Gelek Rimpoche

Nawang Gelek Rimpoche (aka Gehlek Rimpoche)
སྐྱབས་རྗེ་དགེ་ལེགས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།
Gelek Rinpoche
Title Lama
Personal
Born 26 October 1939
Lhasa, Tibet
Died 15 February 2017 (aged 77)
Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Religion Tibetan Buddhist
Nationality Tibetan
School Drepung Monastery
Profession teacher
Order Gelug
Senior posting
Teacher Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, Khensur Denma Locho Rinpoche, Song Rinpoche
Students
Profession teacher

Kyabje Nawang Gehlek Rimpoche (Tibetan: སྐྱབས་རྗེ་དགེ་ལེགས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།, Wylie: skyabs rje dge legs rin po che/) was a Tibetan Buddhist lama born in Lhasa, Tibet on October 26, 1939. His personal name was Gelek; kyabje and rimpoche are titles meaning "teacher" (lit., "lord of refuge") and "precious," respectively; he is known to Tibetans as Nyakre Khentrul Rinpoche. He was a tulku, an incarnate lama of Drepung Monastic University, where he received the highest scholastic degree of Geshe Lharampa, equivalent to a PhD, at the exceptionally young age of 20. His father was the 10th Demo Rinpoche and his uncle was the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.

He was educated alongside the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso who said "he completed his traditional Buddhist training as a monk in Tibet prior to the Chinese Takeover." Rimpoche was tutored by many of Tibet's greatest teachers including the 14th Dalai Lama's senior and junior tutors, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, who sent him to the West to teach, and Denma Locho Rinpoche and Song Rinpoche.

According to Thupten Jinpa, principal English translator to the Dalai Lama, he is considered

"an important link to the great lineages of Tibet’s great masters, especially of the Geluk school. Known more famously for the Tibetans as Nyakre Khentrul Rinpoche, Rinpoche had been instrumental in reprinting many of the Geluk texts in the 1970s, and also remained an important object of affection for both Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche. Of course, his emergence as one of the great Tibetan teachers in the West has also been a source of inspiration for many.”

In 1959, ten days after the Dalai Lama fled to India, Gelek Rimpoche led a large group of Tibetans from Tibet into exile in India.

"They were stalled at the foot of the Himalayas. Only a few miles away, over a cluster of four peaks, lay Arunachal Pradesh in India, and freedom. Time and time again throughout the day members of the group tried the treacherous climb, yet they were unable to find passage. To get here they had traversed mile after mile of rugged terrain while strafed by Chinese aircraft. There was no turning back. Tired, hungry and cold, they sought advice from an incarnate lama who had joined their exodus – nineteen-year-old Nawang Gehlek Rinpoche. “I sat there and looked at the situation, I don’t know if it was a coincidence or the effects of a flu shot or common sense, but I saw that the range had four peaks and I thought we should zigzag across to the farthest one on the right. So I happened to be the one to suggest that route and the people began to follow me.” "The route he suggested became a major route for tens of thousands in the coming decades."

He then settled at a temporary camp with other lamas and monks in Buxa, India, where his education continued, although "there were no books, and classes had to be taught from memory only." He was one of the first students of the Young Lamas Home School and later gave up monastic life. He was named director of Tibet House in New Delhi, India in 1965. In the 1970s he served as head of Tibetan services and as a radio host at All India Radio. He preserved over 170 volumes of rare Tibetan manuscripts that would have otherwise been lost and conducted over 1000 interviews, compiling an oral history of the fall of Tibet to Communist China that are in the US Library of Congress's Tibetan Oral History Archive Project. In 1964 he was an exchange student at Cornell University.

Rimpoche moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1987 to teach Buddhism. In 1988 he founded and was president of Jewel Heart, a nonprofit "spiritual, cultural, and humanitarian organization that translates the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism into contemporary life." in Ann Arbor, which has expanded to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Chicago, Cleveland, Nebraska, New York, Malaysia and The Netherlands. Beat-poet Allen Ginsberg was among the more prominent of Jewel Heart's members. Ginsberg met with Gelek Rinpoche through the modern composer Philip Glass in 1989. Allen and Philip jointly staged benefits for the Jewel Heart organization. Professor Robert Thurman, Joe Liozzo, and Glenn Mullin are also Jewel Heart members and frequent lecturers. He became an American citizen in July 1994. Demo Rinpoche, Rimpoche's nephew, has served as Jewel Heart’s Resident Spiritual Director since 2018.

Gelek Rinpoche died on February 15, 2017, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after undergoing surgery the previous month.

In 2021 Tibet House US in New York City partnered with the Allen Ginsberg estate and Jewel Heart International on "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends," a gallery and eventually online exhibition of images of Rimpoche by Allen Ginsberg, with whom he had an “indissoluble bond.” "Fifty negatives guided by Allen’s extensive notes on the contact sheets and images he’d circled with the intention to print," featured images including Rimpoche "with other great Tibetan masters, including Ribur Rimpoche and Khylogla Rato Rimpoche, images we had not known about." Other images include Rimpoche with "monks, Tibetologists, friends, and students, including Philip Glass, artist Francesco Clemente, founder of Tibet House US, Robert Thurman, poet Anne Waldman, and songwriter, singer, and poet, Patti Smith."

Selected bibliography

  • Good Life, Good Death: Tibetan Wisdom on Reincarnation, (foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama), Riverhead Books, 2001, ISBN 1-57322-196-1
  • The Tara Box: Rituals for Protection and Healing From the Female Buddha (with Brenda Rosen), New World Library, 2004, ISBN 1-57731-461-1
  • Essentials of Modern Literary Tibetan: A Reading Course and Reference Grammar (with Melvyn C. Goldstein, Lobsang Phuntshog), University of California Press, 1991, ISBN 978-0520076228, ISBN 0520076222
  • A History of Modern Tibet, Vol. 1 1913-1951, (with Melvyn C Goldstein), University of California Press, 2008, ISBN 0520061403, ISBN 9780520061408, ISBN 9780520075900, ISBN 0520075900
  • A History of Modern Tibet, Vol. 2, The calm before the storm, 1951-1955, (with Melvyn C Goldstein), University of California Press, 2009, ISBN 9780520249417, ISBN 0520259955
  • How the Mind Works, Jewel Heart, 2016, ASIN B01H2MXIDE
  • Perfection of Wisdom: An Essential Explanation of the Mantra and the Five Paths, 2014, ASIN B00KCX3IUE
  • The Three Principles of the Path: A Brief Explanation, Jewel Heart, 2014, ASIN B00KDIZBZ8
  • Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life: Chapter 3; Full Acceptance of the Awakening Mind, Jewel Heart, 2013, ASIN B00BUVLZNE
  • 37 Wings of Change, Jewel Heart, 2012, ASIN B006WFKPUM
  • Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life: Chapter 6; Patience, Jewel Heart, 2010, ASIN B00BUYYN3U
  • The Four Mindfulnesses: On the Basis of a Poem by the Seventh Dalai Lama with Commentary by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, Jewel Heart, 2009, ISBN 193499409X
  • The Four Noble Truths, Jewel Heart, 2009, ISBN 1934994057
  • Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life: Chapter 7; Enthusiasm, Jewel Heart, 2008, ASIN B00BUYYN58
  • GOM: A Course In Meditation, Jewel Heart, 2005, ASIN B004N84VLE
  • Lam Rim: Foundations of the Path, Jewel Heart, 2005, ASIN B00KD3OOLU
  • Transforming Negativities, Jewel Heart, 2004, ASIN B004N63770
  • Catalogue : first exhibition in new Tibet House, (with Gyaltsen Yeshey, Nicholas Ribush, Trisha Donnelly); Tibet House, New Delhi, India), 1979, OCLC Number: 37437276