In 1988, the 14th Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche went on a secret visit to Lhasa to investigate whether Trinley Thaye Dorje was the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa, because, he said, the boy appeared to him in a dream. In 1992, Shamar Rinpoche supported Ogyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnated Karmapa. But in 1994 after Trinley Thaye Dorje and his family escaped from Tibet to Nepal and then to India, Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche formally recognized him as a reincarnation. Shamar Rinpoche then enthroned Trinley Thaye Dorje as the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa at the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute in New Delhi, India, in March 1994.