DHARMA PATHFINDER
My Teachers
When I first asked Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche if he would be willing to take me as his student, I said to him that so far I had managed along the Buddhist path without a teacher. Of course, I had many teachers who would be better described as kalyanamitras, good friends in the dharma. And I had done a lot of reading but I had no guru or lama, in the true sense of the word. And when I reflect on who I should request to be my teacher only two names come to mind – His Holiness the Dalai Lama and himself, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
“Oh!” he said laughing, “So you have to choose between the best and the worst!”
I could only say in reply that I had observed the affection and respect that His Holiness showed towards him, and if the “worst” was okay for the Dalai Lama, I was okay with him!
So here they are. All my teachers.
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. He is the spiritual leader of Tibet. He was born on 6 July 1935, to a farming family, in a small hamlet located in Taktser, Amdo, northeastern Tibet. At the age of two, the child, then named Lhamo Dhondup, was recognized as the reincarnation of the previous 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.The Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are realized beings inspired by a wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, who have vowed to be reborn in the world to help humanity.
His Holiness began his monastic education at the age of six. The curriculum, derived from the Nalanda tradition, consisted of five major and five minor subjects. The major subjects included logic, fine arts, Sanskrit grammar, and medicine, but the greatest emphasis was given to Buddhist philosophy.
At 23, His Holiness sat for his final examination in Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple, during the annual Great Prayer Festival (Monlam Chenmo) in 1959. He passed with honors and was awarded the Geshe Lharampa degree, equivalent to the highest doctorate in Buddhist philosophy.
In 1950, after China's invasion of Tibet, His Holiness was called upon to assume full political power. In 1954, he went to Beijing and met with Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping and Chou Enlai. Finally, in 1959, following the brutal suppression of the Tibetan national uprising in Lhasa by Chinese troops, His Holiness was forced to escape into exile. Since then he has been living in Dharamsala, northern India.
In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet. He has consistently advocated policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression. He also became the first Nobel Laureate to be recognized for his concern for global environmental problems.
His Holiness has travelled to more than 67 countries spanning 6 continents. He has received over 150 awards, honorary doctorates, prizes, etc., in recognition of his message of peace, non-violence, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility and compassion. He has also authored or co-authored more than 110 books.
His Holiness has held discussions with heads of different religions and participated in many events promoting inter-religious harmony and understanding.
Since the mid-1980s, His Holiness has engaged in a dialogue with modern scientists, mainly in the fields of psychology, neurobiology, quantum physics and cosmology. This has led to a historic collaboration between Buddhist monks and world-renowned scientists in trying to help individuals achieve peace of mind. It has also resulted in the addition of modern science to the traditional curriculum of Tibetan monastic institutions re-established in exile..
On 14 March 2011 His Holiness wrote to the Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies (Tibetan Parliament-in-exile) requesting it to relieve him of his temporal authority, since according to the Charter of the Tibetans in Exile, he was technically still the head of state. He announced that he was ending the custom by which the Dalai Lamas had wielded spiritual and political authority in Tibet. He intended, he made clear, to resume the status of the first four Dalai Lamas in concerning himself only with spiritual affairs. He confirmed that the democratically elected leadership would assume complete formal responsibility for Tibetan political affairs.
His Holiness has declared that when he is about ninety years old he will consult leading Lamas of Tibet’s Buddhist traditions, the Tibetan public, and other concerned people with an interest in Tibetan Buddhism, and assess whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue after him. His statement also explored the different ways in which the recognition of a successor could be done. If it is decided that a Fifteenth Dalai Lama should be recognized, responsibility for doing so will rest primarily on the concerned officers of the Dalai Lama’s Gaden Phodrang Trust. They should consult the various heads of the Tibetan Buddhist traditions and the reliable oath-bound Dharma Protectors who are linked inseparably to the lineage of the Dalai Lamas. They should seek advice and direction from these concerned parties and carry out the procedures of search and recognition in accordance with their instruction. His Holiness has stated that he will leave clear written instructions about this.
(Courtesy: His Holiness the Dalai Lama Official website: www.dalailama.com)
He also received exhaustive practical guidance from many masters from all traditions, who were amongst the last generation to have been educated in Tibet; his main teacher, the master who ‘sits on the crown of my head,’ was the now legendary Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
In the early nineteen-eighties, Rinpoche made his first trip abroad to teach in Australia, and to all intents and purposes has not stopped travelling since, founding several international organizations along the way to support and broaden the scope of his activities.
Siddhartha’s Intent organizes, distributes and archives his teachings; Khyentse Foundation provides the financial support necessary to fulfil his aspirations; 84000 oversees the translation of the Word of the Buddha into modern languages, Lotus Outreach directs a wide range of projects to help refugees, and particularly abused and underprivileged women and children, and Lhomon Society, founded in 2010 to promote sustainable development in Bhutan through education, among others.
Rinpoche is the author of several books about Buddhism that have been translated into many languages; for example: ‘What Makes You Not a Buddhist’ (2006), ‘Not For Happiness’ (2012) and ‘The Guru Drinks Bourbon?’ (2016). He is also well-known outside the buddhist world for the feature films he both wrote and directed, ‘The Cup’ (1999), ‘Travellers and Magicians’ (2004), ‘Vara: A Blessing’ (2012), ‘Hema Hema’ (2016) and ‘Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache’ (2019).
Buddhadharma is currently being assimilated into a number of different cultures as the Buddha’s teachings continue to spread throughout the world. But as Rinpoche is at pains to point out, while the cultural packaging that comes with Tibetan Buddhism is often optional, the Buddhadharma itself requires no modernization. Shakyamuni was a Buddha and therefore omnipotent, so every word he uttered, every tradition he instigated, every aspect of his legacy, is as appropriate and necessary today as it was during his lifetime.
This is the message Rinpoche emphasizes continually when he teaches, focusing primarily on the buddhist ‘view’ rather than the ethnic backdrop it is set against, never hesitating to draw attention to the flaws and corruptions that have crept into contemporary spiritual paths, and fearlessly laying bare the challenges faced by teachers and students of the Buddhadharma in the 21st century.
(Courtesy: Siddhartha’s Intent website: https://siddharthasintent.org/rinpoche-bio/)
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche was born in 1961 into what he describes as a ‘hard-core buddhist family’ in the ‘staunchly buddhist country’ of Bhutan. At the age of seven, he was recognized by His Holiness Sakya Trizin as the main incarnation of the incomparable Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, the spiritual heir of one of the most influential and admired 19th century incarnations of Manjushri (the Buddha of Wisdom), Jamyang Khyentse.
At a time when sectarianism threatened to decimate the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, in a unique collaboration with Jamgon Kongtrul Lodrö Taye and Chogyur Lingpa, Khyentse Wangpo was responsible for initiating and promoting Rimé (non-sectarianism) throughout the Land of Snow, effectively breathing new life into all schools of Buddhism, and rescuing many lineages from complete extinction. The present Khyentse Rinpoche continues in the same spirit, always remaining faithful to the specifics of each school and lineage he serves, without mixing anything up or omitting the tiniest detail.
Rinpoche also goes out of his way to promote traditional practices that have begun to slip out of fashion, particularly that of oral transmission (lung), for example spending three months over the winter of 2006-7 transmitting the entire Kangyur (Word of the Buddha) to monks and lay practitioners at the Dzongsar Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö Institute of Dialectics in Chauntra, India. Having received an extensive traditional buddhist education, Rinpoche attributes any understanding he may have of buddhist philosophy and theory to his years of study at Sakya College in India.
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo (born 1943) is a bhikṣuṇī in the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. She is an author, teacher and founder of the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in Himachal Pradesh, India. She is best known for having spent twelve years living in a remote cave in the Himalayas, three of those years in strict meditation retreat.
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was born in England in 1943 and named Diane Perry.
She and her older brother were raised by her mother in the Bethnal Green area of London after her father’s death when Diane was 2 years old. Mrs Perry was a spiritualist who held séances in the family home, and Jetsunma credits this as being a strong and positive influence on her development as a seeker of truth.
Aged 18, she realised she was a Buddhist while reading the book “The Mind Unshaken” by John Walters.
After leaving school she worked as a librarian at the Hackney Public Library and then SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies) in London, saving enough money to leave England in 1964, sailing to India to pursue her spiritual path.
She headed north to Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh, where she had arranged to work with an expat Englishwoman named Freda Bedi, who had opened a school for young reincarnated lamas among the exiled Tibetan community.
On her 21st birthday in June 1964, the school had a special guest: His Eminence the 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche, a great Drukpa Kagyu lama.
Diane recognised him immediately as her Guru and asked him if she could become a Nun. Aged 21, only 3 months after arriving in India, the newly named Drubgyu Tenzin Palmo became one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monastic.
In 1967 she received the sramanerika ordination at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim from H.H. the 16th Karmapa.
As full ordination is not yet available for women in the Tibetan tradition, in 1973 she travelled to Hong Kong to obtain the bhikshuni ordination at Miu Fat Temple.
Tenzin Palmo was based with Khamtrul Rinpoche and his community first in Dalhousie and later at the monastery of Tashi Jong, near Palampur, Himachal Pradesh for six years until 1970, when he directed her to the Himalayan valley of Lahaul in order to undertake more intensive practice. She stayed in Tayul Gompa, a small Lahauli monastery for the next 6 years, remaining in retreat during the long winter months.
Then in 1976, seeking more seclusion and better conditions for practice, she found a cave a couple of hours hike from Tayul, at 13,200 feet above sea level. The cave was enhanced by building enclosing walls, creating a living space around 6 feet (1.8 metres) square.
In the summer months supplies were delivered from Keylong and she grew turnips and potatoes nearby. She stockpiled for winter, when the cave was snowbound. She slept and meditated upright in a meditation box.
Despite many hardships and life-threatening experiences, Tenzin Palmo thrived in her solitary spiritual practice and lived in the cave for 12 years, from the ages of 33 to 45. For the first 9 years she occasionally had visitors or took trips away from the cave, while the last 3 years were spent in strict retreat.
Her retreat ended in summer 1988 and after 24 years in India, she returned to Europe to stay with friends in Assisi, Italy. There she rediscovered her western roots and started to accept requests to teach.
Before H.E. Khamtrul Rinpoche passed away in 1980, he had on several occasions requested Tenzin Palmo to start a nunnery. She understood the importance of this and remembers when in 1993, his recincarnation, H.E. the 9th Khamtrul Rinpoche together with the Lamas of the Khampagar monastery at Tashi Jong again made the request.
This time Tenzin Palmo was ready to take on the formidable task. Legal preparations began, suitable land was found near Tashi Jong and she began slowly raising support worldwide.
After the publication of her biography “Cave in the Snow” by Vicki MacKenzie in 1998, her profile increased exponentially and she began annual international teaching tours to raise funds.
In January 2000 the first nuns arrived while Tenzin Palmo was still based at Tashi Jong and in 2001 construction began at the Padhiarkar site. H.E. Khamtrul Rinpoche gave the nunnery the name Dongyu Gatsal Ling, which translates as “Garden of the Authentic Lineage”.
Today, DGL is fully completed and provides educational and spiritual instruction to over 100 nuns.
In February 2008 Tenzin Palmo was given the rare title of Jetsunma, which means Venerable Master, by His Holiness the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa, Head of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage in recognition of her spiritual achievements as a nun and her efforts in promoting the status of female practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism.
Tenzin Palmo spends most of the year at Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery and occasionally tours to give teachings and raise funds for the ongoing needs of the DGL nuns and Nunnery.
In addition to her role as Founding Director of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery, Jetsunma is President of Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women, Founding Director of the Alliance of Non Himalayan Nuns; Honorary Advisor to the International Network of Engaged Buddhists and Founding Member of the Committee for Bhiksuni Ordination.
To find out more about Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s life, read Vicki Mackenzie’s biography Cave in the Snow published by Bloomsbury, and see the ‘Cave in the Snow’ DVD directed by Liz Thompson and narrated by Rachel Ward.
(Courtesy: https://tenzinpalmo.com/biography/)
Ven. Geshe Lhakdor was born in Yakra, Tibet in 1956. He had to escape from Tibet, when he was only 6 years old in 1962. After coming into exile he attended the Central School for Tibetans in Dalhousie, India from 1972 to 1976.
In 1976, he joined the Institute for Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamshala, India where he studied Buddhist Philosophy and successfully completed his Master of Prajnaparamita in 1982.
From 1986 to 1989, he worked as a translator and research assistant at the Tibet House in New Delhi.
In 1989, he received his Master of Philosophy from the University of Delhi. And he completed his Geshe Degree from Drepung Loseling Monastic University in Karnataka State, South India.
Geshe Lhakdor (or Lhakdor-la as he is affectionately called) was appointed as the translator and religious assistant of the Dalai Lama in 1989.
While working as the Dalai Lama's assistant, he translated several books of the Dalai Lama from English to Tibetan and from Tibetan to English, such as The Way to Freedom, The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace, Awakening the Mind and Lightening the Heart.
In 2005, he became the Director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamshala, India.
Geshe Lhakdor was conferred with an Honorary Professorship by the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada in 2002 and the University of Delhi, Psychology Department in 2008.
As Director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) in Dharamsala, Geshe coordinates the Science for Monks program and shares his own expertise as a scholar of science and philosophy. He is also a trustee of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility, established by His Holiness.
(Courtesy: Smithsonian Global : https://global.si.edu/people/ven-geshe-lhakdor)
Ven.Sudhammacara was ordained in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition in 1983, under Kosho Uchiyama Roshi lineage. He practiced and taught zazen meditation for more than 18 years, including several years spent teaching at Valley Zendo in Massachusetts, USA.
In 2001, he took Theravadan Bhikku ordination in the Burmese forest monk tradition under Pa-Auk Sayadaw, and trained in shamatha (calm abiding) and vipassana (insight) meditation in Burma and Sri Lanka. Since 2006, he has also been exposed to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Now he calls himself One Dharma Buddhist monk.
Most of the year, he lives in Kamakura, Japan, where he teaches meditation at his centre Ippo-an (One Dharma Forum). He also leads meditation retreats in several sacred places (Kyoto, Kudaka-jima and Mitake-san) in Japan.
Before the pandemic, Ven. Sudhammacara was kind enough to make a number of trips to India and led a retreat almost every year for the benefit of the Dharma Rain sangha.
Dhammachari Lokamitra was born in London, UK. He was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order (now known as the Triratna Buddhist Order) in 1974 by his teacher, Urgyen Sangharakshita.
Since 1978 he has been living in India working mainly amongst the followers of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. He has initiated and for many years, developed the Buddhist and social activities of the Triratna Bauddha Mahasangha, Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG) and Bahujan Hitay Trusts.
Since the mid 1990’s he has concentrated on developing the Jambudvipa Trust, the Manuski Trust, and the Nagarjuna Training Institute. He is working with the Nagarjuna Institute’s alumni to develop an effective all-India network of practitioners and activities.
Lokamitra came to India in 1977 to study yoga with B.S. Iyengar in Pune. He decided to break up the long train trip from Kolkata by stopping over in Nagpur, and arrived by chance on the twenty-first anniversary of the day Ambedkar led the Dalits into Buddhism. As an FWBO angarika, wearing robes, he found himself on a large stage facing thousands of devotees.
“In the thirty-six hours we spent in Nagpur, I entered a new world, a world of millions of the most oppressed people, all desperate to transform their lives and their society through Buddhism, but with little living teaching to guide them,” Lokamitra recalls.
“I had stumbled blindly into a situation in which the two-fold transformation seemed a real possibility, and on the most auspicious of days. I did not consciously decide to live and work in India then but I have no doubt that my future was decided on that day.”
Lokamitra moved to India the following year, and with the help of local Indian Buddhists he organized retreats and meditation groups. “Our friends,” he says, “organized these wherever they could — an abandoned disused railway carriage, the veranda of an unfinished police station, a small garage when its car went to church on Sundays.”
More than thirty years have passed since those rough and ready days. TBMSG now includes more than five hundred ordained dharma teachers—dharmacharis and dharmacharinis—and many thousands of practitioners. With the support of the Karuna Trust and other donors in Asia and the West, two related organizations the Jambudvipa Trust and Bahujan Hitay (meaning “for the welfare of many”) evolved to do outreach and social work among the Dalits.
Parallel with these developments, Maitreyanath Dhammakirti, Mangesh Dahiwale, Priyadarshi Telang and other TBMSG leaders established the Manuski Center (also known as the Manuski Project) in Pune.
The center is a quiet and cool place, with a good library, meeting rooms, offices, basic but comfortable guest rooms, and a large meditation hall.
(Extracted from "Ambedkar’s Vision for India’s Dalits by Hozan Alan Senauke, Lion's Roar, August 28, 2015 https://www.lionsroar.com/ambedkars-vision/ )
Bhante Urgyen Sangharakshita was the teacher I never met. But I have always felt a strong connection to him through his books which resonate with me, and still inspire me over the years.
Sangharakshita taught a complete vision of human life. His teachings span the breadth and depth of the Buddhist tradition, while emphasising friendship, the arts, and inspired imagination.
A creative presence in global Buddhism for over 70 years, he's best known as founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community, an international movement practicing Buddhism for today and tomorrow.
Sangharakshita was born Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood in Tooting, London, in 1925. After being diagnosed with a heart condition he spent much of his childhood confined to bed, and used the opportunity to read widely. His first encounter with non-Christian thought was with Madame Helena Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled, upon reading which, he later said, he realised that he had never been a Christian. The following year he came across two Buddhist texts, the Diamond Sutra and the Platform Sutra, and concluded that he had always been a Buddhist.
As Dennis Lingwood, he joined the Buddhist Society at the age of 18, and formally became a Buddhist in May 1944 by taking the Three Refuges and Five Precepts from the Burmese monk, U Thittila.
He was conscripted into the army in 1943, and served in India, Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, and Singapore as a radio engineer in the Royal Corps of Signals.
It was in Ceylon, while in contact with the swamis in the Ramakrishna Mission, that he developed the desire to become a monk.
In 1946, after the cessation of hostilities, he was transferred to Singapore, where he made contact with Buddhists and learned to meditate.
Having been conscripted into the British Army and posted to India, at the end of the war Sangharakshita handed in his rifle, left the camp where he was stationed and deserted.
He moved about in India for a few years, with a Bengali novice Buddhist, the future Buddharakshita, as his companion, meditating and experiencing for himself the company of eminent spiritual personalities of the times, like Mata Anandamayi, Ramana Maharishi and Swamis of Ramakrishna Mission.
In May 1949 he became a novice monk, or sramanera, in a ceremony conducted by the Burmese monk, U Chandramani, who was then the most senior monk in India. It was then that he was given the name Sangharakshita (Pali: Sangharakkhita), which means "protected by the spiritual community."
Sangharakshita took full bhikkhu ordination the following year, with another Burmese bhikkhu, U Kawinda, as his preceptor (upādhyāya), and with the Ven. Jagdish Kashyap as his teacher (ācārya). He studied Pali, Abhidhamma, and Logic with Jagdish Kashyap at Benares (Varanasi) University. In 1950, at Kashyap's suggestion, Sangharakshita moved to the hill town of Kalimpong close to the borders of India, Bhutan, Nepal. and Sikkim, and only a few miles from Tibet. Kalimpong was his base for 14 years until his return to England in 1966.
Sangharakshita was ordained in the Theravada school, but said he became disillusioned by what he felt was the dogmatism, formalism, and nationalism of many of the Theravadin bhikkhus he met and became increasingly influenced by Tibetan Buddhist teachers who had fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion in the 1950s.
He began studying with the Gelug Lama, Dhardo Rinpoche. Sangharakshita also received initiations and teachings from teachers who included Jamyang Khyentse, Dudjom Rinpoche, as well as Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. It was Dhardo Rinpoche who was to give Sangharakshita Mayahana ordination.
Sangharakshita was an associate of B. R. Ambedkar. In 1952, Sangharakshita met Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), the chief architect of the Indian constitution and India's first law minister. Ambedkar, who had been a so-called Untouchable, converted to Buddhism, along with 380,000 other Untouchables (now known as "dalits") on 14 October 1956.
Ambedkar and Sangharakshita had been in correspondence since 1950, and the Indian politician had encouraged the young monk to expand his Buddhist activities. Ambedkar appreciated Sangharakshita's "commitment to a more critically engaged Buddhism that did not at the same time dilute the cardinal precepts of Buddhist thought".