Lhachik Dembu was a twelfth-century practitioner from the Yarlung Valley. She is best known for her relatively brief but eventful relationship with the Kagyu lineage master Rechungpa. While the veracity of her life story is questionable in many regards, her story sheds light on the role of women and attitudes about them in Tibetan tantric Buddhist communities from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries when different versions of her story were composed.| The Treasury of Lives
Gampopa Sonam Rinchen, also known as Dakpo Lhaje, is credited with founding the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Trained first as a medical doctor and then ordained as a Kadam monk, Gampopa met Milarepa when he was thirty years old, and spent much of the next decades in meditation retreat. Never renouncing his monastic vows, he combined the Indian Mahāsiddha practices brought back to Tibet by Marpa and others with the monastic order of his Kadampa teachers. He also united the Kadam teach...| The Treasury of Lives