About
Tsunma Kunsang Palmo is a meditation and dharma teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Originally from England, she worked as an art teacher in international schools before moving to Asia. She studied under Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, and Mingyur Rinpoche, completing a three-year retreat at Sherabling Monastery. She teaches meditation and dharma courses through Tergar, including the Joy of Living and Vajrayana Online programs, as well as retreats at the Tergar Institute in Osel Ling Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal. She also teaches for Bodhicharya in the Caribbean and divides her time between Nepal, India, and the Caribbean.
Teaching focus
At the center of Tsunma Kunsang's teaching is the Joy of Living curriculum, Mingyur Rinpoche's three-stage path that begins with calm-abiding (shamatha) and works gradually toward the recognition of awareness itself. The first stage works with the breath, sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions as supports for attention. Students learn to stabilize the mind without forcing it, using what Mingyur Rinpoche calls the panic button method: come back, again, without self-criticism. The second stage opens up awareness practice, where the field of attention widens beyond any single object. The third stage works directly with the nature of mind, the non-conceptual openness that the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma traditions point at with the words mahamudra and dzogchen. Tsunma Kunsang teaches all of this in a register Western practitioners can use. Sessions tend to be short and warm, with a lot of room for questions. There's an emphasis on taking practice off the cushion: noticing awareness in conversation, in walking, in moments of emotional reactivity. Tergar's broader framing is that meditation is not a separate activity reserved for retreat. It's a way of being with experience that gets steadier with repetition. Tsunma Kunsang's sessions live inside that framing. Expect grounded, practical instruction with a clear line back to the lineage, rather than improvised or eclectic methods stitched together from multiple traditions.
Background
Tsunma Kunsang Palmo teaches inside the Tergar Meditation Community, the global sangha gathered around Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. The biographical details on file come from Tergar's instructor page and reflect only what Tsunma Kunsang has chosen to share publicly there. Tsunma Kunsang Palmo, originally from England, traveled and worked around the world as an art teacher in international schools for over a decade. On a trip to Nepal she encountered Lama Zopa Rinpoche and was so inspired by the teachings that she chose to stay in Asia and live a life immersed in the dharma. Soon after that she traveled to Himachal Pradesh in North India where she met Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo and was further inspired by her guidance and teachings. She went on to complete a three-year retreat at Sherabling Monastery under the guidance of Mingyur Rinpoche. Continuing to take teachings from Rinpoche, Kunsang serves as a meditation and dharma teacher for Tergar’s Joy of Living and Vajrayana Online courses, Tergar retreats, and the Tergar Institute in Osel Ling Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal. In 2021 she was invited to teach in Antigua and Trinidad for Bodhicharya, an international organization founded by Ringu Tulku Rinpoche. She now divides her time sharing what she has learned through her years of study and practice in Kathmandu, India, and the Caribbean. Within Tergar, that history places Tsunma Kunsang in a community whose teaching is structured around Mingyur Rinpoche's Joy of Living curriculum and the deeper practice paths that follow it: awareness practice, the meeting with awareness, and the open, non-conceptual recognition the Tibetan traditions describe as rigpa. Tsunma Kunsang teaches in that idiom, with the language and pacing that Tergar has refined for Western lay practitioners over the past two decades. For people new to Tibetan Buddhism, the Tergar entry point is unusually gentle. There's no requirement to take refuge, no demand for prostrations or visualizations on day one, and no assumption that students arrive with a background in dharma. The work begins with learning to recognize what's already there: the natural openness and clarity of mind that gets briefly glimpsed and then quickly buried under planning, worry, and the next thing on the list. Tsunma Kunsang's teaching role inside that container is part guide, part friend on the path. Tergar organizes its teachers into groups of guides, instructors, and meditation facilitators trained directly by Mingyur Rinpoche and senior students, and Tsunma Kunsang sits within that structure. The community's online platform, Tergar Online, houses the practice paths, supporting talks, and weekly group sittings that members of the global sangha use to keep the practice alive between in-person retreats. Many of Tsunma Kunsang's students will encounter Tsunma Kunsang through that platform first and only meet in person later, at a regional retreat or program.
Lineage
Tsunma Kunsang teaches under the auspices of the Tergar Meditation Community, founded by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and rooted in the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. Mingyur Rinpoche is the son of the late Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, a major Dzogchen master of the twentieth century, and the brother of Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche's other Dharma siblings. Tergar's lineage transmission flows through that family line and the wider Karma Kagyu monastic tradition. Tsunma Kunsang ordained as a monastic and has been a long-time student of Mingyur Rinpoche. Outside formal teaching, Tsunma Kunsang participates in the global sangha that Tergar has built across in-person centers, regional groups, and the Tergar Online platform.
What to expect
In a session with Tsunma Kunsang you can expect short, guided practice periods drawn from Mingyur Rinpoche's Joy of Living instructions, plenty of room for questions, and a friendly, non-dogmatic tone. Newcomers won't be asked to take refuge or to commit to anything beyond showing up. Longer programs follow the Joy of Living workbook through its three stages. There's chanting and dedication of merit at the start and end of formal sessions, in keeping with Tibetan custom, but the framing stays accessible. Tsunma Kunsang tends to point students back to their own direct experience rather than asking them to take anything on faith. Practice on and off the cushion gets equal weight.
