Michael Conklin was born in Portland, Oregon, in the 1940s. Later in life, he moved to California and received a philosophy degree from UC Berkeley. Eventually he moved to San Francisco, where he and a dharma friend named Paul Terry opened a gourmet cheese shop in the Fillmore called Cheshire Cheese and Mad Hatter Tea.
In the early 1970s, Kalu Rinpoche, a well-known Tibetan meditation master, travelled to the west, founding many Dharma centers in Europe and the US. In 1974 Lama Michael and his wife Tara Sullivan and many others helped Rinpoche establish a center in San Francisco.
In the late 1980s Kalu Rinpoche requested Lama Tsang Tsing, a Sikkimese-born lama, to lead a three-year retreat in Marcola, Oregon. Michael enrolled in the retreat, and his wife Tara volunteered to serve as the cook.
In 1993 Lama Michael left San Francisco and accepted an invitation to fulfill the position of Resident Lama at the Kalu Rinpoche center in Portland, Oregon.
After Kalu Rinpoche’s passing in 1989, many of his senior students began to study with Venerable Bokar Rinpoche in West Bengal, India. In 1996, Bokar Rinpoche visited Portland and suggested that Lama Michael and the Portland community establish a retreat center.
In 2001, the community purchased 240 acres near Goldendale, Washington, and after more than a decade of fundraising and development, Lama Michael led a one-year retreat there. From 2015 to 2018, he co-led a traditional cloistered three-year retreat with another early student of Kalu Rinpoche’s, Lama Tara from Victoria, BC. Before and between retreats, Lama Michael, Lama Lekshe (then Julia), and other teachers led frequent short retreats on the land, as well.
Lama Michael has retired from teaching and resides in Washington state. He is beloved for his ability to manifest beneficial Dharma activity, one-on-one work with students, and a sparkling sense of humor. His students often describe him as an inspiring example of the embodiment of the mind and heart of dharma in a person living a householder life.
Cynthia Huntington, a student of Lama Michael’s, spent several years gathering teachings from the last few years of Lama Michael’s tenure as a full-time teacher and meticulously organized and archived them as video and audio files, and transcripts. She generously offered these to dharma students of the past, present and future, and we are pleased to post them on our website.
We are rolling out the videos in batches and currently have over 200 videos available below.
