The Chagdud lineage, to which Odsal Ling belongs, created the first monastery in 1431 in the Nyagrong area of Eastern Tibet. It was one of the few monasteries not destroyed later by the Chinese communists during the invasion of Tibet and the subsequent cultural revolution. It was saved by a combination of the loyalty of the surrounding villages and a series of miraculous occurrences. Sherab Gyaltsan, the first Chagdud incarnation, built the monastery on the site of an earlier gonpa. Gonpa means “quiet place” and therefore is the general term for a place dedicated to meditation practice and retreats. Chagdud means “iron knot,” which refers to the fact that Sherab Gyaltsan folded an iron sword into a knot with his bare hands, which deeply impressed the emperor of Mongolia at the time, and inspired him to take on the lama as his personal advisor. H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche (1930-2002), the fourteenth recognized Chagdud incarnation, demonstrated the same extraordinary power several times in his youth when he compressed stout swords into folds. In 1983, H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche established The Chagdud Gonpa Foundation in the United States, and in 1995, he went on to establish Chagdud Gonpa in Brasil. More recently, Chagdud Gonpa Hispanoamerica has been formed as the umbrella organization for Spanish-speaking Latin America. Affiliate meditation centers have practice groups in Australia, Canada and Switzerland. Chagdud Gonpa centers practice Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, following the Nyingma tradition of Guru Padmasambhava.