Guru Puja (Lama Chöpa)
Commemorating the First Anniversary
of the Passing of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche
“Making offerings on the death anniversary of a guru is an incredible practice in that it brings about the greatest purification of negative karma and collects the most extensive merit.” – Lama Zopa Rinpoche
On April 13th 2023, our precious teacher Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche showed the aspect of passing away. On this one year anniversary of his passing, you are invited to attend the Guru Puja which will include additional practices from the Lama Chopa Jorcho. Rinpoche felt it was very important to offer practices on the anniversary of a guru’s passing and noted the Lama Chopa with Tsog as an example of a beneficial practice.
We are deeply grateful for Thubten Norbu Ling for hosting this puja and allowing us to co-host with them virtually. The puja will include beautiful extensive offerings. Please consider making a donation when registering to help sponsor this meritorious event.
Venerable Katy Cole will lead the practices in English. Geshe Tashi Dhondup will lead a motivation and dedication. We hope you will join us online as we come together with our Dharma friends to help create the causes of Rinpoche’s swift return.
About the Puja Leaders
Originally from Perth, Western Australia, Katy Cole (Tenzin Zomkyi) has been a Buddhist nun for over 18 years. She was ordained with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala in 2004.
Since 2003, Katy has served in a variety of positions within Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s FPMT: as Liberation Prison Project’s spiritual program coordinator, chaplain coordinator, and on the project’s US Board of Directors; and at one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residences in Aptos, CA, Kachoe Dechen Ling, helping with the numerous extensive offerings completed there every day. In 2008 she did a one-year retreat at FPMT’s De-Tong Ling Retreat center on the western side of Kangaroo Island, just off the coast of South Australia.
Since 2013, and until the pandemic, Katy visited Lawudo Gompa annually for retreat, study, and to help Rinpoche’s sister with offerings in Rinpoche’s cave and main gompa, helping the tourists who come to stay, and baby cow care.
Prior to meeting her teachers, Katy studied Vipassana meditation with practitioners from Myanmar.
Katy has a BA Hons in Theatre Arts from Dartington College of Arts, U.K., a BA Hons in Psychology from Murdoch University, W.A, and a MA in clinical psychology from the University of Western Australia. She worked as a psychologist prior to moving to California to work for Liberation Prison Project.
Katy is currently living north of San Francisco, leading meditations and pujas online over Zoom, studying, and engaging in Nyung Nay retreat. 
Geshe Tashi Dhondup was born into a nomadic family living on the Tibetan plateau in Kham. At age 14, he entered the local monastery, and at age 17 walked to Nepal for further education after a harrowing 29 day journey by night. He studied Buddhist philosophy in Tibet, India and Nepal, and accomplished his Geshe studies at Kopan in 2004. For the next six years, beginning in 2005, Geshe Dhondup was the philosophy teacher at the Kopan Nunnery. Then in 2010, and for the next three years, he became the headmaster of the Kopan school. Starting in 2013, he was both headmaster and philosophy teacher of the Kopan Nunnery for seven years, and in 2021 Geshe Dhondup took on the role of Kopan’s disciplinarian. Geshe la speaks Tibetan, Nepalese, Hindu, English, Chinese, and the highly endangered language of Minyak, and is presently the acting resident teacher at Thubten Norbu Ling in Santa Fe, New Mexico, while Geshe Thubten Sherab is traveling.
