The Treasury of Lives

Kalu Rinpoche, Karma Rangjung Kunkhyab (kar lu rin po che karma rang byung kun khyab), was born in 1905, the wood-snake year of the fifteenth sexagenary cycle. He was born while his parents were in solitary retreat at a hermitage high in the hills not far from Bengen Monastery (ban rgan dgon) in the southern part of the Rongpatsa Valley (rong pa tsha), looking across the valley at the birthplace of the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (karma pa 03 rang byung rdo rje, 1284-1339).^[1] This hermitage was connected to Ridrak Monastery (ri brag dgon) in Tresho, near Kandze.^[2] His birth name is not recorded. The name "Kalu" is an affectionate diminutive common in Rongbatsa, in which "lu" is added to the first syllable of the name. He had several brothers and two sisters, one of whom was named Choga (chos dga') who later ordained and lived with her brother.

His father, the Thirteenth Ratak Pelzang Tulku, Ngakchang Lekshe Drayang (ra btags dpal bzang sprul sku 13 sngags 'chang legs bshad sgra dbyangs), was a student of Jamgon Kongtrul ('jam mgon kong sprul, 1813-1899) and of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo ('jam dbyangs mkhyen brtse'i dbang po, 1820-1892). Kalu Rinpoche's mother was named Dolkar Chungchung (sgrol dkar chung chung). According to Kalu Rinpoche's autobiography, The Chariot Traveling the Path to Freedom, translated by Kenneth McLeod in 1985, his parents had been residing at Dzongsho Deshek Dupa (rdzong shod bde gshegs 'dus pa), the second hermitage of Jamgon Kongtrul, where he was conceived during a tenth-day gaṇacakra celebration.^[3]

Hagiographies of Kalu Rinpoche published in the decades since his death have added additional details. Regarding his conception and birth, in some sources he is the third child of long-married parents and was conceived while his parents were residing at Tsādra Rinchen Drak (tsA 'dra rin chen brag)—Jamgon Kongtrul's main hermitage above Pelpung Monastery (dpal spungs dgon)—rather than at Dzongsho.^[4] Some stories state that just before his parents met for the first time, Khyentse Wangpo had given Ratak Tulku a statue of White Tārā, which presaged his meeting with his wife Dolkar, whose name means White Tārā. Radak Tulku is also said to have received a prophecy that he would sire a son who would become a great teacher, but to their great consternation the couple first produced several girls.^[5] In all narratives of Kalu Rinpoche's birth, Dolkar Chungchung is said to have claimed that during the evening of conception she had dreamed of Jamgon Kongtrul saying to her "I need a place to stay."^[6]

It is said that the Fifth Dzogchen Rinpoche, Tubten Chokyi Dorje (rdzogs chen grub dbang 05 thub bstan chos kyi rdo rje, 1872-1935), heard stories of Kalu Rinpoche's birth—that miracles had occurred such as the newborn sitting up and reciting the mantra of Avalokiteśvara—and that he sent gifts with the request to bring the boy to Dzogchen Monastery (rdzogs chen dgon) and be enthroned as a tulku. According to Kalu Rinpoche's nephew and attendant Lama Gyaltsen Ratak (bla ma rgyal mtshan ra btags, b. 1936), the leadership of Bengen Monastery, which then had no resident incarnation, also requested the child.^[7] Multiple prominent Kagyu and Nyingma monasteries also are said to have wanted the child taken to Tsādra Rinchen Drak. Additionally, the leaders of the Geluk Dargye Monastery (dar rgyas dgon) in Kandze are said to have considered him a reincarnation of a Shangpa Kagyu lama named Vajraratna who transmitted the Shangpa teachings to Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo.^[8] Kalu Rinpoche's father refused all requests to identify his child as an incarnation or to send him to a monastery, preferring to raise his son himself.^[9]

In his hagiography of Kalu Rinpoche, Lodro Donyo (blo gros don yod), the abbot of Kalu Rinpoche's seat in India, Samdrub Dargye Ling (bsam grub dar rgyas chos gling), describes the child as having been gentle and compassionate, with faith in the dharma and in the teachers.^[10] He adds that Kalu Rinpoche received tonsure from one of Jamgon Kongtrul's closest disciples, Khenchen Tashi Wozer (mkhan chen bkra shis 'od zer, 1836-1910), at the age of three. (According to Lama Gyaltsen Ratak, Kalu received tonsure at Bengen Monastery.)^[11]

When Kalu Rinpoche was thirteen he received novice vows at Pelpung from the Eleventh Tai Situ, Pema Wangchok Gyelpo (ta'i si tu 11 padma dbang mchog rgyal po, 1886-1952), who gave him the name Karma Rangjung Kunkhyab. He continued to receive teachings from his father, including Ngari Paṇchen's Ascertaining the Three Vows (sdom pa gsum rnam par nges pa), and the medical tradition of the Fourfold Treatises (rgyud bzhi).^[12]

At Pelpung he received foundational Kagyu transmissions and instructions from Khenchen Tashi Wozer, all of which were central to Jamgon Kongtrul's own teaching: Kongtrul's own Treasury of Kagyu Tantra (bka' brgyud sngags mdzod); Hevajratantra, the Ratnagotravibhāga, and several works by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (karma pa 03 rang byung rdo rje, 1284-1339), presumably along with Jamgon Kongtrul's commentaries; Commentary on the Profound Inner Principles, Treatise Distinguishing Ordinary Consciousness from Primordial Consciousness, and Treatise on Buddha-Nature.^[13] He then spent the summer retreat of his fifteenth year at Bengen Monastery, where he gave his first public exposition on the three vows.^[14]

At age sixteen Kalu Rinpoche entered his first retreat, at Tsādra Rinchen Drak, where Jamgon Kongtrul had first developed the modern three-year retreat program in 1861. The retreat master was then Lama Norbu Dondrub (bla ma nor bu don grub, 1880-c.1954) who transmitted to him the Five Golden Dharmas (gser chos rnam pa lnga) of the Shangpa Kagyu tradition, as well as additional Kagyu teachings on Mahāmudrā, the Six Doctrines of Nāropa, Kālacakra, Cakrasaṃvara, and others.^[15] Given his young age, Norbu Dondrub was unlikely to have studied with Jamgon Kongtrul himself, although he could have met him, and would instead have been a disciple of Kongtrul's close students Tashi Wozer and Nesar Tashi Chopel (gnas gsar bkra shis chos 'phel). According to Kalu Rinpoche, Lama Norbu attained the rainbow body.^[16]

Kalu Rinpoche considered Lama Norbu to be his root teacher, and his disciples tell a story that suggests they were destined to meet. Lama Norbu Dondrub is said to have been in retreat and had instructed his disciples not to disturb him or to allow petitioners in to see him. However, one evening he had a dream that the following day he would meet the next holder of the Shangpa tradition, and so he informed his attendants that whoever arrived that day should be shown in. At the end of the day no one had been brought to him. He asked his attendants, who first told him that no one had come, but then admitted, when pressed, that a sixteen-year-old youth with his belongings on a yak had arrived seeking permission to enter a three-year retreat, whom they had sent away, certain that he could not be worthy of meeting their lama. Scolding his attendants for their foolishness, Lama Norbu Dondrub sent after him, and Kalu Rinpoche was thus accepted into retreat.^[17]

Kalu Rinpoche took full ordination at the age of twenty-three, receiving vows from a disciple of Tashi Wozer's named Tsatsa Nyage Tulku (tsha tsha nya dge sprul sku).^[18]

He received teachings from dozens of prominent lamas. The Second Jamgon Kongtrul, Pelden Khyentse Wozer ('jam mgon kong sprul 02 dpal ldan mkhyen brtse 'od zer, 1904-1952) transmitted to him Kongtrul's Treasury of Instructions (gdams ngag mdzod) and Treasury of Revelations (rin chen gter mdzod). Pelpung Khyentse Wozer (dpal spungs mkhyen brtse 'od zer, 1896-1945) transmitted the Kangyur and several Jonang collections.^[19] The Tenth Pawo, Tsuklak Mawai Wangchuk (dpa' bo 10 gtsug lag smra ba'i dbang phyug, 1912-1991) transmitted various other tantric teachings; a man named Chugur Lama Peyar (mchu mgur bla ma dpe yar) transmitted Kongtrul's Treasury of Knowledge (shes bya kun khyab), and a man named Tsatsa Lodro Tulku (tsha tsha blo gros sprul sku) gave him Kongtrul's Collected Works.^[20] A Lama Tenpel (bla ma bstan 'phel) transmitted the Nyingma Kama (rnying ma bka' ma), the massive collection of Nyingma scriptures that are classified as received rather than revealed as treasure.

Other teachers over the course of his long life included the Sixteenth Karmapa, Rangjung Rikpai Dorje (karma pa 15 rang byung rig pa'i rdo rje, 1924-1981), the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 14 bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, b. 1935), the Sixth Dzogchen Rinpoche, Jikdrel Jangchub Dorje (rdzogs chen 06 'jigs bral byang chub rdo rje, 1935-1959), the Fifth Shechen Gyeltsab, Gyurme Pema Dorje (zhe chen rgyal tshab 05 'gyur med padma rdo rje), Shechen Kongtrul Pema Drime (zhe chen kong sprul padma 'dri med, 1901-1960), Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro (mkhyen brtse mchog gi blo gros, 1893-1959), Dudjom Rinpoche (bdud 'joms rin po che, 1904-1988), Dilgo Khyentse Tashi Peljor (dil mgo mkhyen brtse bkra shis dpal byor, 1910-1991), Kangyur Rinpoche Longchen Yeshe Dorje (bka' 'gyur rin po che klong chen ye shes rdo rje, 1897/1898-1975), Chatral Sanggye Dorje (bya bral sangs rgya rdo rje, 1913-2015), the Fortieth Sakya Trichen (sa skya khri chen 41, b. 1945), and Dezhung Rinpoche Kunga Tenpai Nyima (sde gzhung kun dga' bstan pa'i nyi ma, 1906-1987). Many of these lamas in turn received teachings from Kalu Rinpoche.

At the age of twenty-five Kalu Rinpoche went into isolated retreat for over a dozen years—various accounts of his life have twelve,^[21] thirteen,^[22] and fifteen.^[23] He moved among places around the region of Yilhung Lhatso (yid lhung lha mtsho) and Rongpatsha. Although one of his shelters was a wooden cabin in a grassy valley where he was able to keep a horse, most were far less inviting. A disciple described one as "terrible...little more than a depression in a rock wide open to the north wind which blew constantly."^[24] Another "was simply under a rocky outcrop with no protection; and yet another was a cave high above Yilhung Lhatso where the cave overlooked a glacier."^[25]

Kalu Rinpoche moved frequently, every year or so, in order to avoid attracting devotees, and is said to have refused food when offered. His mother once tracked him down and begged him to take provisions, which he agreed to do only in order to share it with the wild animals that lived near him.^[26]

Around 1942, at the command of the Eleventh Situ, Kalu Rinpoche ended his retreat and returned to Pelpung. He was thirty-seven years old. Situ Rinpoche assigned him to serve as the retreat master at Tsādra, where he maintained the center's ecumenical curricula, albeit with a Shangpa Kagyu focus, as well as the main retreat center at Pelpung, with its Karma Kagyu focus.

There was some consternation from other lamas at Pelpung at bringing in an outsider to lead the retreats. In response Situ Rinpoche and the Karmapa are said to have announced his status as the fifth incarnation of Jamgon Kongtrul, the embodiment of his "activity" aspect, although they declined to formally enthrone him. There already was a Kongtrul incarnation at Pelpung, and it was later explained that had they enthroned him his activity and lifespan would have been shortened.^[27]

He is credited with expanding Tsādra's buildings during the retreat, adding twenty-five new rooms for retreatants, temples to Six-Armed Mahākāla and Cakrasaṃvara, a residence for the retreat master, a new kitchen, and a practice hall—work that was said to have been possible only with supernatural assistance.^[28] During the retreat he accepted as an attendant Lama Gyaltsen, the son of one of his younger brothers, when the boy was around ten years old. Lama Gyaltsen would grow to become one of Kalu Rinpoche's closest companions, and, in 1990, the father of his reincarnation.

While serving in the position at Pelpung, Kalu Rinpoche also transmitted the Shangpa teachings and Kālacakra at the hermitage of Rongme Karmo Taktsang (rong me kar mo stag tshang), where graduates from Dzongsar Monastery's (rdzong sar dgon) Khamshe College (kham byed) performed their retreats. He gave Shangpa teachings and transmission of the sādhana for Six-Armed Mahākāla from the revelations of Chokgyur Lingpa (mchog 'gyur gling pa, 1829-1870) to Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro; that form of the deity is the special protector of the Shangpa Kagyu.

At the conclusion of the first three-year retreat at Tsādra, when Kalu Rinpoche was forty years old, he traveled to central Tibet. According to Dezhung Rinpoche, he went in the company of the Eleventh Situ.^[29] At Takden Puntsokling (brtag brtan phun tshogs gling) he gave Jonang teachings, almost certainly from the Tāranātha line of transmission that Jamgon Kongtrul had preserved; the monastery, established by Tāranātha (tA ra nA tha, 1575-1634) had been converted to the Geluk tradition in the seventeenth century. He also gave Shangpa Kagyu teachings at Zhangzhung Dorjeden Monastery (zhang zhung rdo rje ldan dgon), the historical seat of the Shangpa tradition, which had also been converted to Geluk. Both monasteries remained Geluk, but Kalu Rinpoche's teaching there speaks to the ecumenical spirit of the abbots at the time, and to Kalu Rinpoche's dedication to preserving and propagating the Shangpa and Jonang teachings.

He visited other religious communities while in central Tibet, including both Nyetang Mokchok (nye thang rmog lcog) and Lhapu Mokchok (lha phu rmog lcog), hermitages established by Mokchok Rinchen Tsondru (rmog lcog pa rin chen brtson 'grus, 1110-1170), where he transmitted the Shangpa teachings and gave the Kālacakra empowerment.^[30] These two hermitages, like Zhangzhung Dorjeden, had been converted to the Geluk tradition and were under the administration of Drepung Monastery ('bras spungs).

While in Lhasa, Kalu Rinpoche gave Jonang and Shangpa empowerments and instructions to the Fifth Reting Rinpoche, Tubten Jampel Yeshe Tenpai Gyeltsen (rwa sgreng 05 thub bstan 'jam dpal ye shes bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan, 1912/1919-1947), then the head of the Tibetan government, and to his disciple, the Fifth Khardo Rinpoche Kelzang Tubten Nyendrak (mkhar rdo rin po che bskal bzang thub bstan snyan grags, c. 1908-1951). This was only a year or two before both Reting and Khardo would be arrested in the wake of a failed coup against the government of the Dalai Lama. Kalu Rinpoche also taught Lhatsun Rinpoche (lha btsun rin po che), another important incarnate lama of Sera Monastery (se ra dgon) as well as a Tokme Rinpoche (thogs med rin po che) and Drepung Mokchok ('bras spungs rmog lcog), presumably the lama responsible for the two Mokchok hermitages.^[31]

He returned to Kham and spent the next several years moving about the Derge and Kandze regions, teaching and practicing. It is unclear how much time, if any, he spent at Tsādra.

In 1955 the Communist occupation of Kham forced Kalu Rinpoche to flee to central Tibet. He resided at Tsurpu Monastery (mtshur phu), where many prominent Kagyu and Nyingma lamas from Kham were gathering. He taught there for close to two years alongside the Sixteenth Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpai Dorje, after which the Karmapa sent him to Bhutan to teach at Jangchub Choling (byang chub chos gling), a small hermitage on the Tibetan border in the Kurto region of Bhutan.^[32] The Bhutanese princess Ashi Kencho Choni Wangmo (b. 1909), most popularly known as Ashi Wangmo (a zhe dbang mo), who was a devotee of the Karmapa, had heard of Kalu Rinpoche and had requested the Karmapa send him to Bhutan to teach at Jangchub Choling, which had been established by her brother, the second king of Bhutan, Jigme Wangchuk ('jigs med dbang phyug, 1905-1952).^[33] Kalu Rinpoche stayed in Bhutan for about five years, teaching the Karma Kagyu and Shangpa Kagyu traditions at Jangchub Choling. He built retreat centers there to focus on the Six Dharmas of Nāropa and the Six Dharmas of Niguma, as well as a new stūpa.

In 1961 or 1962 Kalu Rinpoche left Bhutan for Darjeeling, in part to be closer to the Sixteenth Karmapa, who had made his seat at Rumtek Monastery (rum theg) in Sikkim. At that time thousands of Tibetans were still fleeing Tibet and settling in India, and Kalu Rinpoche became a primary source of support. He initially resided at a monastery named Dotsuk (rdo gtsug), which served as his base of activity for the next five years. He instituted a regular liturgical calendar to enable newly-arrived refugee monks to continue to observe their vows. He also set about transmitting the major teaching traditions to the community, an act of preservation that provided vital training for many of the young Tibetan lamas of the era.

There are many examples of his early activities to preserve tradition and help rebuild communities in exile. In 1964 Dilgo Khyentse requested Kalu give the empowerments for the tantras of the Karma Kagyu tradition to hundreds of young tulkus, together with Tāranātha's One Hundred Sādhanas: Source of Jewels (rin 'byung brgya brtsa), an important compendium on the deities of Tibetan Buddhism. The Ninth Khalkha Jetsundampa, Jampel Namdrol Chokyi Gyeltsen (khal kha rje btsun dam pa 09 'jam dpal rnam grol chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1932-2012) asked him to transmit the Shangpa teachings and the Kālacakra, and the Bhutanese teacher Sonam Zangpo (bsod nams bzang po, 1888-1982), who was a disciple of Shākya Shrī (shAkya shrI, 1853-1919) requested the transmission of widely-used early Tantric system for the consecration of stūpas known as the "two Vimalas" (dri med rnam gnyis). He also traveled to Dharamsala at the invitation of the Dalai Lama to give empowerments to the Geluk community there, and he initiated a retreat center at Tso Pema (mtsho padma).^[34]

Kalu Rinpoche took the opportunity of his proximity to Tibet's great teachers to receive teachings as well, gathering teachings into himself, not unlike Jamgon Kongtrul before him, in order to be able to distribute them widely. He requested from Dilgo Khyentse the transmission of the Nyingtik Yabzhi (snying thig ya bzhi), Longchenpa's (klong chen pa, 1308-1364) collection of Dzogchen teachings. Soon after he requested from Kangyur Rinpoche the transmission of the Collected Nyingma Tantras (snying ma rgyud 'bum).^[35] Similar exchanges of major teachings would continue over the decades, and Kalu Rinpoche would spend the rest of his life ensuring that they were transmitted forward.

In 1966 Kalu Rinpoche moved to Sonada, a village outside Darjeeling. According to McLeod, the Third Trijang, Lobzang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (khri byang 03 blo bzang ye shes bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, 1901-1981) gave him the site.^[36] Kalu Rinpoche built a monastery that would be his residence for the remainder of his life: Samdrub Dargye Choling (bsam grub dar rgyas chos gling), which continues to serve as the international seat of the Shangpa Kagyu tradition. Kalu Rinpoche immediately initiated a three-year retreat, and he constructed a monastery that would allow him to continue to perform lengthy transmissions to large crowds. In 1969 he gave the Shangpa Golden Dharma at Chatral Rinpoche's request, and, two years later, a series of major Kagyu and Nyingma transmissions to a large audience, including four Karma Kagyu tulkus who would later be tasked with finding the reincarnation of the Sixteenth Karmapa: the Fourteenth Zhamar, Mipam Chokyi Lodro (zhwa dmar 13 mi pham chos kyi blo gros, 1952-2014), the Twelfth Situ, Pema Donyo Nyinje (padma don yod nyin byed, b. 1954), the Third Jamgon Kongtrul, Lodro Chokyi Sengge ('jam mgon kong sprul 03 blo gros chos kyi seng ge, 1954-1992), and the Twelfth Tsurpu Gyaltsab Drakpa Tenpai Yarpel (mtshur 'phu rgyal tshab 12 grags pa bstan pa yar 'phel, b. 1954).

Two years later, in 1968, at the Young Lama's Home School in Dalhousie, Kalu Rinpoche gave the transmission of Jamgon Kongtrul's Treasury of Instruction to a large assembly of lamas, tulkus, and khenpos from multiple traditions. On the occasion he initiated another three-year retreat there, with the assistance of Freda Bedi (1911-1977) and the Fourth Karma Trinle Rinpoche (karma 'phrin las 04, b.1931), who together ran the school.^[37]

In November 1968 the Catholic monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) visited Kalu Rinpoche in Sonada. Merton had just come from a meeting with Chatral Rinpoche and wished to learn more about three-year retreats. At the time there were sixteen monks in retreat at Sonada. Merton's extensive questioning of the retreat schedule led Kalu Rinpoche to invite him to enter retreat himself at Sonada, or, short of that, to send him his meditation questions via mail. Merton intended to enter retreat; he wrote in his journal that as appealing as Sonada was, the California environment would suit him better. Kalu Rinpoche gave Merton a block-print image of deities on their parting.^[38] In his journal Merton affectionately described the sixty-three year-old lama as

a small, thin man with a strange concavity in the temples as if his skull had been pressed in by huge thumbs. Soft-spoken like all of them, he kept fingering his rosary, and patiently answered my many questions on the hermit retreat.^[39]

World Tours: 1971-1986

Kalu Rinpoche made five global tours between the years 1971 and 1983, visiting Europe, North and South America, and Southeast Asia. He was preceded in 1970 by Lama Gyaltsen, who the Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche had sent in 1970 to learn English and prepare for Kalu Rinpoche's own journey, which was put together with the help of Freda Bedi.

Kalu Rinpoche was not the first modern Tibetan lama to teach outside of Asia; Chogyam Trungpa (chos rgya drung pa, 1939-1987), preceded him by five years. The brother of the Sakya Trizin, Sakya Dagchen Rinpoche (sa skya bdag chen, 1929-2016), and Dezhung Rinpoche had arrived in Seattle in 1960, and Namkhai Norbu (nam mkha'i nor bu, 1938-2018) had settled in Naples in 1962, all three in association with university invitations; Trungpa too had gone to England to study at university. Others, such as Ngor Tartse Zhabdrung Kunga Gyurme (ngor thar rtse zhabs drung kun dga' 'gyur med, b. 1935), who came to be known as Lama Kunga Thartse, had traveled to the West on their own and opened their own centers. Yet Kalu Rinpoche was, in a way, the first Tibetan missionary dispatched to the West, sent specifically to teach Buddhism within the traditional framework of the Kagyu tradition. Students of the Karmapa comment that Kalu and Trungpa were complementary opposites, with Trungpa speaking the language of the West and Kalu holding close to tradition.^[40]

Kalu Rinpoche had already taken on a handful of Western students in India, and was confident that he would be able to teach in the West.^[41] It is said that in contrast to other lamas who were accepting disciples who were already established in a practice, Kalu Rinpoche attracted the young Western travelers who had hitch-hiked to Asia; he was known to joke that he was "the lama to the hippies." The youth of his students would mean that while his projects would not always be well-financed, his disciples had no careers or other obligations to prevent them from fully dedicating their time to Buddhist training.^[42] His dedication, generosity, and gentleness made him a beloved teacher. Scholar Janet Gyatso, who later studied with him in San Francisco and translated for one of his first books, described him as "a master of impeccable repute in the Tibetan world...an utterly humble, unassuming man."^[43]

He began this first trip in late 1971. He went first to Jerusalem, followed by Rome, where he had an audience with Pope Paul VI (1897-1978), and then on to Paris, staying with his student Anne Berry, and to Britain, where he visited Samye Ling, the dharma center of Scotland founded by Trungpa and Akong Tulku (a dkon sprul sku, 1939-2013); Trungpa had left for America the year before.

This first trip to the West was sponsored by Kalu Rinpoche's American student Sherab Tarchin Ebin. When Kalu Rinpoche arrived in the United States, Ebin's family hosted him and his party at their home in Minneapolis. Funding for further travel, and for the purchase of land and establishment of a monastery in North America did not materialize. As a result, Kalu Rinpoche and his party, on a shoestring budget, visited the family of his student Ken McLeod in Toronto, and gave teachings there. They then continued to San Francisco where, in February, 1972, he was hosted by Lama Kunga Thartse, who would later build a center of his own in the Bay Area. In March he went to Vancouver, Canada, at the invitation of Tibetan refugees there. He taught daily for three weeks, then bi-weekly for an additional three weeks.

Responding to the enthusiasm of the young Canadians who flocked to him, Kalu Rinpoche decided to establish his first dharma center in the west. This would be named Kagyu Kunchab Chuling, which would henceforth serve as his seat in North America. According to his student Richard Barron, Kalu Rinpoche had few models for Tibetan dharma centers outside of Chogyam Trungpa's Dharmadhatu centers. According to Barron, Kalu's students at the time were not entirely convinced of the need for a formal center, with regular practice schedules and group politics; they were eager to practice dharma, and less inclined to build a new institution.^[44] The average age of the center's board of directors was twenty-three.^[45]

In Vancouver Lobsang Lhalungpa (blo bzang lha lung pa, 1926-2008), who was then a lecturer at the University of British Columbia, acted as his translator, alongside Ken and Ingrid McLeod. Dezhung Rinpoche, who lived just south in Seattle, sent his brother, Kunzang Nyima (kun bzang nyi ma), to meet with him and bring gifts,^[46] and after Kalu Rinpoche returned to India his students successfully petitioned Dezhung Rinpoche to teach them.^[47] During this first tour Kalu Rinpoche mainly taught Jamgon Kongtrul's Torch of Certainty (nges don sgron me), refuge, the four mind changes, and preliminary practices. At the end of the visit he gave an Avalokiteśvara empowerment.^[48]

Kalu Rinpoche returned to Europe and North America for a second tour, from 1974 to 1976. The visit was planned to coincide with the first visit of the Sixteenth Karmapa, which had been largely arranged by Chogyam Trungpa. Kalu Rinpoche arranged the Karmapa's welcome at Stoney Brook University, opening the car door for him while his monks played horns. He hosted the Karmapa in Vancouver for five days in October, 1974. During the visit Kalu Rinpoche and the Karmapa flew in a small Cessna with Ken McLeod. They flew circles around Salt Spring Island, where Kalu Rinpoche would later establish a retreat center, Kunzang Dechen Osel Ling.

Kalu Rinpoche stayed in Vancouver for a month. Dezhung Rinpoche, who had come to Vancouver for the Karmapa's visit, was impressed by the quick growth of the center and the dedication of Kalu Rinpoche's students, and had been north to teach there several times. He now requested the transmission of the Shangpa cycle. To do so Kalu Rinpoche arranged to return to Vancouver in early 1975. He invited the small group of his western students who had completed the preliminary practices to receive the transmission, the first time the Shangpa cycle had been transmitted outside of Asia.

It was during this transmission that Kalu Rinpoche first considered establishing a three-year retreat for western students. It was an audacious idea, one that would challenge the deeply protective attitude of many other Tibetan lamas in regards to their esoteric teachings. Kalu Rinpoche was further determined to make the opportunity available to non-monastics, and to women as well as men, both of which would have been highly unusual in Tibet.^[49]

During the second tour Kalu Rinpoche decided that his center in Vancouver had been a success, and with that as a model established several more centers in North America and three in France. These included Kagyu Dzamling Kunchab in New York, Kagyu Droden Kunchab in San Francisco, Karma Rimay O Sal Ling in Hawaii, Kagyu Changchub Choling in Portland, and and Kagyu Shenpen Kunchab in Santa Fe (in 1986 he consecrated a stūpa constructed by the community there).

In France he created Kagyu Ling in La Boulaye, Burgundy, with his student Lama Denys (b. 1946). Lama Denys, Kalu Rinpoche's French language translator, resided at Kagyu Dzong in Paris until entering the first three-year retreat. He was later given the direction of the ruins of an old Chartreuse monastery in the Savoie region of France that he transformed into Karma Ling-Chartreuse de St Hugon. The center was severely damaged by fire in 2017.

Olé and Hannah Nydahl, disciples of the Sixteenth Karmapa and founders of Diamond Way Buddhism, hosted Kalu Rinpoche in northern Europe, and drove him around in an old Volkswagen van.^[50]

In 1975 the Karmapa had met the French intellectual and politician Jean-Louis Massoubre (1938-2016), who would go on to support Kalu Rinpoche's activities in France. In 1978 Kalu Rinpoche and the Karmapa recognized Massoubre's son, Ananda (b. 1975), as the Fifth Karma Trinle (karma 'phrin las 05).

Over the next decade and a half Kalu Rinpoche managed the many centers he established by sending lamas as his representatives to live and teach there, a model that has become standard in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in the West. Among these was a Sikkimese man named Lama Lodu (bla ma blo gros, b. 1942) who had been the monk's instructor in Sonada, and who became the resident teacher of Kagyu Droden Kunchab in San Francisco in 1976.

Having earlier considered the idea of long-term retreats for his students, in 1975 Kalu was ready to push his students into a more formal practice regime. As reported by David Jackson, Kalu Rinpoche told Dezhung Rinpoche:

So far, correct practitioners of the dharma are very rare in the West. Some learn to read a little Tibetan and carry around a lot of books, mixing up the doctrines from many systems. They confuse the sense and make it difficult to be understood. It may happen like that here, so I hope to establish a retreat center so that bright students can learn the dharma thoroughly.^[51]

Kalu Rinpoche thus became the first Tibetan lama to initiate the three-year, three-fortnight retreat program outside of Asia. The first retreat began in 1976 at Dashang Kagyu Ling in France. Lama Tempa Gyamtso (bla ma bstan pa rgya mtsho) served as retreat master.^[52] Sixteen students gathered for the retreat, and they built their spartan facilities themselves over the first six months, in two separate compounds for the eight women and eight men: eight cinder block cells around a central courtyard with a temple, kitchen, and bathroom.^[53] The rooms were unheated, such that in the winter the water in their offering bowls would freeze and snow would drift into the rooms. The schedule was arduous; students were not permitted to lay down to sleep, they practiced from 4:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night, and had only one day off a year, on Tibetan New Year's Day.^[54] Kalu Rinpoche gave close attention to the details of the design, building, and organization of the first retreat center. He was present at the site from the first excavation in June 1976 to the sealing of the boundaries in December.^[55]

While these students were in retreat Kalu Rinpoche made a third trip to the West, from 1977 to 1978. During this tour he mostly taught śamatha and vipaśyanā,^[56] but he also gave tantric empowerments to his fellow lamas and select American students. For example, in 1977 in New York City he spent three days in a hotel room giving Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo's treasure cycle Secret Gathering of the Ḍākinī (mkha' 'gro gsang 'dus) to Dezhung Rinpoche, Lama Norlha (bla ma nor lha, 1938-2018), and scholar Matthew Kapstein, among others.^[57]

Among Kalu Rinpoche's Western disciples during the 1970s and early 1980s was June Campbell (b. 1945), who traveled with him on his world tours and served as a translator. In a 1996 book and several subsequent interviews, Campbell alleged that she had engaged in a secret sexual relationship with Kalu Rinpoche (she does not name him in the book, only referring to him as a "high lama"). She further alleged that she was threatened against publicly revealing the relationship. To date no other students of Kalu Rinpoche have come forward to either publicly confirm or dispute her claims.^[58]

Kalu Rinpoche's fourth tour began in 1980, when he was seventy-five. The Karmapa had told him that there were now 320 Kagyu centers around the globe, and he tasked Kalu Rinpoche with supervising them. He first returned to France to end the retreat in Burgundy and to give the Kālacakra initiation in Paris, at the Pagode de Vincennes, which was built for the 1931 Colonial Exposition. This was the first time the Kālacakra had been given in the West. In his account of his teaching program during his fourth tour, Kalu Rinpoche explained that during this tour he focused on emptiness.^[59]

With the end of the first three-year retreat, Kalu Rinpoche encouraged his center lamas to create more retreat facilities. Kunzang Dechen Osel Ling and its retreat center and Salt Spring Island dates to this period, as does Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery and Retreat Center, in Wappinger Falls, New York, which Lama Norlha established as a branch of Kagyu Dzamling Kunchab, where he had been the director since its founding in 1974. In 1984, as part of a third cycle of three-year retreats, a center was instituted at Lama Denys' Shangpa Karma Ling Buddhist Center, in the Carthusian monastery in Savoie.

Kalu Rinpoche's fifth tour began in early 1982. He spent three months at Kagyu Thubten Chöling in preparation for initiating the three-year retreat there, and he gave the Kālacakra initiation in both Boulder and New York City. Many of the lectures given that year in New York were published in 1986 by SUNY under the title The Dharma That Illuminates All Beings Impartially Like the Light of the Sun and the Moon. The following year he again gave the Kālacakra, in San Francisco. In Paris he established Kagyu Dzong, laying the cornerstone in May of 1983.

Even as he undertook these world tours—he also taught in Taiwan, Brazil, the Philippines, and other countries—Kalu Rinpoche continued to guide his community at Sonada and to train the young lamas of the Kagyu traditions. In 1983, at his monastery, he gave the transmission of Kongtrul's Treasury of Revelations, a ceremony that takes many months to complete.^[60] Kalu Rinpoche was then seventy-nine years old, yet Bokar Tulku, Karma Ngedon Chokyi Lodro ('bo dkar sprul sku 02 karma nges don chos kyi blo gros, 1940-2004), one of his closest disciples, reported that during the sessions he manifested no signs of exhaustion.^[61] Bokar wrote that although Kalu had the appearance of a frail old man he showed none of the stiffness and weaknesses of old age. He wrote that Kalu Rinpoche's body was light and flexible like a child's, that he was not bothered by heat or cold, his eyes were keen, and that he ate with no trouble, regardless of the cuisine:

His relaxation and peacefulness are so pronounced that anyone who comes to see him soon feels better. Even people who are excited or troubled become calm and peaceful in his presence. The same thing happens to animals: cats won't kill mice when Rinpoche is present.^[62]

Also in 1983, Kalu Rinpoche established the Kagyu Monlam in Bodh Gaya, India, an annual prayer festival that is one of the largest of the year, now attracting thousands of people. The first festival ran from November 5 to the 19, with several hundred monks in attendance.

Translation of the Treasury of Instructions

During Kalu Rinpoche's sixth and final world tour, from 1985 to 1986, he proposed a project to his senior students to translate Jamgon Kongtrul's Treasury of Knowledge. As told by Sarah Harding, one of the lead translators, when Kalu Rinpoche was teaching in New Mexico she asked him to put his senior students to work on something lasting, telling him that their talents and training were being underutilized by only interpreting for him during teachings. Shortly afterwards, while in San Francisco, Kalu Rinpoche announced during a radio interview that he was putting together a translation committee to render the entire Buddhist canon into English. This aspiration quickly refocused on the Treasury of Knowledge. The process began with a gathering in Bodh Gaya, coinciding with the first Kagyu Monlam and lasting for three months.^[63]

According to Ngawang Zangpo, another lead translator for the project, Kalu Rinpoche had earlier discussed the idea of the translation with Dudjom Rinpoche, who declined to take it on. Kalu Rinpoche considered the treatise, in three Tibetan volumes, to be an ideal introduction to Buddhism, a springboard to teach and study that would be valuable to both the beginner and the sophisticated reader.^[64] Roughly forty people joined the initial gathering. In addition to Harding and Ngawang Zangpo, other lead translators were Drupgyu Anthony Chapman, Ingrid McLeod, and Elio Guarisco. A second translation meeting, from December 1987 to February 1988 involved only fifteen students. In the midst of the work Kalu Rinpoche flew to Los Angeles to perform the Kālacakra empowerment. On his return he invited the core group of translators to reside at Sonada to continue the work. ^[65]

As described by Ngawang Zangpo, the initial years of the project were difficult. Translators were asked to work long hours and accept wages of twenty dollars a week. They paid their own expenses to India, where they were fed and housed in the best accommodations then available: a concrete and wooden house that had been constructed to receive the Sixteenth Karmapa on a visit to Sonada monastery many years before. The wind and monsoon rains would slip in through the cracks in the walls. There was no indoor plumbing and only sporadic electricity; these rooms were still better than those in the monasteries. By comparison, Kalu Rinpoche's own room, with its single small window, was so small only one person could fit between the bed and the wall.^[66]

Despite his commitment to the project, Kalu Rinpoche was unsuccessful in raising money to support it, finding that benefactors would donate for buildings, but not translation; a sole large donation came from a disciple in Los Angeles, but it was not enough to sustain the work.^[67] Following Kalu Rinpoche's death Ngawang Zangpo secured regular funding from Shoko Asahara (1955-2018) the cult leader of Aum Shinrikyo who would later mastermind the 1995 sarin-gas attack in Tokyo. Ngawang Zangpo described feeling increasingly uncomfortable accepting the annual donation, and ultimately deciding to refuse donations in the early 1990s.^[68]

A generous Norwegian student of Kalu Rinpoche named John Staubo picked up the sponsorship for two more years. By the mid 1990s, five years after Kalu Rinpoche had passed away, and the completion of two of the ten volumes, in spite of the deep commitment of this core of translators the project was not sustainable and came to a pause. Eventually the Tsadra Foundation stepped in to sponsor the completion of the translations, after which the additional translators Richard Barron, Elizabeth Callahan, and Gyurmé Dorjé joined. Where earlier work was done by committee, under Tsadra sponsorship individual translators took responsibility for entire volumes. The final book of the ten-volume translation was published in 2011.

Kalu Rinpoche's Passing

There are multiple published narratives of Kalu Rinpoche's death and funeral ceremonies, most of which were included in Karma Chokyi Gyamtso's 2018 Lord of Siddhas. Kalu Rinpoche continued his teaching and institution-building to the very last days of his life. In 1988, the year before his death, he began construction of a massive stūpa at Salugara, near Siliguri, planned to be 108 feet tall; it was completed in 1990.^[69] In November, 1988 he convened the second meeting of the Treasury of Knowledge translation project in Bodh Gaya and then went to Los Angeles to perform the Kālacakra initiation. On his return he checked in on the translation work and proceeded to Dharamsala where he met with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and visited Situ Rinpoche's monastery, Sherab Ling (shes rab gling). He then returned to Bodh Gaya and moved his translators to Sonada.^[70]

His health began to decline by the end of March, 1989, and his students begged him to seek medical attention. He agreed to be admitted to Siliguri Hospital on April 15, and although he consented to remain there for three weeks, he refused pleas to travel to France for further treatment. He returned to Sonada on May 5. According to Bokar Rinpoche, when asked how he felt, Kalu Rinpoche responded by saying,

Day-time is the cultivation of the experience of illusion.
Night-time is the cultivation of the experience of dream.^[71]

Bokar added that Kalu Rinpoche told him that he was satisfied with his eighty-five years of life, and had no regrets, concerned only with leaving the stūpa and Treasury of Knowledge translation unfinished.

On May 10 Kalu Rinpoche suffered a heart attack, and prominent lamas such as Chatral Rinpoche and Kongtrul Rinpoche were notified. Kalu Rinpoche refused to go to the hospital, but permitted doctors to examine him in his room, where he was given oxygen and glucose. Bokar Rinpoche, Lama Gyaltsen, Khenpo Donyo, and Chatral Rinpoche sat around his bed. Despite doctors' objections, Kalu Rinpoche sat upright, in meditation posture. Bokar Rinpoche described the moment of his passing:

Rinpoche placed his hands in meditation posture, his open eyes gazed outward in meditation gaze, and his lips moved softly. A profound feeling of peace and happiness settled on us all and spread through our minds. All present felt that the indescribable happiness that was filling us was the faintest reflection of what was pervading Rinpoche's mind.^[72]

Kalu Rinpoche remained in tukdam (thugs dam)—the post-mortem meditation—for four days, after which his remains were prepared for mummification. Funeral ceremonies lasted for seven weeks, with a different lama and liturgies each week, expressing the breadth and diversity of Kalu Rinpoche's attainments. Ceremonies marking his passing were also performed at monasteries around India and Nepal, as well as his global dharma centers. His remains were placed inside a reliquary stūpa at Sonada, which was consecrated in May, 1991, on the second anniversary of his passing.^[73]

Kalu Rinpoche's reincarnation was recognized in 1992 as the son of Kalu Rinpoche's nephew and disciple, Lama Gyaltsen and his wife Drolkar (sgrol dkar). The child, known as Kalu Yangsi (kar lu yang srid sprul sku) was born on September 17, 1990.

 

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