed and reproduced hundreds of art reproductions and more than 295 books for Western students, translated into 18 languages; Nyingma Centers, which guides the growth of six international centers, in Amsterdam, Köln, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and Israel; and Odiyan Retreat Center, a mandala of temples, stupas, and libraries set on 1,000 acres of open land in Northern California that includes the 113-foot Enlightenment Stupa and Cintamani Temple, the largest all-bronze building in the world. Ratna Ling Retreat Center, established in 2004 as an adjunct to Odiyan, offers retreats to the general public on topics that encourage the integration of mind and body and emphasize many forms of wellness. A special facility to house and support elder members of the TNMC community is in development.

In 1981 Rinpoche published the Nyingma Edition of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon in 120 atlas-sized volumes, followed by an eight-volume Catalogue and Bibliography. The Yeshe De Text Project, founded in 1983, produced Great Treasures of Ancient Teachings in 641 volumes, and has printed and distributed to the Tibetan community an enormous treasure of sacred books, including six editions of the Kangyur and three of the Tengyur, including the typeset Yeshe De Yidzhin Norbu Kangyur. In all, more than 10,000 sets of the Kangyur have been offered to the Tibetan Sangha.

In 1989 Rinpoche founded the Nyingma Monlam Chenmo (World Peace Ceremony) in Bodh Gaya, India, where 8,000-10,000 monastics and lay faithful gather annually. He also provided seed money to the other major schools of Tibetan Buddhism for Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug Monlams. Through the Monlam, Rinpoche was able to make extraordinary text offerings to the Sangha. Yeshe De’s recent offerings include collected works of great masters like Jigme Lingpa, Patrul Rinpoche and Lama Mipham. As many as 100 unique volumes of texts can be offered in a given year, with thousands of copies of each volume being provided free of charge to the libraries of Dharma centers throughout the Tibetan diaspora. A participant who received books every year of the Monlam would now have a personal Yeshe De library consisting of more than a thousand volumes. Since 1989, along with more than 5.2 million sacred books, TNMC has distributed 3.25 million sacred art images and 176,250 prayer wheels to more than 3,300 Dharma centers in India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. Thousands of bronze reproductions of authentic ancient sacred images created at Odiyan have also been offered to the Sangha. A total of 67,285 copies of the precious 8,000-line Prajnaparamita—including 414 granite plaques engraved in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and English, 100 large hand-sewn victory banners, and six important editions in Traditional Tibetan format—have been offered to the Sangha. Other offerings for Bodh Gaya include eight butterlamp houses; hundreds of prayer wheels; golden lantsa and Tibetan Prajnaparamita plaques; financial support for the restoration of the Mahabodhi Temple spire; site beautification; fabric banners, hangings, and umbrellas produced at Odiyan; and year-round offerings of butterlamps.

In 2002, to support the restoration of Buddhism in the land of its origin, Rinpoche founded the Light of Buddhadharma Foundation International (LBDFI). In 2006, TNMC and LBDFI jointly sponsored and organized the first annual Tipitaka Chanting Ceremony by the Theravadin Sangha in Bodh Gaya—the first gathering of its kind in more than 700 years. As this annual ceremony continues to be held, additional Tipitaka Chanting Ceremonies are being organized and held around the world, including Berkeley, CA; representatives from eleven countries now participate, with some 7,000 monastic and lay participants every year. LBDFI’s work has been embraced by the Indian government, which enthusiastically supports initiatives like the Dharma Training Wheel, bringing venerable monks on an extended pilgrimage to the Eight Great Holy Places of the Buddha.

Through TNMC, Tarthang Rinpoche has supported the creation and preservation of Buddhist sacred symbols and sites throughout Asia. TNMC’s mandala organizations have installed seventeen 2 ½-ton World Peace Bells at holy places throughout Asia, and have supported renovation projects at numerous sacred sites, including the historic renovation of the Swayambhu Stupa in Nepal. Other major restoration projects include the refounding of the practice center of the great twentieth century renunciate master Khenpo Chokyab, and the restoration of Adzom Gar, the seat of Adzom Drukpa and Rinpoche’s own teacher, Adzom Drukpa’s son and heir A-’gyur Rinpoche.

In 2005, Mangalam Light Foundation was established. Operating through four ‘daughter’ foundations, with LBDFI being joined by the Ananda, Prajna, and Vajra Light Foundations, Mangalam Light’s mission is to revive, preserve, and support the heritage of the Buddhadharma in Tibet. The Tibet-based Light Foundations have given substantial support to many diverse projects, including construction at Tarthang Monastery in Eastern Tibet. Ananda Light Foundation has funded repairs and construction at numerous monasteries and nunneries; it has also built primary schools serving 800 children throughout Eastern Tibet. Vajra Light Foundation has provided ceremony support throughout Central and Eastern Tibet, particularly sponsoring large Monlams at Larung Gar and Yachen Gar, respectively the largest Buddhist monastery in the world and the largest nunnery in Tibet. Prajna Light Foundation has made great efforts to restore Tibetan libraries: more than 1,000 sets of the Kangyur and 10,000 sets of the collected works of the great Nyingma master Longchenpa have been distributed to monasteries throughout Tibet.

In 2009, Rinpoche founded the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages in Berkeley, CA. Partnering with a distinguished group of international scholars, MRC has received several prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, enabling it to develop the highly innovative Buddhist Translators’ Workbench data tool for researchers. It also offers many conferences, colloquia and seminars, as well as numerous programs open to the public. In the same period, Rinpoche founded Guna Foundation, a documentary filmmaking unit that has produced three well-received documentaries on Tarthang Tulku’s Dharma activities, including the award-winning film, The Great Transmission (2016). In 2012, Rinpoche established Dharma College in downtown Berkeley to serve as a site for the exploration of dynamic and synergistic new teachings on the nature of the mind, expressed in recent books like Revelations of Mind, Dimensions of Mind, Keys of Knowledge, and the Lotus Trilogy. 2013 saw the inauguration of Sarnath International Nyingma Institute (SINI) in Sarnath, India, founded by Rinpoche in order to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western modes of knowledge, to foster the study of the earliest period of Tibetan Buddhism (embodied in Khen Lob Cho Sum, the Founders of Tibetan Dharma), and to host the annual Tibet Peace Ceremony. SINI is also home to the ecumenical Kangyur Encyclopedia Project, which has gathered 40 Tibetan scholars from all major schools in a deep study of the origins and structure of the Tibetan Kangyur.

While preserving Tibetan texts, Rinpoche has continued to compose original books for Western readers. In 2018, he published Caring, an accessible exploration of the power of compassion in healing ourselves and the world around us. His newest book for the English-reading public, released in 2022, is Gesture of Great Love. As of 2023, online programs for the public on both these books and many other topics are available from the Nyingma Institute, Dharma College, Ratna Ling, Odiyan, and the international centers.

In 2021, Rinpoche had the honor of participating in the first Losar celebration to be held at the White House as the representative of Vajrayana Buddhism, presiding over the ceremony along with Ven. Bhante Uparatana and Rev. Marvin Harada. The Second Gentleman Douglass Emhoff was in attendance. This celebration has since been held at the White House four times, with the latest in 2026. In India, Rinpoche’s efforts to support the return of Buddhism to its homeland continue to flourish, with recent years seing the 20^th anniversary of the International Tipitaka Chanting Ceremony and the inauguration of a new Vajrayana Buddhist ceremony in Odisha.

Now over ninety years old, Rinpoche continues to preserve and distribute sacred Tibetan texts, to write books for Western audiences, and to energetically direct large, innovative and inspiring Dharma projects. More information about these activities is recorded in nearly 50 volumes of the TNMC Annals, copies of which can be found at the Nyingma Institute and the international centers.