Lama Karma Rinchen was born in 1931 in Eastern Tibet. At the age of eleven he entered Palpung Monastery. At nineteen he moved to Tsurphu monastery, near Lhasa , the seat of the H.H. The Karmapa, the lineage head of the Karma Kagyu. In 1959 he fled Tibet to India where he studied with Kalu Rinpoche. From 1961-64 he was one of the East Tibetan representatives for the Tibet-Government-In-Exile in Dharamsala of his Holiness, The Dalai Lama. Then in 1977 H.H. Kalu Rinpoche assigned Lama Rinchen to become the Resident Lama of the Hawaii Dharma Centers. From then until 1982, he was in charge of the Honolulu and Maui Centers . In 1992, Lama Rinchen founded the Kauai Dharma Center, which he currently directs along with the one in Honolulu. Sadly, Lama Rinchen passed away in Honolulu on January 17, 2022.