Larung Gar Buddhist Academy
Content
E-Book
LARUNG GAR
BUDDHIST ACADEMY
By
Tamarapu Sampath Kumaran
About the Author
Mr T Sampath Kumaran is a freelance writer. He regularly contributes
articles on Management, Business, Ancient Temples, and Temple
Architecture to many leading Dailies and Magazines.
His articles are popular in “The Young World section” of THE HINDU.
His e-books on nature, environment and different cultures of people
around the world are educative and of special interest to the young.
He was associated in the production of two Documentary films on Nava
Tirupathi Temples, and Tirukkurungudi Temple in Tamilnadu.
Acknowledgement:
I wish to express my gratitude to the authors from whose works I
gathered the details for this book, Sources: China Trekking, and
Courtesy, Google for the photographs.
- Tamarapu Sampath Kumaran
LARUNG GAR BUDDHIST ACADEMY
This is considered to be the world’s largest Buddhist settlement and
home for around 40,000 monks and nuns.
Founded by Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok in 1980, the institute also known as
“the five Buddhist Institute of Science", which was started out from a
handful of students gathering in Khenpo’s home has since grown to be
the largest and most influential center to study Tibetan Buddhism in the
world.
Reaching Larung Gar is not an easy task. It is located near Seda in
Sichuan Province in South West China. The valley can be reached
from Chengdu 650 kilometers away. The trip takes at least 15 hours by
vehicle, but this destination is well worth the arduous journey. “Seda” in
Chinese, also called Sertar, a Tibetan pasturing area located in the
northeast part of Ganzi Tibet, and autonomous prefecture of Sichuan,
featured with grassland, lakes, rivers and Tibetan atmosphere in the
plateau above 4000m in elevation.
Serthar means “Golden Horse” in Tibetan. Legend has it that horsehead-shaped gold was ever discovered in the vast beautiful grassland
around, or there is a golden horse imbedded underneath.
In Serthar, the average annual temperature is -1ºC, with sufficient
sunlight, long winter and no summer.
Serthar is a place where the Tibetan Buddhism is centralized, very wellknown for the Serthar Buddhist Institution (also “Larung Gar Buddhist
Institution” or “Wuming Buddhist Institution”) in Larung Monastery.
Sertar is also a sensitive area that is often closed to foreign travelers.
Larung Gar is the largest institution of Tibetan Buddhism, which is still
possible to obtain a complete Buddhist education, based on the "five big
science": Buddhist philosophy, logic, Arts and Crafts, Medicine,
Grammar and "five small science": Synonyms, Mathematics and
astrology, drama, poetry, rhetoric.
Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, was founded in 1980 in an entirely
uninhabited valley by Jigme Phuntsok, an influential lama of the
Nyingma tradition. Despite its remote location, Larung Gar grew from a
handful of disciples to be one of the largest and most influential centers
for the study of Tibetan Buddhism in the world. Today it is home to over
40,000 monks, nuns and lay-students, with the mission of reviving the
Tibetan Buddhist educational tradition following the devastations of the
Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Like most monastic institutions
of Tibet, the academy was established when its teacher, followed by a
handful of disciples, constructed a simple home on the hill. The
community built around the temple, erected later, now houses a
population of monks and nuns whose number, due to a recent surge in
enrollment, is difficult to approximate.
The campus of Larung Gar is enormous. Houses for monks and nuns
sprawl all over the valley and up the surrounding mountains. A huge
wall through the middle of Larung Gar separates the monk side from the
nun side. Monks and nuns are not allowed out of their designated areas
except in front of the main monastery assembly hall which is common to
both nuns and monks. The houses are all built in a wood style that is
traditionally found in this region, and built so close together that they
appear almost on top of each other.
One of the most
surprising elements of Serthar is that more than half of those who come
to study are women. Entry into the relatively small number of nunneries
that exist in other areas of Tibet is limited, but Serthar was open to
virtually anyone who genuinely sought to become a student of Khenpo
Jigme Phuntsok’s ecumenical vision.
Another surprise at Serthar is that it attracts ethnic Chinese students as
well as students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia,
who attend separate classes taught in Mandarin, while larger classes are
taught in Tibetan.
Choeje (King of Dharma) Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche was the incarnation
of the great terton, Terchen Lerab Lingpa, who was a teacher of His
Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. In 1980, wanting to revitalize
Dharma and benefit all sentient beings, Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche
established Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy at Larung
Valley near Serthar, Sichuan Province, China.
This site was chosen because of its history as a sacred place in
Vajrayana, where monks went to achieve “rainbow body” (a high level
of spiritual achievement) and realize the “four karmas”. It is also said to
have been the place where His Holiness the First Dudjom Rinpoche
stayed, and at which his thirteen disciples attained “rainbow body”. The
aim of the institute can be summarized as four pursuits: to unite
Buddhists in harmony; to uphold pure precepts; to study, reflect upon,
and practice the sacred Dharma; and to propagate the Dharma and
benefit all beings.
In May of 1987, the Tenth Panchen Lama approved the founding of the
institute and presented a plaque on which he wrote, in Tibetan: “Larung
Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy”, and respectfully addressed His
Holiness Jigme Phuntsok as “Sage Choeje”. Mr. Puchu Zhao, the
Chairman of the Buddhist Association of China, supported the program
by writing the name of the institute in Chinese.
With these events, an era of revitalization of Tibetan Buddhism began.
The curriculum at Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy
includes three parts: Sutrayana, Secret Mantrayana, and common
culture. The main courses in Sutrayana involve five major categories of
treatise: Vinaya, Hetuvidya, Abhidharmakosa-Sastra, Madhyamika and
Prajnaparamita. Secret Mantrayana consists of esoteric shastra, various
preliminaries, generation phase, completion phase, the Great Perfection,
and pith instruction. Common culture pertains to the science of
language, the science of medicine, Tibetan language, etc.
In 1999, the Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy was identified
as one of the largest and most influential centers for study of Tibetan
Buddhism in the world. In more than 30 years, the institute has produced
hundreds of eminent Buddhist scholars and practitioners who in turn
have founded numerous Dharma centers around the world. By teaching
the sacred Dharma, revitalizing the traditional Tibetan culture, and
improving ethnic unity, they have made dramatic contributions in
propagating the Buddha Dharma.
At present, there are over ten thousand resident monastics of both
Tibetan and Han origin at the institute. In addition, tens of thousands of
members around the globe are engaged in Dharma study via online
courses taught by the institute’s senior Khenpo, Sodargye Rinpoche.
As early as two hundred years ago, a great siddha, the First Dodrupchen
Rinpoche, wrote in his Future Prophecy, “At Danjian Ala Mutian
Larung Valley, Guru Rinpoche will appear as the one named Jigme, who
is surrounded by the four groups of Bodhisattva disciples. His teachings
of sutra and tantra will shine like an illuminating sun; his activity of
benefiting beings, will be able to hold up the heavens and support the
earth; he will attract sentient beings in ten directions and lead them onto
the path of liberation; anyone making connections with him will be
reborn to the Buddha Amitabha’s Pureland.”
The prophecy is interpreted to mean that the Larung Valley, protected by
the Goddess of Mutian and surrounded by the sacred Danjian Mountain
and Ala Mountain, is a blessed site. Here Guru Rinpoche will appear as
His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche who will take four groups of
disciples: monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. He will spread the
Buddha Dharma throughout the world, and fortunate beings connected
with him will for certain take rebirth in the Pureland of Bliss.
This prophecy identified the name of His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok
Rinpoche, his disciples, the location of the Institute, and his
achievements in benefiting sentient beings. More importantly, whoever
makes a connection with him will find rebirth in Buddha Amitabha’s
Pureleand of Bliss. His great activities are being carried out and
expanding just as predicted, reaching the inner hearts of many people
around the world. Let us pray that the sutra and tantra, coming down
from His Holiness, will prosper throughout the world and continue to
benefit countless sentient beings.
The duration of the courses vary from one month to 13 years. It is said,
that in its heyday the academy housed 30,000 students. The official
number currently sits at 5,000.
The campus is enormous, with patchwork of small houses sprawling out
over the grasslands across the valley.
.
Currently, there are trained Tibetan Buddhism several thousand monks.
In Larung Gar rarely call in tourists, as the road is quite difficult and
time consuming, and the monastery itself is often closed to foreigners.
The popularity of the institution among Tibetans and Han Chinese alike
attracted the attention of the Chinese government in 2001, when officials
partially destroyed the village and dispersed its students.
The community has since recovered and thrives today under the tutelage
of Khenpo Sodargye Rinpoche, who has introduced online courses.
Jigme Phuntsok (1933-2004) was one of the key figures in the history of
20th Buddhism in Tibet, playing an extremely instrumental role in the
revival of the Dharma after the harsh religious persecutions of the
Cultural Revolution.
Jigme Phuntsok was born in 1933 into a family of nomads
from Golok Serthar - an ethnic Tibetan region in Sichuan Province,
China. In 1938, at the age of five, he was identified as the reincarnation
of the Terton Sogyal, Lerab Lingpa (1852–1926), guru to the 13th Dalai
Lama, and became a monk at Nubzur Gonpa, a branch of the Palyul
monastery in Serthar. The Palyul Monastery, founded in 1665 in the
Kham area of eastern Tibet (present day Baiyu, Sichuan), is one of the
six great "mother monasteries" of the Nyingma School, or Ancient
Translation Lineage.
After undergoing the intense training and education required of a high
incarnation, he received full monastic ordination and was enthroned as
the abbot (khenpo) of Nubzur at the time when China's new Communist
government began tightening its grip on Tibet.
As 1959 approached, with the radicalization of Communist Party
policies it was clear that an anti-religious persecution was coming in
China. In Tibet the Buddhist hierarchy was divided into those who
decided to head for the border and cross into India, and those who
resolved to stay in Tibet and weather the storm. In the hard years that
followed, many of those who refused to leave their country were
murdered or died in prison or labor camp.
During this period Jigme Phutsok chose to remain with his people, but
managed to outlive Mao's destructive and fanatical social experiments
by returning to the high steppes where he was born and assuming the
role of the family he had been born into - that of being a simple nomad.
As the Cultural Revolution raged through the country, he quietly herded
sheep and goats through the remote mountains and valleys of Sichuan.
In this way Khenpo Jigphun was able to continue his Buddhist practice
in his homeland and maintain contact with a core of students even in the
darkest times, often teaching in caves at night.
For almost twenty years Khenpo Jigme lived his underground nomad
life, quietly herding animals across the steppes, always somehow
eluding the Tibetan Red Guards and the Chinese Army. Then, in 1976,
Mao Zedong died. Although hard-core Maoist cadres would retain their
grip on some remote areas for another decade, in large parts of Tibet the
religious situation began to improve immediately. As soon as this
became clear, Khenpo Jigme put on his monastic robes again and
resumed teaching and writing openly.
In 1978 he founded the Larung Gar WuMing (Five Science) Buddhist
Institute in an entirely uninhabited valley in his native region of Serthar.
In 1987 Khenpo led several thousand of his disciples on a pilgrimage to
Wutaishan - the sacred Buddhist Mountain Center in Shanxi Province.
On the way, in Beijing, he met the Panchen Lama who had been released
from prison not long before. At the end of 1988, at the request of the
Panchen Lama, Khenpo gave a series of teachings at the Tibetan
Buddhist Institute in the Chinese capital, Beijing.
Soon after, Khenpo was invited to India to teach at the Nyingma schools.
While in India he also visited Dharamsala, where he and the Dalai Lama
resumed the guru-disciple connections they had had in their previous
lives. The Dalai Lama received Nyingma and Dzogchen teaching from
Khenpo. Once while they were walking together the entire Fire Puja
section of the practice of Vajrakilaya appeared in the sky above
Dharamsala.
Khenpo dictated the verses to the Dalai Lama, who personally
transcribed them.
In the 1990s, he began an appeal to traditional Tibetan yak herders to
refrain from commercial sale of their livestock for spiritual and cultural
reasons. This has grown into the Anti-Slaughter Movement.
In 1993, Khenpo made a teaching tour of Buddhist Centers in Europe
and North America. What he saw saddened him. While on the U.S. West
Coast, Khenpo is reported to have even broken down in tears in middle
of his sermon, disturbed by the materialism and spiritual shallowness of
Buddhist teachings in the West.
Meanwhile, thousands of students from all over Tibet, Mongolia, China,
and even overseas, were flocking to study at Larung Gar - so much so
that the Government panicked. Nor were they pleased with Khenpo's
new friendship with the Dalai Lama. In August 2001, the Public Security
Bureau and People’s Liberation Army marched into Larung Gar with
bulldozers and demolished over 2000 cottages, evicting thousands of
members, including all Han disciples. But that barely slowed the wave
of youth eager to study with a living legend, and today Sertha Lharong is
the largest religious college in the world.
Very soon after this incident Khenpo's health began to deteriorate. After
benefiting beings and the Dharma through his manifold enlightened
activities, on January 7, 2004, having reached the age of 70, Khenpo
Jigme Phuntsok passed into parinirvana.
LARUNG GAR
BUDDHIST ACADEMY
By
Tamarapu Sampath Kumaran
About the Author
Mr T Sampath Kumaran is a freelance writer. He regularly contributes
articles on Management, Business, Ancient Temples, and Temple
Architecture to many leading Dailies and Magazines.
His articles are popular in “The Young World section” of THE HINDU.
His e-books on nature, environment and different cultures of people
around the world are educative and of special interest to the young.
He was associated in the production of two Documentary films on Nava
Tirupathi Temples, and Tirukkurungudi Temple in Tamilnadu.
Acknowledgement:
I wish to express my gratitude to the authors from whose works I
gathered the details for this book, Sources: China Trekking, and
Courtesy, Google for the photographs.
- Tamarapu Sampath Kumaran
LARUNG GAR BUDDHIST ACADEMY
This is considered to be the world’s largest Buddhist settlement and
home for around 40,000 monks and nuns.
Founded by Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok in 1980, the institute also known as
“the five Buddhist Institute of Science", which was started out from a
handful of students gathering in Khenpo’s home has since grown to be
the largest and most influential center to study Tibetan Buddhism in the
world.
Reaching Larung Gar is not an easy task. It is located near Seda in
Sichuan Province in South West China. The valley can be reached
from Chengdu 650 kilometers away. The trip takes at least 15 hours by
vehicle, but this destination is well worth the arduous journey. “Seda” in
Chinese, also called Sertar, a Tibetan pasturing area located in the
northeast part of Ganzi Tibet, and autonomous prefecture of Sichuan,
featured with grassland, lakes, rivers and Tibetan atmosphere in the
plateau above 4000m in elevation.
Serthar means “Golden Horse” in Tibetan. Legend has it that horsehead-shaped gold was ever discovered in the vast beautiful grassland
around, or there is a golden horse imbedded underneath.
In Serthar, the average annual temperature is -1ºC, with sufficient
sunlight, long winter and no summer.
Serthar is a place where the Tibetan Buddhism is centralized, very wellknown for the Serthar Buddhist Institution (also “Larung Gar Buddhist
Institution” or “Wuming Buddhist Institution”) in Larung Monastery.
Sertar is also a sensitive area that is often closed to foreign travelers.
Larung Gar is the largest institution of Tibetan Buddhism, which is still
possible to obtain a complete Buddhist education, based on the "five big
science": Buddhist philosophy, logic, Arts and Crafts, Medicine,
Grammar and "five small science": Synonyms, Mathematics and
astrology, drama, poetry, rhetoric.
Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, was founded in 1980 in an entirely
uninhabited valley by Jigme Phuntsok, an influential lama of the
Nyingma tradition. Despite its remote location, Larung Gar grew from a
handful of disciples to be one of the largest and most influential centers
for the study of Tibetan Buddhism in the world. Today it is home to over
40,000 monks, nuns and lay-students, with the mission of reviving the
Tibetan Buddhist educational tradition following the devastations of the
Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Like most monastic institutions
of Tibet, the academy was established when its teacher, followed by a
handful of disciples, constructed a simple home on the hill. The
community built around the temple, erected later, now houses a
population of monks and nuns whose number, due to a recent surge in
enrollment, is difficult to approximate.
The campus of Larung Gar is enormous. Houses for monks and nuns
sprawl all over the valley and up the surrounding mountains. A huge
wall through the middle of Larung Gar separates the monk side from the
nun side. Monks and nuns are not allowed out of their designated areas
except in front of the main monastery assembly hall which is common to
both nuns and monks. The houses are all built in a wood style that is
traditionally found in this region, and built so close together that they
appear almost on top of each other.
One of the most
surprising elements of Serthar is that more than half of those who come
to study are women. Entry into the relatively small number of nunneries
that exist in other areas of Tibet is limited, but Serthar was open to
virtually anyone who genuinely sought to become a student of Khenpo
Jigme Phuntsok’s ecumenical vision.
Another surprise at Serthar is that it attracts ethnic Chinese students as
well as students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia,
who attend separate classes taught in Mandarin, while larger classes are
taught in Tibetan.
Choeje (King of Dharma) Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche was the incarnation
of the great terton, Terchen Lerab Lingpa, who was a teacher of His
Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. In 1980, wanting to revitalize
Dharma and benefit all sentient beings, Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche
established Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy at Larung
Valley near Serthar, Sichuan Province, China.
This site was chosen because of its history as a sacred place in
Vajrayana, where monks went to achieve “rainbow body” (a high level
of spiritual achievement) and realize the “four karmas”. It is also said to
have been the place where His Holiness the First Dudjom Rinpoche
stayed, and at which his thirteen disciples attained “rainbow body”. The
aim of the institute can be summarized as four pursuits: to unite
Buddhists in harmony; to uphold pure precepts; to study, reflect upon,
and practice the sacred Dharma; and to propagate the Dharma and
benefit all beings.
In May of 1987, the Tenth Panchen Lama approved the founding of the
institute and presented a plaque on which he wrote, in Tibetan: “Larung
Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy”, and respectfully addressed His
Holiness Jigme Phuntsok as “Sage Choeje”. Mr. Puchu Zhao, the
Chairman of the Buddhist Association of China, supported the program
by writing the name of the institute in Chinese.
With these events, an era of revitalization of Tibetan Buddhism began.
The curriculum at Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy
includes three parts: Sutrayana, Secret Mantrayana, and common
culture. The main courses in Sutrayana involve five major categories of
treatise: Vinaya, Hetuvidya, Abhidharmakosa-Sastra, Madhyamika and
Prajnaparamita. Secret Mantrayana consists of esoteric shastra, various
preliminaries, generation phase, completion phase, the Great Perfection,
and pith instruction. Common culture pertains to the science of
language, the science of medicine, Tibetan language, etc.
In 1999, the Larung Gar Five Sciences Buddhist Academy was identified
as one of the largest and most influential centers for study of Tibetan
Buddhism in the world. In more than 30 years, the institute has produced
hundreds of eminent Buddhist scholars and practitioners who in turn
have founded numerous Dharma centers around the world. By teaching
the sacred Dharma, revitalizing the traditional Tibetan culture, and
improving ethnic unity, they have made dramatic contributions in
propagating the Buddha Dharma.
At present, there are over ten thousand resident monastics of both
Tibetan and Han origin at the institute. In addition, tens of thousands of
members around the globe are engaged in Dharma study via online
courses taught by the institute’s senior Khenpo, Sodargye Rinpoche.
As early as two hundred years ago, a great siddha, the First Dodrupchen
Rinpoche, wrote in his Future Prophecy, “At Danjian Ala Mutian
Larung Valley, Guru Rinpoche will appear as the one named Jigme, who
is surrounded by the four groups of Bodhisattva disciples. His teachings
of sutra and tantra will shine like an illuminating sun; his activity of
benefiting beings, will be able to hold up the heavens and support the
earth; he will attract sentient beings in ten directions and lead them onto
the path of liberation; anyone making connections with him will be
reborn to the Buddha Amitabha’s Pureland.”
The prophecy is interpreted to mean that the Larung Valley, protected by
the Goddess of Mutian and surrounded by the sacred Danjian Mountain
and Ala Mountain, is a blessed site. Here Guru Rinpoche will appear as
His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche who will take four groups of
disciples: monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. He will spread the
Buddha Dharma throughout the world, and fortunate beings connected
with him will for certain take rebirth in the Pureland of Bliss.
This prophecy identified the name of His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok
Rinpoche, his disciples, the location of the Institute, and his
achievements in benefiting sentient beings. More importantly, whoever
makes a connection with him will find rebirth in Buddha Amitabha’s
Pureleand of Bliss. His great activities are being carried out and
expanding just as predicted, reaching the inner hearts of many people
around the world. Let us pray that the sutra and tantra, coming down
from His Holiness, will prosper throughout the world and continue to
benefit countless sentient beings.
The duration of the courses vary from one month to 13 years. It is said,
that in its heyday the academy housed 30,000 students. The official
number currently sits at 5,000.
The campus is enormous, with patchwork of small houses sprawling out
over the grasslands across the valley.
.
Currently, there are trained Tibetan Buddhism several thousand monks.
In Larung Gar rarely call in tourists, as the road is quite difficult and
time consuming, and the monastery itself is often closed to foreigners.
The popularity of the institution among Tibetans and Han Chinese alike
attracted the attention of the Chinese government in 2001, when officials
partially destroyed the village and dispersed its students.
The community has since recovered and thrives today under the tutelage
of Khenpo Sodargye Rinpoche, who has introduced online courses.
Jigme Phuntsok (1933-2004) was one of the key figures in the history of
20th Buddhism in Tibet, playing an extremely instrumental role in the
revival of the Dharma after the harsh religious persecutions of the
Cultural Revolution.
Jigme Phuntsok was born in 1933 into a family of nomads
from Golok Serthar - an ethnic Tibetan region in Sichuan Province,
China. In 1938, at the age of five, he was identified as the reincarnation
of the Terton Sogyal, Lerab Lingpa (1852–1926), guru to the 13th Dalai
Lama, and became a monk at Nubzur Gonpa, a branch of the Palyul
monastery in Serthar. The Palyul Monastery, founded in 1665 in the
Kham area of eastern Tibet (present day Baiyu, Sichuan), is one of the
six great "mother monasteries" of the Nyingma School, or Ancient
Translation Lineage.
After undergoing the intense training and education required of a high
incarnation, he received full monastic ordination and was enthroned as
the abbot (khenpo) of Nubzur at the time when China's new Communist
government began tightening its grip on Tibet.
As 1959 approached, with the radicalization of Communist Party
policies it was clear that an anti-religious persecution was coming in
China. In Tibet the Buddhist hierarchy was divided into those who
decided to head for the border and cross into India, and those who
resolved to stay in Tibet and weather the storm. In the hard years that
followed, many of those who refused to leave their country were
murdered or died in prison or labor camp.
During this period Jigme Phutsok chose to remain with his people, but
managed to outlive Mao's destructive and fanatical social experiments
by returning to the high steppes where he was born and assuming the
role of the family he had been born into - that of being a simple nomad.
As the Cultural Revolution raged through the country, he quietly herded
sheep and goats through the remote mountains and valleys of Sichuan.
In this way Khenpo Jigphun was able to continue his Buddhist practice
in his homeland and maintain contact with a core of students even in the
darkest times, often teaching in caves at night.
For almost twenty years Khenpo Jigme lived his underground nomad
life, quietly herding animals across the steppes, always somehow
eluding the Tibetan Red Guards and the Chinese Army. Then, in 1976,
Mao Zedong died. Although hard-core Maoist cadres would retain their
grip on some remote areas for another decade, in large parts of Tibet the
religious situation began to improve immediately. As soon as this
became clear, Khenpo Jigme put on his monastic robes again and
resumed teaching and writing openly.
In 1978 he founded the Larung Gar WuMing (Five Science) Buddhist
Institute in an entirely uninhabited valley in his native region of Serthar.
In 1987 Khenpo led several thousand of his disciples on a pilgrimage to
Wutaishan - the sacred Buddhist Mountain Center in Shanxi Province.
On the way, in Beijing, he met the Panchen Lama who had been released
from prison not long before. At the end of 1988, at the request of the
Panchen Lama, Khenpo gave a series of teachings at the Tibetan
Buddhist Institute in the Chinese capital, Beijing.
Soon after, Khenpo was invited to India to teach at the Nyingma schools.
While in India he also visited Dharamsala, where he and the Dalai Lama
resumed the guru-disciple connections they had had in their previous
lives. The Dalai Lama received Nyingma and Dzogchen teaching from
Khenpo. Once while they were walking together the entire Fire Puja
section of the practice of Vajrakilaya appeared in the sky above
Dharamsala.
Khenpo dictated the verses to the Dalai Lama, who personally
transcribed them.
In the 1990s, he began an appeal to traditional Tibetan yak herders to
refrain from commercial sale of their livestock for spiritual and cultural
reasons. This has grown into the Anti-Slaughter Movement.
In 1993, Khenpo made a teaching tour of Buddhist Centers in Europe
and North America. What he saw saddened him. While on the U.S. West
Coast, Khenpo is reported to have even broken down in tears in middle
of his sermon, disturbed by the materialism and spiritual shallowness of
Buddhist teachings in the West.
Meanwhile, thousands of students from all over Tibet, Mongolia, China,
and even overseas, were flocking to study at Larung Gar - so much so
that the Government panicked. Nor were they pleased with Khenpo's
new friendship with the Dalai Lama. In August 2001, the Public Security
Bureau and People’s Liberation Army marched into Larung Gar with
bulldozers and demolished over 2000 cottages, evicting thousands of
members, including all Han disciples. But that barely slowed the wave
of youth eager to study with a living legend, and today Sertha Lharong is
the largest religious college in the world.
Very soon after this incident Khenpo's health began to deteriorate. After
benefiting beings and the Dharma through his manifold enlightened
activities, on January 7, 2004, having reached the age of 70, Khenpo
Jigme Phuntsok passed into parinirvana.
