Biography

Karma Trinlay Rinpoche is a highly accomplished Buddhist teacher and meditation master. He is the first reincarnated Westerner of French and American origin to be recognized in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Vajrayāna Buddhism. Rinpoche is trilingual with equal competence in English, French and Tibetan. A charismatic speaker, Karma Trinlay Rinpoche is respected for his lucid mind and diligence in both study and practice. People widely appreciate his inner calmness, sweet disposition, and sharp mind. He has taught in Buddhist centers and universities throughout the world.

Rinpoche was born in 1975 to an American mother and a French father who served many years in the French Parliament. His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa recognized the 13-month-old Rinpoche as the reincarnation of an important Buddhist teacher. In 1978 he started the traditional training of tulkus under the guidance of the Venerable Kalu Rinpoche in India.

From age 10 onward Karma Trinlay Rinpoche mainly lived in France where he received a traditional western education conjointly with his Buddhist education. He later pursued academic studies in Paris at the Sorbonne, the School of Oriental Languages and at one France’s most prestigious research and higher education institutions the École Pratique des Hautes Études.

Rinpoche holds the many transmissions of all the eight great lineages of Vajrayāna he received from the most outstanding and realized masters of our time: H.H. the 16th Karmapa, the 14th Shamarpa, Kalu Rinpoche, Chogye Trichen Rinpoche, Lundin Khempo Rinpoche, and Pewar Rinpoche. Karma Trinlay Rinpoche holds particularly in great reverence the late 14th Shamarpa as is principal root teacher from whom he received the unparalleled teachings of Mahāmudrā, and especially, as the sole recipient, the very special and highest oral transmission not written in any text pertaining to the Joining of the Two Rivers of Mahāmudrā and Mind Training teachings.

In recent years Rinpoche has engaged in dialogues with neuroscientists on Buddhist and scientific theories concerning the workings of the mind. Karma Trinlay Rinpoche lives mainly in France with his American wife, Giselle de Saint Phalle and their two sons.