Kalu Rinpoche

KaluRinpocheRelic Kalu Rinpoche was born in 1905 in the Hor region of Kham in eastern Tibet. When he was 15 years old, he began his higher studies at the Palpung Monastery, the foremost centre of the Karma Kagyu school. He remained there for more than a decade, during which time he mastered the vast body of teachings that form the philosophical basis of Buddhist practice, and completed two three-year retreats.

At about the age of 25, Kalu Rinpoche left Palpung to pursue the life of a solitary yogi in the woods of the Khampa countryside where he became renowned in the villages and among the nomads as a representative of the bodhisattva path (the path of striving for enlightenment in order to benefit others).

In the late 1960s Kalu Rinpoche began to attract Western disciples in India. By the 1970s, he was teaching extensively in the Americas and Europe, and during his three visits to the West he founded Buddhist centres in over a dozen countries. In France, he established the first retreat centre to teach the traditional three-year retreats of the Shangpa and Karma Kagyu lineages to Western students.

At 3:00pm on 10 May 1989, Kalu Rinpoche passed away at his monastery in Sonada at Darjeeling, India.

Provenance

These hair relics were offered in France by Atila Ismet, a student of Bokar Rinpoche and Drukchen Rinpoche. He received them from Gabrielle Stavallone, President of Association Kalu Rinpoche Aide a l’Enfance.