Khensur Rinpoche Nicholas Vreeland

Director

 Venerable Khensur Rinpoche Nicholas Vreeland is Abbot of Rato Monastery. Rinpoche was appointed Abbot of Rato Dratsang by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in April 2012. This was an historic moment; the first time that a Westerner had been appointed as abbot of an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery. On making the appointment, The Dalai Lama stated, “Your special duty (is) to bridge Tibetan tradition and Western world.”

Khensur Rinpoche earned a Ser Tri Geshe Degree from Rato, where he studied for 15 years.

Rinpoche is also the Director The Tibet Center, New York and editor of His Holiness’, ‘An Open Heart’ and ‘A Profound Mind’.

An exhibition of Khensur Rinpoche’s photos, Photos for Rato, toured major cities around the world from 2009 to 2011, and raised most of the funds , for the much needed expansion of Rato, when that project had almost had been abandoned due financial hardship. The expansion was necessary to address overcrowded conditions at Rato. Rato Monastery’s new campus and temple, was inaugurated by the His Holiness the Dalai Lama on January 31, 2011.

Click here to view his more recent project - Return to the Roof of the World - on exhibition at the Leica Gallery NYC, NY.

Anthony Spina

Treasurer / Officer
 

Anthony Spina has studied with Khyongla Rato Rinpoche since the late 1970’s has served as The Tibet Center’s Secretary and Officer since 1975 and has been the Vice President of the Rato Dratsang Foundation since 1986.

Anthony hosts The Tibet Center’s Monday and Wednesday night podcasts, via Facebook livestream, offering discussion and commentary on Tibetan Buddhist texts and Khyongla Rato Rinpoche and Khen Rinpoche’s teachings. He also hosts White Tara Meditation every other Saturday of the month. You can watch him on TTC’s podcasts here: https://www.facebook.com/TheTibetCenter/live/

Khyongla Rato Rinpoche

Founder TTC

Khyongla Rato Rinpoche was a reincarnate lama and scholar of the Gelugpa order of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in 1923 in the southeastern Tibet in the region called Kham. In 1928, senior Gelugpa monks divined that a five-year old boy living in this remote part of Tibet was the reincarnation of the ninth Khyongla of Tibet.

On his sixth birthday, monks on horseback took him from his parents’ home to a monastery some distance away where he was installed as its spiritual head. For over three decades he lived the sober life of a monk, studying at the most famous monasteries in Tibet and earning the Lharampa Geshe degree. In 1959, along with thousands of monks, as well as the Dalai Lama, he fled on foot over the Himalayas to safety and to a radically different life in India, and eventually the United States.

In 1975, he founded The Tibet Center, the oldest Tibetan Buddhist Center in New York City. The Center offers classes in Buddhist practice and theory on a weekly schedule. Ancient Indian and Tibetan texts are taught together with methods for integrating them into daily meditation and practice.

In 1986, Rinpoche, Khen Rinpoche Nicholas Vreeland and other friends founded the Rato Dratsang Foundation to fund the re-established Rato monastery in Mundgod, State of Karnataka, India.

Reverend Khyongla Rato Rinpoche passed away May 24, 2022 in Dharamsala. The Rato Dratsang Foundation continues Rinpoche’s mission of Wisdom and Merit and Peace Through Loving Kindness.