Geshe Lhundrup Rigsel (sometimes called Lama Lhundrup) was abbot of Kopan Monastery in Nepal. He was born in 1941 to a poor peasant family in Tibet, and joined Sera Monastery as a boy. In 1959 he fled from the Chinese invasion of Tibet and went to India. -In Buxa, a refugee camp in Northern India, he met Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa. In the late sixties he journeyed to South India to start the clearing of land for the new . He received his Doctor of Divinity in Buddhist studies from Sera. On September 7, 2011 Lama Lhundrup died due to cancer