Board of Directors
Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche
Founding Board Member & President
Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche was trained as a youth by His Holiness and other great lamas. He attended HH the 16th Karmapa during his time of treatment in Hong Kong Queen Mary Hospital and in Chicago American International Clinic in 1981. Rinpoche is a graduate of the Karma Shri Nalanda Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, in Sikkim, India (under the Sanskrit University in Varanasi) from which he received a degree of Acharya. Rinpoche served at Nalanda Institute areas of Student Welfare and Library.
Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche graduated from Nalanda Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies in 1991, and continued to serve there until 1992 when Rinpoche assumed duties as abbot of Dilyak Monastery in Nepal. Since the mid-1990s, Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche has offered an increasing portion of his time to Nalandabodhi, advising both students and teachers with steady temperament, deep awareness, and considerable practical acumen.
Rinpoche served HH the 17th Karmapa for nine years beginning in 2000.
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Advisor
The founder and president of Nalandabodhi, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, is a leading Buddhist teacher in North America and an advocate of American and Western Buddhism. A lover of music, art and urban culture, Rinpoche is a poet, an avid photographer, an accomplished calligrapher and visual artist, as well as a prolific author. Rinpoche is fluent in English and well-versed in Western culture and technology. He is also the founder of Nitartha International, a non-profit educational corporation dedicated to preserving the contemplative literature of East Asia.
Rinpoche is acknowledged as one of the foremost scholars and meditation masters of his generation in the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He is known for his sharp intellect, humor, and easygoing teaching style.
Rinpoche is author of several books, including Emotional Rescue and Rebel Buddha: On the Road to Freedom. Other titles include Mind Beyond Death, Wild Awakening: The Heart of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, and Penetrating Wisdom: The Aspiration of Samantabhadra. He is a frequent contributor to Buddhadharma: A Practitioner’s Quarterly and the Shambhala Sun. His writings also appear in issues of Best Buddhist Writing and other anthologies. Rinpoche is active on Twitter and in the blogosphere, where you can find his posts on blogs such as Huffington Post, Elephant Journal, Shambhala Sunspace and others.
Please see dpr.info for more info.
Acharya Lhakpa Tshering
Board Member & Fundraiser
Acharya Lhakpa Tshering was born in Bhutan and entered monastic school at age 12. In 1993, he enrolled at Rumtek Monastery’s Karma Shri Nalanda Institute in Sikkim, India. In 2002, Acharya Lhakpa graduated with a masters in Buddhist studies, also known as an acharya degree. After completing his studies, he served as co-librarian with Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche, as a teacher at Karma Shri Nalanda Institute, and as an editor for Nitartha Publications in Kathmandu, Nepal. Acharya Lhakpa moved in 2006 to Nalanda West in Seattle, Washington, and since then he has moved between the West and East coasts, serving as a resident teacher for Nalandabodhi centers on both coasts. He was also recently a visiting teacher at Nalandabodhi in Brazil.
Lama Rabten Tshering
Board Member
Lama Rabten Tshering is the resident teacher and spiritual director of Nalandabodhi Canada. His dharma education started at a very young age and he spent his early years training at Rumtek Monastery, seat of Gyalwang Karmapa in Sikkim, India. In 1992, Lama Rabten served as Assistant Disciplinary Master of Rumtek Monastery, appointed by Kenting Tai Situ Rinpoche and Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche, and carried out this responsibility for five years.
In 1997, Lama Rabten entered a three-year retreat at Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche’s Pullahari Retreat Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal. While there he completed more training in meditation and tantra under the guidance of Drupon Khenpo Lodro Namgyal, Bokar Rinpoche, Tenga Rinpoche, and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche.
To serve the Nalandabodhi community, Lama Rabten came to Canada in 2002 under the invitation of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. He currently teaches regularly at Maitrivana, Nalandabodhi Canada’s headquarters in Vancouver; and travels to Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax to teach and guide students in their meditation practices.
Lynne Conrad Marvet
Board Member & Secretary
Lynne Conrad Marvet is an artist, performer, teacher and professional fundraiser. Born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee she developed a passion for the creative arts, community organizing, public speaking, and racial justice. She attended college at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and studied visual arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At Northwestern University, she was introduced to Buddhist philosophy and meditation. In 1980 she moved to New York City and attended a Black Crown Ceremony with His Holiness, the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. Afterwards, she became a student of Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, Abbot of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in Woodstock, New York.
In the 1980s, Lynne helped to coordinate programs and received teachings from numerous great Tibetan Buddhist masters in New York City. In 1988 she met and received teachings from Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in Woodstock and New York City. Lynne has been his student since then. In 1990 she began serving as Ponlop Rinpoche’s travel secretary arranged teaching tours for him. In 1994 Lynne and her husband, Marty helped Ponlop Rinpoche establish Nitartha International, a nonprofit education corporation to preserve ancient texts in digital formats. She serves as a member of the Nitartha International Board. In 1999, Lynne and Marty moved to Seattle to help Ponlop Rinpoche establish a headquarters for Nalandabodhi, the Buddhist community of his students.
Lynne is a meditation instructor and facilitates Buddhist study classes for Nalandabodhi Seattle. She helped to found Nalanda West in Seattle and served as Co-Director from 2004 to 2008. As a Certified Fundraising Executive, she has raised more than $40 million for nonprofit organizations in the greater Seattle area and New York City. In April 2019 she was the Artist-in-Residence at Nalanda West. Lynne believes in the healing power of kindness, humor, and all forms of artistic expression.
Gerry Wiener
Board Member & IT
Gerry Wiener is a software engineer working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He began his Buddhist studies with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1971 and studied under Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche until his parinirvana in 1987. Gerry received teachings from His Holiness, the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje in 1974 and in 1980 during the times His Holiness was visiting the United States. Gerry has continued his Tibetan Buddhist studies under Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche focusing on Tibetan translation and the development of the Nitartha Digital Library.
Volunteers
Nick Vail
Co-Director
Nick Vail is a Karunika (senior teacher) for the Nalandabodhi sangha and longtime student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. He has decades of experience in sangha administration and dharma facilitation, including directing Nalanda West, the Nalandabodhi Seattle Sangha, and President of the Northwest Dharma Association. He is a member of the Nitartha Translation Network. He lives in the state of Maine with his son, and enjoys playing the guitar, singing, dancing, and being in nature.
Nandini Deo
Co-Director
Nandini Deo is a professor of Political Science at Lehigh University where she studies how nonprofit organizations work in collaborative networks. She is now developing new ways to democratize education and is the founder of Democracy Days which translates research into practice. A mother and devoted student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Nandini’s personal connection to the Karmapa lineage began in 2009 when she met His Holiness the 17th Karmapa in India.
Sophie Gordon
Office Supervisor
Sophie Gordon has worked in various health care jobs here and there in North America. Her current focus is on animal care. Sophie became a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in 2014 after a teaching he gave at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) in Woodstock, NY. She is very grateful to Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche for the opportunity to contribute the marvelous Karmapa Center 16 project.
Mitchell Owen
Architect
Mitchell holds a Bachelors of Science in Architecture from The Georgia Institute of Technology, a Masters of Architecture from Princeton University, and a Masters of Arts in Architectural History, Theory, and Criticism from Princeton University. He is also a Part Time Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design in New York City where he has taught architectural design, history, and theory in both the undergraduate and graduate programs since 2000.
Karen de Luna
Admin & Media
A student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Karen first heard stories about His Holiness the 16th Karmapa while she was a student in the Shambhala tradition. An inveterate polymath, Karen is an artist and graphic designer (delunatic.net). She is grateful to the lineage that has revealed to her a plethora of methods for training her mind.
Juli Goetz Morser
Writer & Editor
Juli Goetz Morser is a writer, poet and editor. As a child, she often played among the grassy sand dunes on the beaches of Zion, having grown up 10 miles down the road from Karmapa Center 16. She was delighted when Damayonti Sengupta first told her about locating the property, and later when she asked her to write about the Center and now the Stupa Project. Juli is grateful to help with such a blessed project.
For a number of years, Juli dined on the smorgasbord of dharma, tasting a variety of traditions, before enrolling in Nitartha Institute in 2008, where she met Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. Rinpoche became her teacher in 2010.
Fundraising Team Members
Giovanna S. C. Mingarelli, Olga Leitch
Taiwan Office
Ching Chun Yang, Angelie Kwauk
Supporting Organizations
MOD Group
(formerly Consolidated Design Studios)
MOD Group, (Mitchell Owen Design, MOD, LLC, Mitchell Owen Architect) is the new and expanded iteration of Consolidated Design Studios. Integrating Architecture, Interior Design and Furniture Design into one cohesive and comprehensive practice, we tailor customized design solutions for clients throughout the US.