The Karmapas — 900 Years of Enlightened Activity
Thursdays evenings
6:00–7:30 pm PT
March 6, 13, 20, 27, 2025
Registration
Please click on a date to register.
March 6 — The development of the tulku tradition
March 13 — the Fourth Karmapa, Rolpe Dorje (1340-1383)
March 20 — the Fifth Karmapa, Deshin Shekpa (1384-1415)
March 27 — the Sixth Karmapa, Thongwa Dönden (1416-1453)
The First Karmapa, Dusum Khyenpa (1110-1193), was one of the greatest students of Gampopa (1079-1153), a legendary master of mahamudra meditation. Mahamudra is considered the peerless method for attaining enlightenment. Passing on the mahamudra lineage became a centerpiece of the Karmapas’ activity. An unbroken succession of teachers have held the title, or name, Karmapa after Dusum Khyenpa. The current Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje (b. 1985), is the seventeenth in that line of realized adepts. Each Karmapa has been individually renowned for his mastery in meditation, the profundity of his teaching and his courage in supporting the Buddhist community.
Traditional accounts of the Karmapas straddle history and devotional mythology. The word “Karmapa” is taken to mean “the one who performs the activity of a Buddha.” The Karmapas are also said to have fulfilled the prophecy made by Shakyamuni Buddha (6th – 5th century BCE) that a fully realized teacher would appear “in the land of the red-faced ones” (Tibet) wearing “monastic robes and a black crown.” At the same time, the Karmapas are also individuals who lived during specific historical times.
The aim of these classes is to look beyond myth to consider the historical context of each of these storied masters. A remarkable part of the Karmapas’ history is how key Tibetan social institutions grew up around them. The most extraordinary such development is that the early Karmapas came to be considered a single line of reincarnations. This idea of a single master reincarnating successively — such individuals became known by the Tibetan term “tulku” – spread rapidly throughout Tibet. The tulku tradition became a Tibetan social imaginary structuring many facets of Tibetan culture, and continues to be vital to the preservation of the Buddha’s teachings.
In this series of classes, we take a closer look at the historical circumstances of the persons who helped build out that tulku institution. We will pay special attention to four themes of the Karmapas’ history:
- key events of the often-tumultuous historical periods in which the Karmapas lived;
- each Karmapa’s religious and philosophical writings;
- their education and great accomplishments in meditation and practice; and
- how they inspired the development of the religious and social institutions supporting the spiritual practices of Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhism per se.
Martin Marvet, a senior student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and a scholar of the Karma Kagyu lineage, has generously offered to teach these series of classes on the origins and history of the Karmapas. The first series of four classes was offered in October 2024 and focused on the beginnings of the tulku tradition and the first three Karmapas.The current series consists of four classes. The first class in the second series, will recap and continue to examine the Karmapas’ role in the beginnings of the tulku tradition. The following three classes in the series will explore this theme through the lives and accomplishments of the 4th through 6th Karmapas – Rolpe Dorje (1340-1383), Deshin Shekpa (1384-1415) and Thongwa Dönden (1416-1453). Each set of classes stands on its own and may be taken without having attended any prior series.
Schedule & Format
Thursdays, 6:00–7:30p Pacific Time on Zoom
Recordings will be available for a period of time after each class. Recordings of the October 2024 classes will be made available to those who register for the new series.
Questions?
Please contact the course coordinator Dianne Eberlein <nbs_program_admin@nalandabodhi.org>.
Teacher Bio

Nalandabodhi Karunika Martin Marvet has been a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche for decades. Since Karmapa Orgyen Thrinley Dorje’s arrival in Dharamsala in 2000, Martin has worked closely under Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s guidance to support Karmapa’s role in the West and was one of the lead coordinators for Karmapa’s visits to the U.S. in 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2017. This role engendered a life-long interest in research into the history of the Karmapas. As attorney and administrator, Martin supported Rinpoche in the legal formation and management of Nitartha International since 1992, Nalandabodhi since 1997, Karmapa Foundation U.S. since 2007, and Causa since 2016, as well as the establishment and growth of Nalanda West since 2003. Martin was a lawyer in private practice in New York prior to moving to Seattle in 1999 to support the Office of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.
The “Karunika” title: In 2021, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, with the support of the Nalandabodhi Acharyas, Lamas, and Mitras (the most senior group of designated teachers in Nalandabodhi), appointed over eighty long-time students to serve in a newly created supporting teacher’s role to assist in guiding our sangha members and to help share with the general public Nalandabodhi’s unique approach to spirituality. The Sanskrit term “Karunika” means “one who has compassion.” Possessing a wide range of backgrounds and sets of individual expertise, as well as formidable experience in the study and practice of the Buddhadharma, the Karunikas offer programs on themes connected to the paths of study, meditation, and mindful activity and on the “five fields of knowledge”: healing, the arts, language and communication, logic and epistemology, and the inner science of mind.