Ven. Robina Courtin was born in Melbourne, Australia, and brought up as a Catholic. She studied classical singing until her early twenties, then went to London in 1967, living there for four years. She became active in the radical left, working mainly with a London-based support group for black prisoners.

In her quest for a spiritual path, Robina began studying martial arts in 1974 and moved to New York, where she studied karate. She continued her studies in Melbourne until 1976, when she attended a Tibetan Buddhist course in Queensland given by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In November 1977 Robina went to Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, where she was ordained. Since then, she has lived as a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition, traveling, teaching, and bringing the Dharma to people around the world,
In 2008 Robina Courtin, delivered a talk at Google. Her talk was chock-full of immensely refreshing, yet completely uncommon advice on happiness, neurosis, and “being your own therapist”.