Gelek Rimpoche

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.[1] His father was the 10th Demo Rinpoche and his uncle was the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.

Nawang Gelek Rimpoche (aka Gehlek Rimpoche)
སྐྱབས་རྗེ་དགེ་ལེགས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།
Gelek Rinpoche
Title	Lama
Personal
Born	(1939-10-26)26 October 1939 Lhasa, Tibet
Died	15 February 2017(2017-02-15) (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 Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Cyndi Lee, Joe Liozzo, Glenn Mullin, Robert Thurman
Profession	teacher

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."[2] 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.[3][4]

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.”[5]

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."[6]

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."[1][7] He was one of the first students of the Young Lamas Home School and later gave up monastic life.[8][9][10] 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.[11][6] 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.[12][13] In 1964 he was an exchange student at Cornell University.[6]

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.[14][15][16] 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.[17][18][19] 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.[20] Demo Rinpoche, Rimpoche's nephew, has served as Jewel Heart’s Resident Spiritual Director since 2018.[21]

Gelek Rinpoche died on February 15, 2017, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after undergoing surgery the previous month.[22][23][24][25][26][27]

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."[28][29][30]