About Kagyu Shenpen Kunchab

Kagyu Shenpen Kunchab (KSK) is a Tibetan Buddhist center of the Kagyu School located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The temple complex features the Kagyu Shenpen Kunchab Bodhi Stupa, a 69 foot (21 m) tall stupa. The primary practice of the temple is that of Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. The popular Tibetan female bodhisattva Tara is also honored.
The Dalai Lama with US President Barack Obama at the White House

Tibetan Buddhism in the United States at a glance

The first Tibetan Buddhist lama to have American students was Geshe Ngawang Wangyal, a Kalmyk-Mongolian of the Gelug lineage, who came to the United States in 1955 and founded the "Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America" in New Jersey in 1958. Among his students were the future western scholars Robert Thurman, Jeffrey Hopkins, Alexander Berzin and Anne C. Klein. Other early arrivals included Dezhung Rinpoche, a Sakya lama who settled in Seattle, in 1960, and Tarthang .