Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche

„Rinpoche“ means „precious jewel“ and is the title given to highly reborn („tulkus“) Dharma teachers and meditation masters. The Rinpoche usually is the head of a monastery or a group of monasteries, comparable to an abbot.

Tulku Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche was born in Eastern Tibet as the first son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. As a small child he was recognized as the seventh rebirth of a high teacher of the Drikung-Kagyu-lineage, Gar Drubchen Rinpoche, and enthroned in the monastery of his predecessor in Nangchen in central Tibet.

Tulku Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche

In 1959 his parents, who had had a second son, Chökling Rinpoche, escaped with their two children to Nepal, where they soon started to build the Ka-Nying monastery outside of Kathmandu on land provided by the king of Nepal.

The young Rinpoche’s were sent to the sixteenth Karmapa in Sikkim to study under his tutelage in his monastery at Rumtek. In 1976 the 25 year old Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche who had by then finished his studies in Sikkim became the head of the Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling monastery.

He got the directive from the 16th Karmapa to focus his efforts on teaching western students and the young Rinpoche then engaged himself in intensive studies of the English language. Today he is recognised worldwide as a brilliant scholar and teacher to whom students can talk freely in English.

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche founded Rangjung Yeshe Publication in 1984. Today Rangjung Yeshe Publications continues to publish important Dharma texts and is internationally well known.

Each autumn Rinpoche gives a seminar in one of his monasteries in Nepal, and he visits many of his „Gomde“ centers in Europe, America and Asia for teachings. His international Shedra (Institute for Buddhist studies) in Ka Nying monastery is growing since many years and provides the possibility for academic degrees at international universities.