The Venerable Thepo Rinpoche was born in Tibet and escaped into the Himalayas as a child after the Chinese invasion, carried on the backs of monks that followed the Dalai Lama to India.  He was recognized as the 8th Thepo Tulku and trained in the Ganden Shartse Monastery.  From 1975 to 1980, he worked at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala and served as a special cultural advisor for the Smithsonian Institution Tibetan Library.   He was an advisor and liaison on Graham Coleman’s seminal 1997 film, A Tibetan Trilogy.

 

Thepo has worked as an activist for the Tibetan cause in various capacities: as a founding board member of the Bay Area Friends of Tibet in 1983; a board member and co-founder of the Tibetan Association of Southern California in 1990; President of the Tibetan Association of Northern California in 1994; and as Coordinator for the Tibetan Resettlement Project beginning in 1993. He currently lives in Santa Barbara and is co-founder of the Santa Barbara Tibet Summit.