Early life and first Black Crown Ceremony He was taken to the Palpung Monastery where the 11th Tai Situpa, Pema Wangchok, gave him ordination, the Bodhisattva vows and many teachings. Beru Khyentse Lodro Miza Pampa'i Gocha taught him the tantras. Bo Kangkar Rinpoche taught him the sutras. Jamgon Palden Kyentse Oser taught him Mahamudra and the Six Yogas of Naropa. He regarded the 11th Tai Situpa, Pema Wangchok, and the 2nd Jamgön Kongtrül Khyentse Öser as his root gurus. In 1931, at the age of seven, he performed his first Black Crown ceremony. He received his hair cutting ceremony at age thirteen from Thubten Gyatso, 13th Dalai Lama. Education and Receiving Important Transmissions During his education, he received all the Kagyu transmissions and was also taught by the Sakya Trizin for many years. In the beginning of 1940, he went into retreat, and in 1947, started a pilgrimage to India together with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Rangjung continued his education with the 10th Mindrolling Trichen of the Nyingma School and it was concluded with the Kalachakra initiation of the Gelugpa School. Rangjung had therefore received all the major teachings of all the major Tibetan Buddhist schools. Teaching Activity The 16th Karmapa continued his predecessor's activities, travelling and teaching throughout Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, India and parts of China. His activity also included locating the rebirths of high reincarnate lamas spontaneously, without meditation. Premonitions of Chinese Occupation and Escape from Tibet Prior to the Chinese invasion of Tibet the Karmapa made a series of predictions indicating that the Tibetan people would need to be prepared to escape to India. In 1940, at age 16, Karmapa composed a poem that predicted the occupation of Tibet.: As political circumstances altered Tibet radically with the 1950 takeover by China. The Karmapa, along with the Dalai Lama, government officials, and other high lamas, attended talks in Beijing to negotiate a settlement. This succeeded for a while, but in 1959 the Chinese government insisted on land reform, which would undermine the system of independent monasteries in Tibetan Buddhism. Conflict with the lamas as spiritual leaders accelerated. In February of that year Karmapa took 160 students from Tsurphu Monastery and escaped to Bhutan, taking the lineage's most sacred treasures and relics with them. Tashi Namgyal, the King of Sikkim, offered the Karmapa the site where the 9th Karmapa had previously established one of three Sikkim