Mind Seeing Mind by Roger R.; Jackson

Author:Roger R.; Jackson [Jackson, Roger R.;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications
Published: 2022-03-07T01:53:05.405000+00:00

Geshé Kelsang Gyatso

The highly controversial Kelsang Gyatso943 was born in Tsang in 1931 and began his monastic training at Ngamring Jampa Ling, near Shigatsé, taking novice ordination at the age of eight. At some point, he moved to Lhasa and entered Sera Monastery, where he resided in Tsangpa House of Jé College, beginning study toward a geshé degree. Among his contemporaries at Sera Jé were Tamdrin Rabten and Lhundub Sopa (1923–2014), both his seniors, and Thubten Yeshe, his junior by four years. Like so many Lhasa-area monastics, he fled Tibet in 1959 and took refuge in India, where he spent time in study and retreat while also suffering bouts of ill health. His main teachers in India were Geshé Sopa and, especially after the latter’s departure for America in 1962, the Dalai Lama’s junior tutor, Trijang Rinpoché. He claims to have completed his geshé degree at some point after going into exile, though the claim has been disputed, and in any case the date and rank he attained are uncertain. In 1977, at the invitation of Lama Yeshe, now head of the burgeoning FPMT, he took up residence at Manjushri Institute, an FPMT center in Ulverston, Cumbria, England. At some point in the late 1970s or early 1980s, he split from the FPMT, maintaining control over Manjushri Institute, distancing himself from other Gelukpas, and developing his own program of study, which was institutionalized in 1991 under the name his organization still bears, the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT). NKT claims to preserve the teachings of Tsongkhapa in their undiluted purity and to have 1,100 centers worldwide, staffed by the large number of Western monks and nuns ordained by Kelsang Gyatso.944 The reasons for his split from mainstream Geluk probably include both personality conflicts and philosophical differences, but the point of contention that has been most publicized is his public opposition to the Dalai Lama’s ban — at least for students who wish to receive empowerment from him — on the practice of the protector deity Dorjé Shukden, which, as we have seen, was promoted by Phabongkha Rinpoché and was endorsed, as well, by Trijang Rinpoché until late in his life. Kelsang Gyatso’s open defiance of the ban led to his expulsion from Sera Jé College in 1996 and to the spectacle of his followers picketing talks in the West by the Dalai Lama in the late 1990s and again in 2007–8. As of this writing, Kelsang Gyatso is mostly retired from public life, but his New Kadampa Tradition appears to be thriving.

Kelsang Gyatso has published over a score of books in English — some based on oral teachings, others produced collaboratively with Anglophone disciples — that outline various aspects of NKT thought and practice. These include commentaries on such Indian classics as the Heart Sūtra, Entry to the Middle Way, and Engaging in Bodhisattva Conduct, detailed instructions on the NKT’s favored tantric deity, Vajrayoginī, general accounts of meditation practice or of the different levels of tantric practice, specialized writings on such

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