Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche was born in Tibet in 1924, and he is among the few remaining senior Tibetan lamas who were fully trained in retreat practice, ritual, and philosophical studies in Tibet before the Chinese invasion. In 1976 Rinpoche was sent to the United States by His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa to establish Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) Monastery in Woodstock, New York, as the main Western seat of the Karma Kagyu tradition. Since then, Rinpoche has touched the lives of thousands of people with his extensive teaching activity, his extraordinary compassion, and his living embodiment of the awakened qualities of an authentic lama.