Garchen Rinpoche

His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche is a Drikung Kagyu lama who was known in the thirteenth century as the Siddha Gar Chodingpa, a heart disciple of Kyobpa Jigten Sumgon, founder of the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. In ancient India, he had incarnated as Mahasiddha Aryadeva, the lotus-born disciple of the great Nagarjuna. In the seventh century, he was known as Lonpo Gar, the minister of the Tibetan Dharma King Songsten Gampo.

Garchen Rinpoche was recognized and enthroned in eastern Tibet by the former Drikung Kyabgon Zhiwe Lodro. When he was seven, he was brought to Lho Miyal Monastery, which he administered from the age of eleven. Studying and practicing under the direction of the Siddha Chime Dorje, Garchen Rinpoche received vast and profound instructions on the preliminary practices (ngondro), the fivefold practice of Mahamudra and the six yogas of Naropa.

Then, at the age of 22, after completing a two and a half year retreat, he was imprisoned for 20 years during the political turmoil of China's Cultural Revolution. While in the labor camp, he received meditation instruction from his root lama, the Nyingma master Khenpo Munsel. Enduring hardship and practicing secretly, Garchen Rinpoche attained realization of the lama's wisdom mind. Since his release from prison in 1979, Garchen Rinpoche has made great effort to rebuild the Drikung Kagyu monasteries, reestablish the Buddhist teachings, and build two boarding schools for local children in eastern Tibet. Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual director of the Garchen Buddhist Institute in Chino Valley, Arizona.

Garchen Rinpoche is known for his vast realization, as well as for his great kindness.

More info can be found on Garchen Rinpoche's site: www.garchen.net

Youtube video introduction to Garchen Rinpoche

 

Gelek Rinpoche

Born in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1939, Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche was recognized as an incarnate lama at the age of four. Carefully tutored from an early age by some of Tibet’s greatest living masters, Rimpoche gained renown for his powers of memory, intellectual judgment and penetrating insight. As a small child living in a monk’s cell in a country with no electricity or running water, and little news of the outside world, he had scoured the pictures of torn copies of Life Magazine for anything he could gather about America. Now Rimpoche brings his life experience and wisdom to both the east and the west.

Among the last generation of lamas educated in Drepung Monastery before the Communist Chinese invasion of Tibet, Gelek Rimpoche was forced to flee to India in 1959. He later edited and printed over 170 volumes of rare Tibetan manuscripts that would have otherwise been lost to humanity. Rimpoche was also instrumental in forming organizations that would share the great wisdom of Tibet with the outside world. In this and other ways, he has played a crucial role in the survival of Tibetan Buddhism.

He was director of Tibet House in Delhi, India and a radio host at All India Radio. He conducted over 1000 interviews in compiling an oral history of the fall of Tibet to the Communist Chinese. In the late 1970’s Rimpoche was directed to teach Western students by his teachers, the Senior and Junior Masters to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since that time he has taught Buddhist practitioners around the world.

Rimpoche is particularly distinguished for his thorough familiarity with modern culture, and special effectiveness as a teacher of Western practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. Recognizing the unique opportunity for the interface of spiritual and material concerns in today's world, Rimpoche has also opened a dialogue with science, psychology, medicine, metaphysics, politics, and the arts.

In 1988, Rimpoche founded Jewel Heart, a Tibetan Buddhist Center. His Collected Works now include over 32 transcripts of his teachings, numerous articles as well as the national bestseller Good Life, Good Death (Riverhead Books 2001) and the Tara Box: Rituals for Protection and Healing from the Female Buddha (New World Library 2004). Rimpoche is a U.S. citizen and lives in Michigan.

More info can be found on Jewel Heart's site at: www.jewelheart.org

 

Namkhai Norbu

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu was born in 1938 in Derghe, in Eastern Tibet and was recognised at birth as the reincarnation of a noted exponent of the Dzogchen tradition.

Notwithstanding his youth, he was already well known by the end of the 1950s as a person with a profound knowledge of the Dzogchen teachings and also as a spiritual teacher. His fame, in India and in Tibet was such that in 1960 Professor Giuseppe Tucci, an eminent scholar and founder of the Is.MEO (one of the major institutes of oriental studies in Italy), invited him to Rome to collaborate in research at what is today known as Is.I.A.O, (Istituto per l’Africa e l’Oriente).

It was thus that Namkhai Norbu came to Italy where he contributed actively in the development of Tibetan studies in the West.In 1962 he took up a post teaching Tibetan language and literature in Naples at the Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli where he worked until 1992.From the mid seventies Namkhai Norbu began to teach Yantra Yoga and Dzogchen meditation to a few Italian students and the growing interest in his teachings convinced him to dedicate himself increasingly to such activities.

Together with a number of disciples he founded the first Dzogchen community in Arcidosso in Tuscany and then later founded other centres in various parts of Europe, Russia, the United States, South America and Australia. For the first fifteen years of his residence in Italy Namkhai Norbu concentrated mainly on the Ancient History of Tibet. His works are evidence of his deep knowledge of Tibetan culture and are addressed to the young people of Tibet in order that their awareness of an ancient cultural heritage should not die out.

The works of Namkhai Norbu are a significant reference point for these young people, whether they live in the People’s Republic of China or whether they are living in exile and represent the continuation of the cultural heritage of Tibet and its national identity. His studies have become so well known at an international level that he has an intense programme of lectures and seminars in the major centres of oriental studies and in universities throughout the world.

more information can be found at Namkhai Norbu's US site: www.tsegyalgareast.org