Dargyay, Lobsang

Dargyay, Lobsang on the DRL

Authors of English Works • Ordained (Monks and Nuns) • Geshes • Professors

Lobsang Dargyay

English Phonetics	Geshe Lobsang Dargyay

Dates

Birth:	1935
Death:	1994
Place of birth:	Kartö, Gyalrong, Kham

Tibetan calendar dates

Dates of birth

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

Dates of passing

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

About

Biographical Information

Geshe-la was born in 1935 in Kartö (Kar stod), a small village in the principality of Gyalrong in Kham, part of the province of Sichuan, to parents who made a living as semi-nomads (sa ma 'brog). His birth name was Orgyen Hegya (O rgyan Hre rgya). He was the first of his mother's children to survive. Geshe-la had endless stories to tell about his childhood, the pranks he played, the scolding he received from his mother and, above all, the enduring love of his grandparents, to whom he was very attached. Early on, his mother and grandmother kindled in him the desire to embrace a religious life. He dreamed of becoming a yogi, living in a cave and emulating the life of Milarepa, the famous Tibetan poet-saint. While still a small boy, he ran away from home to seek spiritual instruction at the monastery of Rahor. This Nyingma monastery, small by traditional Tibetan standards, had a reputation as a place where the tantric practice of the Old School (rnying ma) was combined with the scholastic and philosophical training characteristic of the Gelug monasteries. Monastic discipline and rigorous learning were mandatory. In this monastery he received his monastic name, Blo bzang dar rgyas. Here he learned to read and write, and to memorize the basic religious texts, but he also trained in the practice of gtum mo, the fabled ability to increase one's body temperature.

Years later Lobsang Dargyay accompanied his cousin Rahor Rinpoche Thubten Kalsang (Ra hor Rin po che Thub bstan skal bzang), head of Rahor Monastery, Lhasa, to Drepung Monastery where they both continued their study of Buddhist philosophy. Lobsang Dargyay put all his efforts into absorbing the traditional five subjects of the scholastic training. Among his teachers one finds some of the intellectual elite of the Tibetan monastic system at that time. During the New Years celebration of 1958, he demonstrated his competence in Buddhist philosophy during a public debate in the Jokhang temple of Lhasa. He was subsequently awarded the degree of geshe (dge bshes).

His intention to further his studies at Drepung before returning to his home monastery was shattered when the political events of the late 1950s forced him (together with Rahor Rinpoche and a group of other monks and lay people from the same area) to leave Lhasa. During the winter of 1958-59 they traveled through the northern steppes (byang thang) before turning south to cross the Tsangpo River, heading toward Nepal and India, where they were granted asylum. There they learned about the March uprising in Lhasa and about the flight of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The years of immersing himself in the depth of Buddhist philosophy and the joy he had experienced in exploring and understanding the intricacies of texts like the one presented here in translation came to an abrupt end. He had not only lost his native land and family but also the community of monks and the comfort it provided him, a loss that inflicted on him continuous pain.

In India he settled first in Kalimpong, in the midst of a large number of other Tibetan refugees. He continued to hope that he might return to Tibet in the near future. As he waited, he spent the days learning English and furthering his studies of Buddhist thought. As time progressed, it became clear that a return to Tibet would not happen so soon. The Tibetans started to establish themselves in India and to make their culture and Buddhist heritage known. Geshe Lobsang Dargyay was sent to Punjabi University as lecturer in Tibetan. He began to adjust to a secular life, keeping his monastic practice to himself and hidden from the eyes of those who comprised his new surroundings. As the years passed, he achieved a certain comfort by teaching Tibetan to Indian students, learning English and Hindi, and building a supportive community of colleagues and friends around him. Suddenly, Geshe-la was called to Dharamsala to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama. To his great surprise, His Holiness told him that he would be sent as religious teacher to a group of Kalmyks living as refugees in Germany. While many Tibetans would have welcomed the chance to move to a Western country, Geshe-la anticipated with anxiety this renewed disruption of his life.

Geshe-la arrived at Frankfurt airport in the late fall of 1967, dressed in cotton robes more suitable for an Indian climate than for a German winter. German was a language unknown to him. In Ludwigsfeld, a suburb of Munich, he was offered accommodation in barracks that had housed prisoners of war during World War II. Gradually he began to sort out this new and totally unfamiliar environment. The older Kalmyks, who were devout Buddhists, spoke only their own Mongolian language and a few words of Russian; the younger ones spoke German and had little interest in a religion that seemed foreign to them. The old Kalmyk monk, known only by his title "Baksha," knew a few Tibetan words from his prayer texts. From modest beginnings, Geshe-la built a lively community of Buddhists, most of them Germans. He organized teachings, invited learned monks—for instance, Geshe Ngawang Nyima (Dge gshes Ngag dbang nyi ma), who later became abbot at the rebuilt Drepung Monastery in India—and held workshops on meditation. He joined the Department of Indian and Iranian Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich as a research scholar, where his responsibilities included cataloging the Rin chen gter mdzod. In 1969 he was admitted as a doctoral student into the program of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität. In 1974 he was the first Tibetan to receive his doctoral degree (cum laude) based on his dissertation, Die Legende von den sieben Prinzessinnen (Saptakumārikā-Avadāna). This work was subsequently published in Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 2 (Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetischen und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien, 1978). Geshe-la then took up a position as Wissenschaftlicher Assistant at the Institut für Südasien-, Buddhismus- und Tibetkunde at the University of Vienna, Austria. He worked closely with Dr. Ernst Steinkellner (University of Vienna), Dr. Michael Hahn (University of Bonn), and Dr. Dieter Schlingloff (University of Munich), who had also supervised Geshe-las dissertation. At the University of Vienna, Geshe-la taught literary as well as modern Tibetan. Together with myself, Geshe-la conducted fìeldwork in Zanskar, Ladakh, during 1978-79.

After the unexpected and premature death of Geshe Gendün Lodrö (Dge bshes Dge 'dun blo gros), Geshe-la taught at the University of Hamburg, Germany, where he started to work on Gorampa's Lta ba'i shan 'byed. Dr. Lambert Schmithausen provided immeasurable support and advice for this project. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) financed the project for several years. Geshe-la's immigration to Canada in 1981 slowed the work down but did not bring it to a halt.

In Canada, Geshe-la had to adjust again to a new environment. He taught Tibetan language in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, and became fellow at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities. He benefited from working with Dr. Leslie Kawamura and Dr. Harold Coward, both at the University of Calgary. A group of interested students studied a number of seminal Tibetan texts under Geshe-la's guidance; some of them were published. During these years, the translation of Gorampa's work continued, with many versions being exchanged between Geshe-la and Dr. Schmithausen.

In 1990 Geshe-la visited Tibet for the first time since he had left in 1958. He returned to his birthplace in Kham. Meeting his family and his half-brother (also a monk) and seeing the rebuilt Rahor Monastery and the rebirth of religious life at this institution brought him great joy. He loved talking about the sturdy horses and the wildflowers carpeting the grassy slopes of his native place. He also relished the ease of living again among people who spoke his own tongue. Happily he conversed with old and young monks and gave advice and encouragement to his numerous nephews and nieces. He was considering returning to Tibet for good, but his karma took a different turn: in January 1991, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy slowed the disease but could not halt it. Despite his illness, which impaired his ability to swallow solid food, he returned to Kham in 1993. During the customary rainy retreat, he taught Buddhist philosophy for several months to the monks of Rahor. Although weakened by his illness, he experienced the fulfillment of his dreams when he was formally installed as abbot (mkhan po) for philosophical studies (mthsan nyid grva tshang) at Rahor Monastery. Finally, he had returned home, in both body and spirit. He selected a piece of land upon which he wanted to build his own little house, and he received permission from the Sichuan Government to settle for good in Rahor. He returned to Canada intending to prepare for his move to Tibet, but his illness worsened dramatically. He spent the last months of his life meditating and preparing himself for the great transition. When he was not meditating, he composed a history of Rahor Monastery. He passed away in Edmonton, Alberta, on October 4, 1994, comforted by friends and students. His ashes were taken back to Rahor Monastery together with some personal belongings. (Source: "In Memoriam: Geshe Lobsang Dargyay" by Eva Neumaier. Freedom from Extremes, 2007.)

Links

Wiki Pages

• Dargyay, Lobsang on the DRL
• Dargyay, Lobsang on the LIB
• Dargyay, Lobsang on the BNW

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The Nyingma, which is often described as the oldest tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, traces its origin to Padmasambhava, who is said to have visited Tibet in the eighth century.

The Nyingma, which is often described as the oldest tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, traces its origin to Padmasambhava, who is said to have visited Tibet in the eighth century.

The Geluk tradition traces its origin to Tsongkhapa, who propagated a modified version of the Kadampa lojong and lamrim teachings. It is the dominant tradition of Tibet, having established its control of the government under the figure of the Dalai Lama.

Refers to something that is taught for a specific reason, rather than because it is entirely true.

Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana).

Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The state of being devoid of that which is wholly different rather than being void of its own nature. The term is generally used to refer to the ultimate, or buddha-nature, being empty of other phenomena such as adventitious defiling emotions but not empty of its true nature.

The state of being empty of self, which references the lack of inherent existence in relative phenomena.

Tsen Khawoche's "meditative tradition" of exegesis of the Uttaratantra; it is one of two major Tibetan traditions of exegesis, both stemming from students of Sajjana.