KHENPO KARTHAR STUPA

On August 6, 2023, a new Stupa of Enlightenment was consecrated on the grounds of the Tashi Gomang Stupa. The ceremony was performed by an international delegation of lamas led by Dorje Loppon Tobden, head of the Thrangu monasteries in Tibet.

A seven-foot tall ‘attendant’ stupa, It honors Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, one of the 16th Karmapa’s most devoted and revered lamas. Khenpo Karthar’s long service to the Kagyu lineage, and his special connection to the Tashi Gomang Stupa, make this new stupa an appropriate addition and a blessing for those who come to visit.

Born in Eastern Tibet in 1924, Khenpo Karthar received most of his training in Tibet. Aside from his fulfillment throughout his long life to his monastic vows, he was revered as a powerful teacher and renowned as an accomplished yogi. Due to the Chinese invasion, Khenpo Karthar was forced to leave Eastern Tibet in 1958, traveling with Thrangu Rinpoche, Traleg Rinpoche, and Zuri Tulku as well as other higher Kagyu monks. After just one year in India, he was called to Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim by the 16th Karmapa and asked to serve as the abbot of a new Karma Kagyu monastery in the USA.

On May 25, 1978, this monastery, Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, opened as the North American seat of the 16th Karmapa, with Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche as abbot. He also oversaw the building of a traditional Tibetan temple with guest facilities there. During the first several years after KTD was established, Khenpo Karthar officiated over a growing number of affiliated KTC centers in Columbus, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Chapel Hill, and other cities around the country. Khenpo Karthar later became Retreat Master of the first traditional Kagyu three-year retreat, held at Karme Ling in Delhi, NY, which provided complete texts and instructions used since then in many Kagyu three-year retreats around the world.

In 1980 the Sixteenth Karmapa visited Crestone, Colorado, and accepted a gift of two hundred acres of forested mountainside in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. His Eminence Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche visited the site in 1988 and encouraged the local sangha to build a stupa in honor of the 16th Karmapa, now the Tashi Gomang Stupa. In the autumn of 1989, Khenpo Karthar traveled to Colorado to select an auspicious site and bless the land on which the stupa would be built. Over the years, Rinpoche continued to oversee its construction, and on the Dalai Lama’s birthday in July of 1996, Khenpo Rinpoche and Bardor Rinpoche were joined by Bokar Rinpoche and other lamas for the formal consecration of the Tashi Gomang Stupa.

After 50 years of noble service in America to the Karmapas and to the Kagyu lineage, Khenpo Kathar Rinpoche passed into paranirvana in 2019 at the age of 96.

“Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche fulfilled the 16th Karmapa’s wishes by moving to the United States, and then setting a peerless example, he spent decades taking on great responsibilities and making tireless efforts for the sake of others. Today I’d like to take the opportunity to express from the depths of my heart my gratitude to him and also to rejoice in all his activity.”
HH 17th Karmapa, 2016 Monlam

The Khenpo Karthar Stupa is a fitting tribute to an extraordinary ambassador for Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

The Khenpo Karthar Stupa was built by Dorje “Sean Acton”, with stupa details sculpted by KTTG artist Barbara Falconer, and a tsok-shing life force pole sculpted by longtime KTTG member Bo Wiberg. Project manager was Jacqueline Zoe de Bray.