Teachings and Students
During the latter period of his life, Orgyen Kusum Lingpa was invited to visit and teach in many different countries. He was first invited to the United States by Chagdud Tulku of Chagdud Gonpa Foundation and by Gyaltrul Rinpoche in 1994. During his first several extended visits to the U.S. in 1994 and 1995, he met and gave Buddhist teachings to a number of celebrities and scholars, including the film director Oliver Stone, and actor Steven Seagal, and was welcomed at Tibetan Buddhist centers across the country. His early translators Erik Drew and Richard Barron (Chokyi Nyima). Several of the attendant Lamas who accompanied him from Golog eventually settled in the U.S., including Lama Chonam and Lama Lhanang in California. His two youngest sons, Tulku Hungkar Dorje and Tulku Dorje Trengpo, also often accompanied him on those early visits.
Beginning in 1995, to fulfill a prophecy he received from the deity Vajrapani to establish 108 practice centers of Vajra Kilaya in order to avert coming calamities and wars in the world, Orgyen Kusum Lingpa established the dharma center Orgyen Khachod Ling in Los Angeles.
Orgyen Kusum Lingpa also maintained a close connection with the Tibetan Lama Chodrak Gyatso Nubpa of the Thondup Ling dharma center in the Los Angeles area, entrusting him with the treasure cycle of the deity Orgyen Jambhala and recognizing his son Rigdzin as a rebirth of a past master named Gyarong Tergod, sending him to train at Dodrupchen's monastery in Sikkim, India.
While most of Kusum Lingpa's original and early American disciples had previously studied with other Tibetan Buddhist Lamas, gradually he began to gather a great number of Vietnamese American disciples for whom Tibetan Buddhism was relatively new. He also traveled to Vietnam several times.
His teachings received directly from guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava comprises mainly a cycle known as the Pema Nyingthig, "The Heart Essence of Padma." These and his other teachings have been partially published in the Tibetan language in a collection of 18 volumes, with several volumes still to be added. . Orgyen Kusum Lingpa consistently referred to himself as one of the 1000 or more 'servant treasure revealers' who follow the 108 great treasure revealers, the last of whom was Orgyen Chokgyur Lingpa in the 19th century.
The principal Guru sadhana cycles he discovered were of Guru Rinpoche in the form of Vidyadhara Acarya Padma with a mandala of the eight great vidyadharas of the Ka Gye lineages of India and Tibet; and the Rigden King, Wrathful Holder of the Iron Wheel. His many Yidam sadhana cycles feature Hayagriva, Tara, Vajrapani, Yamantaka and Jambhala. His Dakini cycles include extensive sadhanas of Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava. His primary treasure of the Compassionate One (Tug Je Chenpo) Avalokitesvara is in the form of Don Yod Shakpa (Amoghapasa).
The treasures also include collected prophecies, medical treatises, and songs of realization. The principle scribes of his dictated mind treasures included his sons Tulku Hungkar Dorje and Tulku Dorje Trengpo, and his long-time attendant and disciple, the Umdze (chantmaster) Chozang.
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