Kunzang Palden Rinpoche

In 1991, after ten years as a Buddhist monk, Lama Kunzang married. For five years, he taught in the Bay Area at the personal request of his Tibetan teacher, the Venerable Kyabje Palden Sherab Rinpoche, spiritual head of the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center in America. Lama Kunzang has now retired from actively teaching meditation and Buddhist scholastic studies in the Bay Area. Lama Kunzang Rimpoche's work is being continued, however, by his leading student, Gelong Karma Thinley, a fully ordained Buddhist monk.

Lama Kunzang's personal spiritual understanding and tradition comes from a study of Buddhist Yoga and Tantra, acquired in particular from Teachers of the Kargyu and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His authority to teach the Ka'gyu meditation method of Mahamudra comes from the late, very great Lama, Venerable Kalu Rimpoche. Lama Kunzang further studied and practiced for many years in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, so as to learn Mahasamdhi meditation - a tradition better known by its Tibetan name of Dzogchen. This is a spiritual tradition that begins with a Buddhist Tantric yogi known as Sri Pramodavajra who came from the mountains of northern Pakistan (i.e., the Swat valley) and taught at Bodh Gaya, in the heart of India, in the early eighth century A.D. His particular non-dualist (i.e., adwaitam) vision and his profound methods of Tantric meditation have inspired a vast number of spiritual seekers ever since, resulting in an unbroken golden chain of transmission to the present. It is this particular Tantric tradition that was later introduced into Tibet in the eighth century by the renowned Lord Padmasambhava, Acarya Vimalamitra, and other masters from India. This meditation tradition is a spiritual transmission that has been handed down by both male and female teachers.

The Tantric teachings of the East are concerned with enabling us to discover our true nature, and the real meaning of life, through the direct experience of self-realization. Buddhist Tantra is a very beautiful, heart-felt spiritual tradition, based primarily on intense devotion, moral virtue, a mysticism of love, and the transformation of the individual through meditation. Sri Pramodavajra's particular insight into the nature of Ultimate Reality is a brilliant jewel enclosed within the profuse splendor of the multifaceted lotus of Buddhist Tantra. The Mahasamdhi-view is a finger pointing directly at the highest truth, and as such, shows the way whereby to cut through to a direct insight into our real nature.

Lama Kunzang Rimpoche is now the administrative head Lama of the Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa, a non-profit religious organization active in the Bay Area. The aim of the Dharma Fellowship is to guide Westerner's who are interested in Buddhism and teach the Way of the Yogin's of the east. Several Tibetan Lamas are connected with the Dharma Fellowship, including the most Venerable Bardok Chusang Rimpoche.

Lama Kunzang is especially interested in the transmission of eastern Buddhism into an American format. He believes that the priceless wisdom of the Orient is extremely valuable, but that it should be made more accessible to the ordinary English-speaking Westerner. He believes that the cultural inheritance of the West - the great art, music, architecture, literature, medicine, science and democratic principles that have evolved from centuries of long struggle amongst the peoples of Europe - is an incomparable treasure, not to be rejected by those who seek wisdom in the East. Lama Kunzang hopes that he may, in some small way, thus contribute towards the emergence of a distinctly New American Tradition of "Buddhism," which nevertheless is conservatively drawn from pure sources of Eastern wisdom.

Since the practical side of Spiritual Life is more important than anything else, Lama Kunzang's aim is to stimulate all of us to search for the Truth in our own hearts, not so much by intellectual study or teaching, as through eremetical meditation practice and prayer. "My concern is not whether one is technically a Buddhist, or a Christian, or anything else in particular, so far as beliefs and concepts go, but solely with the value of individual contemplative self-exploration, in terms of direct personal experience." The Dharma Fellowship website has an interesting essay on the subject of Chod, a Union of Tibetan Buddhism and Shamanism, which may be of interest to those studying Shamanism, the Toltec Path, or Mayan spiritual practices.