Our Teachers
The Ksitigarbha Tibetan Buddhist Center in Taos was founded in 2000. It is affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), whose spiritual director is Lama Zopa Rinpoche. FPMT is an international Tibetan Buddhist organization with affiliated centers, projects and services worldwide.The organization is based on the Buddhist tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa of Tibet as taught by our founder Lama Thubten Yeshe. The teachings are in the Gelupa lineage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
For more information about the foundation, click here: http://www.fpmt.org
Lama Thubten Yeshe
Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered Sera Monastic University in Tibet where he studied until 1959, when as Lama Yeshe himself has said, “In that year the Chinese kindly told us that it was time to leave Tibet and meet the outside world.” Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, together as teacher and disciple since their exile in India, met their first Western students in 1965. By 1971 they settled at Kopan, a small hamlet near Kathmandu in Nepal. In 1974, the Lamas began touring and teaching in the West, which would eventually result in The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. Lama Yeshe died in 1984.
“It is important to understand that true practice is something we do from moment to moment, from day to day. We do whatever we can, with whatever wisdom we have, and dedicate it all to the benefit of others. We just live our life simply, to the best of our ability.” – Lama Thubten Yeshe
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, was born in 1946 in Tham near the cave Lawudo in the Mount Everest region of Nepal, where his predecessor meditated for the last twenty years of his life. When Rinpoche was about four years old, he was put in a Monastery close to the border between Nepal and Tibet, and studied there until he went to Tibet and took getsul ordination in 1958.
In 1959 Rinpoche escaped from Tibet and continued his studies in Sera Jhe monastery in Buxa Duar, in northern India, were he met and became the disciple of Lama Thubten Yeshe. Lama Yeshe and Zopa Rinpoche’s contact with Westerners began in 1965 in Darjeeling, when they met Princess Zina Rachevsky from Russia. She became the Lamas’ first Western student.
At the insistence of Zina Rachevsky the Lamas started to teach courses on Buddhism for Westerns at Kopan. In 1971 Rinpoche took gelong ordination from His Holiness Ling Rinpoche in Bodh Gaya. By 1975, twelve centers had started. In 1976, the growing worldwide organization was named by Lama Yeshe ‘the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition’ (FPMT)
“Be as careful as you can. Our minds are funny. Sometimes we are skeptical of things that are really worthwhile and completely accepting of things that we should avoid. Try to avoid extremes and follow the middle way, checking with wisdom wherever you go.” – Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Geshe Thubten Sherab
Many Taos residents fondly remember Geshe Sherab who taught at the Ksitigarbha Tibetan Buddhist Center from August of 2001 to the end of December 2003. Geshe la has been coming to Taos to teach for the last several years over the Summer and Autumn while serving as the resident teacher at The Buddhist Center – Thubten Norbu Ling in Santa Fe. He leaves in November to teach around the world. We will be welcoming him back in late Spring 2025.
Geshe Thubten Sherab was born in 1967 in a small village in the western part of Nepal, to a Kagyu-Nyingma family. He entered Kopan Monastery at the age of nine and completed his geshe studies at Sera Je monastery in South India, followed by a year at Gyumed Tantric College. He then completed retreat and teaching assignments both in the U.S. and Asia. He served as Headmaster of Kopan Monastery’s school for four years, overseeing debate training and tantric training activities.
Don Handrick
Don Handrick is a regular visiting teacher at Ksitigarbha Tibetan Buddhist Center in Taos and the resident teacher at Thubten Norbu Ling Buddhist Center in Santa Fe.
Gen (Tibetan for “elder”) Don connected with Tibetan Buddhism in 1993 through the teachings of Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. In 1996 he commenced formal study at Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies, the FPMT center in San Francisco. In 1998, he entered the FPMT’s Masters Program of Buddhist Studies in Sutra and Tantra, a full-time seven-year residential study program in Tuscany, Italy, taught by Geshe Jampa Gyatso. After the completion of his studies, he moved to Northern New Mexico and in 2005 and began teaching for the FPMT. Throughout his years as a Buddhist practitioner, Don has also received numerous teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama as well as several other teachers in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Most recently Gen Don la has been touring the world teaching, including leading the month long November Course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal as well as teaching at various centers in Europe and North America.
Students appreciate his humble, compassionate demeanor and his capacity to explain profound ideas with precision, contemporary examples and humor.
Venerable Robina Courtin
Ordained since the late 1970s, Venerable Robina has worked full time since then for Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s FPMT. Over the years she has served as editorial director of Wisdom Publications, editor of Mandala Magazine, executive director of Liberation Prison Project, and as a touring teacher of Buddhism. Her life and work with prisoners have been featured in the documentary films Chasing Buddha and Key to Freedom.
Venerable Angie Muir
Venerable Angie Muir was born in Scotland, in 1970. She obtained a Bachelors Degree in 1992. Feeling disillusioned with her prospective career path and life ahead of her, she left Scotland and combined traveling with work in Asia for 3 years, until in 1995 she felt a calling to go to India to explore meditation and find her life path. Within a few months “I had the incredible fortune due to some previous karma” to discover Tibetan Buddhism, meet her main spiritual teacher Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche (of almost 30 years) and become ordained.
Venerable Angie has been a buddhist nun for over 25 years. During this time, she served at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residences in the US for 13 years. As well as doing various personal retreats, she has also offered service teaching and leading meditation at other FPMT centers, including Thubten Norbu Ling in Santa Fe, and Ksitigarbha Tibetan Buddhist Center in Taos, New Mexico.
We hold teachings most Thursday nights 6:00 – 8:00 pm. While our center remains closed, we provide these teachings via Zoom – please email breathe@taosnet.com to receive login information.