Lama Norlha Rinpoche, an accomplished meditation and retreat master, is the abbot of Kagyu Thubten ChölingMonastery and director of Kyabje Dorje Chang Kalu Rinpoche’s Dharma centers in the eastern United States.
Lama Norlha Rinpoche was born in 1938, in the Nangchen District of Kham, eastern Tibet. He entered Korche Monastery at the age of five, receiving full monastic ordination at fourteen. By the age of twenty-one, Lama Norlha had completed two three-year retreats, during the second of which he acted as assistant to the retreat master. 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.
In India, Lama Norlha established several three-year retreat facilities where he trained monks in the complete cycle of transmissions and practices of the Kagyu Lineage. In 1976, at the request of His Holiness the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche, Lama Norlha came to New York City where he taught Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices to a wide range of interested students. Two years later, to provide students with the means of studying and practicing at a more profound level of commitment, he founded Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery and Retreat Center. Following the sacred example of his own masters, Lama Norlha has dedicated his life to teaching the practices that make up the Kagyupa three-year retreat. To date he has directed four full retreats at Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery, while a fifth retreat commenced in October 1999.
Since 1984 Lama Norlha has returned to his birthplace in Tibet several times. As part of his continuing initiative to re-establish the Dharma in Nangchen, he rebuilt the monastery at Korche, including its two retreat facilities. In order to improve opportunities for Tibetan women to study and practice the Dharma, he founded a convent and retreat center at Kala Rongo, a sacred place where treasure teachings hidden by Guru Rinpoche were discovered by the renowned nineteenth century treasure master, Chöjur Lingpa. As a result of Lama Norlha’s efforts, the Dharma is once again flourishing in Nangchen. To date four retreats have been completed at Korche Monastery, while a third retreat at Kala Rongo commenced in September 1998.
In recent years, Lama Norlha has undertaken additional projects to improve the lives of Nangchen’s inhabitants, mostly subsistence farmers and nomadic families. In early 1997, he founded NYEMA, the Nangchen Yushu Educational and Medical Association (email: nyema@nyema.org). NYEMA’s mission is to establish facilities for basic medical care and create schools to teach fundamental language, literacy, and math skills to children.
In addition to overseeing charitable projects and directing the three-year retreat program at Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery, Lama Norlha maintains a full schedule of public teachings on weekends. He also conducts public seminars at affiliated Dharma centers in the eastern United States and South America.
A tireless advocate for the purity of traditional Kagyu methods, Lama Norlha emphasizes developing a strong foundation for practice through contemplating the "four thoughts that turn the mind toward the Dharma" and engaging in the extraordinary preliminary practices (Tib. ngondro). To these essential teachings, he joins instruction in calm-abiding meditation (Tib. shi nay) to stabilize the mind and taking-and-sending meditation (Tib. tong len) to develop compassion. Lama Norlha considers this simple yet comprehensive approach particularly beneficial in the modern age, when the mind is easily distracted and obstacles to practice continuously arise. More significantly, these teachings constitute the indispensable core of pure Dharma practice, on the basis of which students can advance toward a profound realization of the true nature of mind.
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