Tergar Instructors

Cortland Dahl
Cortland began meditating in 1993 while a student at the University of Minnesota. In the years that followed, he practiced and studied a number of Buddhist traditions and traveled extensively throughout Asia, where he spent time on retreat in Japan, Burma, India, and Nepal. Following this period of travel, Cortland returned to the United States to pursue a master's degree in Buddhist Studies at Naropa University. He then lived in India and Nepal for seven years, which gave him the opportunity to immerse himself in the Tibetan language and spend more time in retreat.

Since 2003, Cortland has interpreted for various Tibetan lamas and taught courses on Buddhism and Tibetan language throughout the world. He founded the Rimé Foundation in 2004 and, under the direction of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, started the Tergar Institute in 2006. As a translator, Cortland is a member of the Nitartha Translation Network and has worked extensively with the Dharmachakra Translation Committee. His publications include Entrance to the Great Perfection: A Guide to the Dzogchen Preliminaries; Great Perfection, Volumes I & II; and Deity, Mantra and Wisdom: Development Stage Meditation in Tibetan Buddhist Tantra.

Cortland has been a student of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche since 2001 and currently serves as co-director of Tergar International. He lives with his wife and child in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Edwin Kelley
Edwin Kelley first became interested in Buddhism in 1975 when he attended a meditation retreat near Perth, Australia. He later pursued a career as a public accountant and 1992 went to Burma to undertake a six month period of intensive retreat with the renowned meditation master Chanmyay Sayadaw. While practicing in Burma he ordained temporarily as a Theravada Buddhist monk.

In 1994 he was hired as Director of Operations by one of America's best known meditation retreat centers, the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), in Barre, MA. Eighteen months later he was appointed Executive Director of IMS and served in that capacity until 2003 when he resigned to pursue further long-term intensive meditation practice.

Edwin first encountered Vajrayana Buddhism in Dharamsala, India in 1993 and became a student of Mingyur Rinpoche in 1998. He has attended numerous retreats with Rinpoche in North America and Asia and recently led the meditation class for Rinpoche's program on Shantideva's 'Way of the Bodhisattva' in Bodhgaya, India.

Edwin is married to his partner of 25 years, Myoshin, and is currently enrolled in a master's degree in Buddhist Studies through the University of Sunderland in the UK.

Myoshin Kelley
Myoshin Kelley attended her first meditation retreat in 1975 at the age of 20. Through the ensuing years she has received dharma instructions from several renowned Buddhist meditation masters in the Theravada, Zen and Vajrayana traditions. She has practiced extensively with the Burmese meditation masters Chanmyay Sayadaw, Sayadaw U Pandita, and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. In the early 1990s Myoshin received meditation instruction from the Soto Zen master Hogen Yamahata. Her desire for long-term meditation practice has taken her to Burma on several occasions.

In 1994 she accompanied her husband, Edwin, to the Insight Mediation Society (IMS) in Barre, MA, where she was trained as a meditation instructor by Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzburg. Since then she has been teaching meditation in a number of places throughout North America. In 2003 she was appointed the teacher in residence at the Forest Refuge the long-term practice center at IMS.

Myoshin was introduced to Vajrayana teachings in 1993 and met Mingyur Rinpoche in 1998 when he first visited the US with his brother Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Since then she has practiced with Mingyur Rinpoche in North America and Asia benefited from his skillful, lucid instructions on the profound teachings of Mahamudra.

Tim Olmsted
Tim began his Buddhist studies in 1977 under the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado. In 1981, Trungpa Rinpoche invited Mingyur Rinpoche's father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, to teach in Boulder. Profoundly moved by him, Tim and his family moved just a few months later to Kathmandu to study with Tulku Urgyen and his sons. During the twelve years that he lived in Nepal, Tim studied with many of the older teachers living there and worked as a psychotherapist serving the international community. In 2000, Tim moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia where he served for three years as the director of Gampo Abbey, the largest residential Buddhist monastery in North America. He is presently the president of the Pema Chödrön Foundation, which supports Gampo Abbey. In 2003, after a visit by Mingyur Rinpoche to Gampo Abbey, Tim started the Yongey Foundation to support and promote Mingyur Rinpoche's activities in the West. Tim lives with his wife Glenna in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where he leads an active community that follows Mingyur Rinpoche's teachings and those of his family lineage.