About Geshe Drakpa Gelek
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Geshe Drakpa Gelek |
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Geshe Drakpa Gelek was born in the Keydong, Zongka
region in Central Tibet. He sought political asylum in India in the
wake of Communist China's invasion and subsequent occupation of Tibet,
which until then, preserved one of humankind's most ancient civilizations
and traditions. He began his monastic education in one of Tibet's
largest and most prestigious Buddhist centers of learning, Drepung
Losel-Ling Monastic University, which is now re-established in India.
(Founded in 1416 in Tibet, Drepung Monastery was the home of the early
Dalai Lamas.) He was formally ordained as a novice monk by His Eminence
Drepung Khenchen Pema Gyaltsen and was given the religious name Drakpa
Gelek.
In 1991, Geshe Drakpa Gelek successfully completed
the intensive spiritual studies and training in the five sciences,
and graduated with a Master of Metaphysics degree, called Geshe, from
Drepung Loseling Monastic University. Following completion of the
Geshe degree, he enrolled himself at the re-established Lower Tantric
University in Hunsur, India, in 1992. For his skilled communication
and originality, he was unanimously appointed as Disciplinarian of
the Tantric University. Geshe Drakpa taught Buddhist philosophy and
practice at Drepung University from 1991 to 1997, and is well-known
for his in-depth spiritual insights, knowledge, and debating skills
among the monks, students, and faculty members of the re-established
monastic universities of Sera, Drepung, and Gaden in India.
Since 1997, he has been living in solitude in spiritual
retreat in the high mountains in Dharamsala where the headquarters
of the Tibetan Government in-exile is based. He receives empowerments
and experiential teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and occasionally
from other spiritual teachers. He has taught general Tantra and Kalachakra
Tantra Grounds and Paths to the monks of Namgyal Monastery, the personal
monastery of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, during their regular annual
summer retreat. Over the past year, he has traveled to South Korea,
Spain, Belgium, and France to give teachings.
Geshe Drakpa became fully ordained as Bhikshu (monk)
from His Holiness the Dalai Lama before the age of twenty. He has
received profound and vast Buddhist non-sectarian teachings of empowerment,
oral transmission, pith-instruction, and commentaries of a number
of distinguished and accomplished spiritual teachers including His
Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama's tutors His Eminence
Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and His Eminence Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, as
well as other realized Buddhist saint-scholars. He received spiritual
education in the five major Buddhist philosophy and tenets (such as
the Buddhist Science of Debate, the perfection of transcendental wisdom
{Prajnaparamita}, the theory of the Middle Way View {Madhayamaka},
the ethical discipline {Vinaya}, and the Buddhist science of Cosmology
{Abhidharmakosha}) by several of Tibet's renowned saint-scholars and
accomplished spiritual masters such as His Eminence Drepung Khenchen
Pema Gyaltsen, and His Eminence Shakor Khen Nyima Gyaltsen. He received
the rare and precious oral transmissions of the entire 100 texts of
the Buddha's actual teaching, the Kangyur, for six months in 1999
and 2000, and the complete works of the founder of the Gelukpa sect,
Je Tsongkhapa Rinpoche, and his two heart-disciples saint-scholar
Gyaltsab Je and Khedrup Je. He also received explanatory transmission
of "The Great Commentary of the Kalachakra Tantra"
(the Vimalaprabha) from His Eminence Kyabje Kirti Tsenshab
Rinpoche, and the complete oral transmission of the 225 voluminous
Buddhist spiritual commentaries, the Tengyur, written by the great
Buddhist masters from ancient India and Tibet, from the accomplished
hermit His Eminence Paknang Rinpoche.
