Comings and Goings

Remarks on the Outer Life of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

Names and Forms of Address

Born in 1934 to a nomad family from Nangchen, Kham in Eastern Tibet, Sherab Lodro subsequently received the Dharma name "Tsultrim Gyamtso" (Ocean of Ethical Conduct) from one of his teachers. "Khenpo" is a title of scholastic mastery. "Rinpoche" (Precious One) is a title of profound respect, devotion, and affection reserved for those masters who have achieved great realization.

Early Years

Here is a brief account of how a boy from an inaccessible area of a remote country became the world-renowned teacher, scholar, and yogi: Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. When he was two years old, his father died suddenly. Thereafter, his mother devoted herself full-time to Dharma practice. As her youngest child, Sherab Lodro, as Rinpoche was called when he was young, accompanied her on pilgrimages and to Dharma teachings and initiations, even staying by her side when she undertook extended retreats. By nature and nurture drawn to spiritual practice, Rinpoche left home at an early age to train with a yogi who would become one of his root teachers, Lama Zopa Tarchin.

The Wandering Yogi

After completing this early training, Tsultrim Gyamtso embraced the life of a yogi-ascetic. For five years he wandered throughout Eastern and Central Tibet, undertaking intensive, solitary retreats in caves to realize directly the teachings he had received. During these years he often lived in charnel grounds in order to practice and master "Chod," a skillful means to cut ego clinging, develop compassion, and realize deeper levels of emptiness.

Mind Transmission from the 16th Karmapa

Reaching Tsurphu Monastery (historic seat of the Karma Kagyu lineage and its head, the Karmapa), Rinpoche received pointing out instructions on the nature of mind from His Holiness, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa. While living in the caves above Tsurphu, Rinpoche was given key instructions on the Six Yogas of Naropa, the Hevajra Tantra, and other profound practices from Dilyak Tenzin Drupon Rinpoche and other masters.

India and the Refugee Camps

The following year, while in retreat at a place called Nyemo, a group of nuns approached him for help against the Chinese invaders. Rinpoche led them and others over the Himalayas to safety in Bhutan and later built them a nunnery, retreat center, and school, which he still oversees.

Rinpoche spent the next nine years at the Buxador Tibetan Refugee Camp in North India. Though full of hardship, this period of his life was extremely productive: He studied and mastered the sutras, the tantras, and all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism; became renowned for his skill in logic and debate; and received a Khenpo degree from His Holiness, the 16th Karmapa, and the equivalent Geshe Lharampa degree from His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.

More than a Quarter-century of Traveling and Teaching

On July 17, 1977, Rinpoche arrived in Paris, France, and began to teach Westerners Dharma and classical Tibetan Dharma language. Since then, Rinpoche has traveled extensively, completing annual world tours in response to invitations that flow in from Europe, the United States, Canada, South America, Southeast Asia, Africa and Australia. In 1986, he founded the Marpa Institute for Translators, in Boudhanath, Nepal, which offered intensive winter courses in language and scripture. Khenpo Rinpoche continued to supervise this annual event when it moved to Pullahari Monastery above Boudhanath. Though Rinpoche personally teaches less at Pullahari now, the program continues to draw students, both old and new, from all over the world.

Training a New Generation of Khenpos

During this time Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche, in conjunction with Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, trained a new generation of Kagyu tulkus and khenpos: the 1991 graduates of the Nalanda Institute for Higher Studies, in Rumtek, Sikkim. Among these young masters, the Khenpo has formed a special relationship with The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, whose many students particularly appreciate his fluent English and ease of teaching in that language. Ponlop Rinpoche has founded the Nitartha Institute, one of whose missions is to collect, archive, and build a complete database of Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche's oral teachings. Moreover, Khenpo Rinpoche serves as spiritual advisor for Nalandabodhi, the teaching arm of Ponlop Rinpoche's Dharma activities.

Training Skilled Translators

Over the years, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche has developed outstanding translators whose clarity and accuracy reflect years of study and practice, and whose dedication contributes immeasurably to making the precious Dharma of Tibet available in many languages. In addition to translating classic texts, these students are equally committed to preserving Rinpoche's own oral commentaries, talks, and songs of spiritual realization. Some of Khenpo's senior students now teach the very texts they translated or studied under his close supervision.

Unique Training of Nuns

Khenpo Tsultrim has built a nunnery, school, and retreat center for women of Tibetan origin in the Helambu region of Nepal, near Milarepa's retreat cave in Yolmo. Both there and in his Bhutanese nunnery, Rinpoche demonstrates a firm commitment to providing nuns with the same opportunities—especially for study—as those traditionally extended to monks. An innovation in his approach is to train each nun to carry out every function of monastic life, rather than to specialize in just one. Thus, all anis learn musical instruments, make tormas, tend the shrine room, serve as chant or ritual master, do bookkeping, tend the garden, cook, etc. This departure from tradition, though personally and administratively demanding, fosters a democratic atmosphere among the nuns, develops their capabilities to the fullest, and allows the community to respond without disruption to unexpected situations and changing conditions.

The Milarepa of our Time

While Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso unites prodigious scholarship and intellect with great compassion, he also embodies the training and temperament of a true yogi. In fact, Rinpoche is often compared to the great yogi Milarepa, whom he resembles in both substance and style: Rinpoche has no fixed abode, few possessions; he has practiced for years in solitude, sometimes sealed in darkness. Like Milarepa, he is known for his dohas, spontaneous songs of realization that offer insight into genuine reality. Such dohas may emerge to answer a question, clarify a difficult point, or to expand or comment on one of Milarepa's own songs. The Autobiography that follows is an example of one of Rinpoche's spontaneous songs of realization.