Awakening Vajra International (AVI) is a nonprofit organization, founded in 2010 in California by Khen Rinpoche Geshe Gyalten and several other dedicated students of H. E. Choden Rinpoche. Geshe Gyalten is the spiritual heir to Rinpoche’s lineage and the current Spiritual Director of AVI who has been tasked with adhering to the intent and wishes of H. E. Choden Rinpoche. The main import of AVI is to preserve the integrity and propagate the Buddhadharma in the Tibetan Gelup tradition. To this end, AVI duties are to emulate, as best as possible, the spiritual integrity of Rinpoche, that is his erudition and simple and profound yogic life style. To emulate his lifestyle in principle means AVI has undertaken the preservation and dissemination of his teachings. To those who knew Rinpoche, he was in constant meditation for the welfare of all sentient beings, and his meditation evolve from his deep understanding acquired from his wisdom mind. In addition, Rinpoche was sincerely concern for his Nepali monks who, for the most part, studied and practiced in isolation. It is because of this he felt a great need for a monastery to be built in Nepal, to house, educate, and to secure their future spiritual prosperity.

From a simple, direct wish to disseminate the Buddhadharma grew a need to develop courses, to secure the well-being of Nepali monks by building a monastery and to make the monastery a epicenter of Buddhists studies, including reinvigorating or reestablishing the Five Branches of Knowledge in the ancient India Nalanda University tradition. As AVI has grown from its initial organizational intent, Geshe Gyalten has taken on a more diverse and demanding set of priorities. AVI continues to evolve and with numerous centers in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Vietnam,Taiwan, India, Nepal and the United States of America we envision a bright future of spreading the Buddhadharma, educating people on how to live fulfilling and meaningful lives, lessening suffering and building beautiful centers of study and meditation.