Barbara Vautier, an early student of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche since the third Kopan course, passed away on July 1, 2026 in California.

“Kopan course changed the way in which I approach life,” said Barbara. “My life has been totally ordinary. I’ve raised two children; I’ve worked in social services; and I’ve struggled with survival on many levels on the too-fast Western edge.” She recalled: “The course of my life led me to Kopan in 1972. A refugee from war-torn America, fatigued and deeply grieved as a result of the US involvement in the Vietnam War, the political violence, the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, I needed a long vacation from America. The riotous years of the late ’50s and ’60s were leading me to seek a deeper understanding of life. I didn’t know that the object of my disgust and disillusion would later be identified as samsara.”

The Road to Kopan

Barbara and Chris Vautier, Kopan, 1972. Photo credit Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

On her way to Kopan, she and her Swiss husband Chris befriended Feather Meston (now Ven. Thubten Wongmo) and Lawrence, ending up staying in the VW camper in Spain. Barbara and Chris then went on to Dharamsala. They spent a year living in Afghanistan and the Swat Valley before arriving in India in 1972. Barbara recalled, “In the autumn of 1971, a long overland journey from Europe to Asia began. So as soon as I recovered from hepatitis, we began the trip across India to Kopan. We arrived there in October 1972. At that time I was formally introduced to Tibetan Buddhism at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala.” She continued: “One day Chris noticed a flyer about a month-long meditation course given by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery. He was immediately intrigued, and we decided to travel to Nepal for the course.” Barbara said: “The Kopan course appealed to me because I felt the only way I could sit and meditate on the various aspects of Tibetan Buddhism was in a very structured setting, since discipline was not my forte.” She recalled: “The Kopan course was rigorous, it was overwhelming and inspiring and awesome and painful and ultimately offered a clear and profound roadmap for serious transformation. The emphasis on compassion for all beings blew me away.

During the third Kopan course, in 1972, twelve students took the five lay precepts from Lama Yeshe. Barbara recalled, “Up until then I hadn’t thought of myself as the sort of person who would ever take vows, but everything Lama Yeshe said made such perfect sense. To hear that incredible laughter from the lamas’ room at night was kind of a message about what that mental state they described might be like.” 

The early times

Third Kopan Meditation Course, December, 1972. 

In 1973, Barbara, with several students of the third Kopan course, attended Kyabje Ling Rinpoche’s teachings and also took a ten-day vipassana course with Goenka at the Burmese Vihar. Because Lama Yeshe had asked Chris, an architect, to come to Tushita after Losar to help build some retreat huts, at the end of the vipassana retreat, Barbara and her husband gradually made their way to Dharamsala. They expected Lama Yeshe to arrive in March, but had to wait until May for him. Barbara remembered some A-frame houses she’d seen in northern California, and when Chris suggested building this style of hut, Lama readily accepted. During this time Barbara was debilitated from hepatitis, and became physically extremely weak, until one day, while shopping in Dharamsala, she found herself wishing Lama would show up because he would have the Jeep to get a lift to Tushita. Barbara recalled, “Suddenly someone slapped me on the head with a rolled-up newspaper. It was Lama!” Barbara said. “The psychic telephone is working very well, dear,” he said to her.

In 1974, Chris returned to Switzerland from Asia and immediately set about organizing the Lama’s first teaching trip to Europe. In September 1975, in Geneva, Barbara and Chris greeted the Lamas at the airport and drove them to Les Bayards. Barbara and Chris were the organizers of the two-week course, on September 26–October 10, at Les Bayards, Switzerland, with the title “The human mind is evolving all the time: what we teach is how to develop the mind quickly to be everlasting happy.” Barbara and Chris were also interested in establishing a center in Switzerland, which already had a strong Tibetan community, but due to the presence of the Tibet Institute in Rikon, with Geshe Rabten as abbot, Lama Yeshe could not possibly consider opening a center in Switzerland, as it would have been arrogant and disrespectful to Geshe Rabten.

In 1977, Barbara and Chris traveled to the United States and attended the course given by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Yucca Valley, California. The Yucca Valley course planted the seeds for Vajrapani Institute to be created. Barbara and Chris later moved with their family to Boulder Creek, California, becoming some of the original residents of Vajrapani Institute, part of the first generation “bushy people”. Later Chris became one of the early directors of Vajrapani. During Chris’s tenure as director, Vajrapani invited His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama to the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he gave two talks. In 2018, Chris, her longtime life and spiritual partner, died at eighty-four in Watsonville, California, US, of Alzheimer’s disease. The course at Kopan had changed not only Barbara’s life but also Chris’s, and together they became deeply devoted to the Lamas, dedicating their lives to them. Both played a significant role in helping bring the Dharma to the West.

Guru Devotion: Lama Yeshe

Lama Yeshe teaching at Les Bayards, Switzerland, 1975. Photo by Barbara Vautier, courtesy of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

“It was at Kopan that I met Lama Thubten Yeshe who indeed changed the trajectory of my life.”

During her time at Tushita, she helped in the kitchen. Often Lama Yeshe would join her to wash vegetables. Barbara recalled, “He was meticulous, carefully and gently washing every leaf perfectly. I’m the impatient type—every third leaf was good enough for me, but not for Lama. Of course, he was looking for tiny insects and grubs, that might get killed.” Lama Yeshe’s teachings came in small, powerful moments as well, not only during courses.

As a professional nurse, on February 8, 1984, Barbara, with Shirley, Lennie, and others, had the immense pleasure of offering her skills and love to Lama Yeshe, who had been released from hospital and needed full-time nursing care at home. Barbara recalled the immense impact of Lama on her life: “Lama always stressed to us to ‘integrate,’ to bring the essence of the teachings into our everyday lives. It is this that I have tried to do and that is what continues to impact and inspire me.”

Lennie Kronisch, Don Broderson, Barbara Vautier, and Steve Pearl, Vajrapani Institute, Boulder Creek, CA, US, January 2016. Photo courtesy of Elaine Jackson.

Please pray that Barbara Vautier may never ever be reborn in the lower realms, may he be immediately born in a pure land where he can be enlightened or to receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified guru and by only pleasing the guru’s mind, achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. More advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on death and dying is available, see Death and Dying: Practices and Resources (fpmt.org/death/).

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