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Lama
Thubten Yeshe, the Founder
of the FPMT
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Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in
Tibet in 1935 not far from Lhasa. He was soon recognized as the
incarnation of the learned abbess of Chi-me Lung Gompa, home for
about 100 nuns of the Gelug tradition. This abbess had gained a
reputation as a great yogini and it was said to be her fervent
prayer that her work in that lifetime would enable her to be
reborn in such a way that she could bring Buddhism to those in
spiritual darkness, those that no other Lama wished to teach.
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While very young, Lama spent a
lot of time at the nunnery attending various ceremonies and
religious functions held there. At his parents’ home he was
taught the alphabet, grammar, and reading by his uncle, Ngawang
Norbu, a student from Sera monastery. From a very early age he
expressed the desire to lead a religious life. Whenever a monk
would visit their home he would beg to leave with him and join a
monastery. Finally, when he was six years old, he received his
parents’ permission to join Sera Je, a college at one of the
three great Gelug monastic centers located in the vicinity of
Lhasa. He lived there with over 10,000 monks, under the charge
of an uncle who was also a monk there. At the age of eight he
was ordained as a novice monk by the venerable Purchog Jampa
Rinpoche.
Lama Yeshe lived under the
rigorous monastic discipline of Sera Je until he was twenty-five
years old. There he received spiritual instruction based on the
educational traditions brought from India to Tibet over a
thousand years ago. From Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, the Junior
Tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he received teachings on
the Lam-rim graduated path to enlightenment that outlines the
entire sutra path to buddhahood. In addition he received many
tantric initiations and discourses from both the Junior and
Senior Tutors to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as well as from
Drag-ri Dorje Chang Rinpoche, Song Rinpoche, Lhatzun Dorje Chang
Rinpoche, and many
other great gurus and
meditation masters. In addition, he studied the famous Six Yogas
of Naropa, following a commentary based on the personal
experiences of lama Tsong Khapa.
Among the other teachers who
guided his spiritual development were Geshe Wangchug Rinpoche,
Geshe Lhundrub Sopa Rinpoche, Geshe Rabten Rinpoche and Geshe
Ngawang Gedun.
This phase of his education
came to an end in l959. As Lama Yeshe himself said, “In that
year the Chinese kindly told us that it was time to leave Tibet
and meet the outside world.” Escaping through Bhutan, he
eventually reached northeast India where he met up with many
other Tibetan refugees. In spite of considerable physical
difficulties in such an alien environment, these Tibetans set up
their teaching program once more at the settlement camp of
Buxaduar and Lama was able to continue his studies. While in
Tibet he had already received instruction in Prajnaparamita (the
Perfection of Wisdom), Madhyamaka philosophy (The Middle Way),
and logic. In India his education continued with courses in the
Vinaya rules of discipline and the Abhidharma system of
metaphysics. In addition, the great bodhisattva Tenzin Gyaltsen,
the Kunu Lama, gave him teachings on Shantideva’s
Bodhisattvacharyavatara (Guide to the Bodhisattva’s
Way of Life) and Atisha’s
Bodhipathapradipa (Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment). He also
attended additional tantric initiations and discourses and, at
the age of twentyeight, received full monk’s ordination from
Kyabje Ling Rinpoche.
It was here in Buxaduar that a
young reincarnate lama, called Zopa Rinpoche, came to him as a
disciple. For both of them this was a turning point. The
relationship that would grow between these two lamas was to
change the lives of countless Dharma students and to play a
great part in fulfilling the prophecy of the eighth-century
Tibetan saint, Padmasambhava, that “when iron birds fly, and
horses run on wheels, Tibetan people will be scattered like ants
across the face of the earth and the Dharma will come to the
land of the redskins.”
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