Gelek Rimpoche facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Nawang Gelek Rimpoche (aka Gehlek Rimpoche) |
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| སྐྱབས་རྗེ་དགེ་ལེགས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ། | |
Gelek Rinpoche
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| Religion | Tibetan Buddhist |
| School | Drepung Monastery |
| Order | Gelug |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Tibetan |
| Born | 26 October 1939 Lhasa, Tibet |
| Died | 15 February 2017 (aged 77) Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Lama |
| Religious career | |
| Teacher | Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, Khensur Denma Locho Rinpoche, Song Rinpoche |
| Students | Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Cyndi Lee, Joe Liozzo, Glenn Mullin, Robert Thurman |
| Profession | teacher |
Nawang Gelek Rimpoche was an important Tibetan Buddhist teacher. He was born in Lhasa, Tibet on October 26, 1939. His personal name was Gelek. The titles Kyabje and Rimpoche mean "teacher" and "precious." He was known to Tibetans as Nyakre Khentrul Rinpoche.
Gelek Rimpoche was a tulku. This means he was believed to be the reincarnation of a past Buddhist master. He studied at Drepung Monastic University. There he earned the highest scholarly degree, called a Geshe Lharampa. This degree is like a PhD. He earned it at the young age of 20. His father was the 10th Demo Rinpoche. His uncle was the 13th Dalai Lama.
Contents
Who Was Gelek Rimpoche?
Early Life and Education
Gelek Rimpoche studied alongside the 14th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama said that Gelek Rimpoche finished his Buddhist training in Tibet. This was before the Chinese takeover in 1959. Many great Tibetan teachers taught Rimpoche. These included the Dalai Lama's own tutors. His teachers, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, later sent him to teach in the West.
Life in Exile
In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to India. Ten days later, Gelek Rimpoche led a large group of Tibetans into exile. They went to India. He settled in a temporary camp in Buxa, India. There, his education continued. But there were no books, so classes were taught from memory.
He was one of the first students at the Young Lamas Home School. Later, he decided to leave monastic life. In 1965, he became the director of Tibet House in New Delhi, India. In the 1970s, he worked at All India Radio. He was head of Tibetan services and a radio host.
Gelek Rimpoche did important work to save Tibetan history. He preserved over 170 volumes of rare Tibetan writings. These books might have been lost forever. He also did over 1,000 interviews. He collected an oral history about the fall of Tibet to Communist China. These interviews are now in the US Library of Congress. In 1964, he was an exchange student at Cornell University in the United States.
Teaching in the West
In 1987, Rimpoche moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. He went there to teach Buddhism. In 1988, he started an organization called Jewel Heart. It is a nonprofit group. Jewel Heart shares the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism. It helps people use this wisdom in their daily lives.
Jewel Heart started in Ann Arbor. It has grown to other places. These include Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Chicago, and New York. It also has centers in Malaysia and The Netherlands. Famous people became members of Jewel Heart. The poet Allen Ginsberg was one of them. Ginsberg met Gelek Rimpoche through the composer Philip Glass in 1989. Allen Ginsberg and Philip Glass even held events to help Jewel Heart. Other members include Professor Robert Thurman and Glenn Mullin. Gelek Rimpoche became an American citizen in 1994. His nephew, Demo Rimpoche, became Jewel Heart’s spiritual director in 2018.
Remembering Gelek Rimpoche
Gelek Rimpoche passed away on February 15, 2017. He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He had surgery the month before.
In 2021, Tibet House US in New York City worked with the Allen Ginsberg estate and Jewel Heart International. They created an exhibition called "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends." This exhibition showed pictures of Rimpoche taken by Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg and Rimpoche had a very strong connection. The exhibition featured 50 photo negatives. Ginsberg's notes helped guide the selection of images. These pictures showed Rimpoche with other great Tibetan masters. They also showed him with monks, scholars, friends, and students. These included Philip Glass, Francesco Clemente, Robert Thurman, Anne Waldman, and Patti Smith.
