Dezhung Rinpoche

Dezhung Rinpoche Kunga Tenpai Nyima (Tibetan: སྡེ་གཞུང་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཀུན་དགའ་བསྟན་པའི་ཉི་མ་, Wylie: sde gzhung rin po che kun dga' bstan pa'i nyi ma ), born Kunchok Lhundrup[1] (February 26,[1] 1906–1987), was a Tibetan lama of the Sakya school. Sakya is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug. In 1960 he came to Seattle, Washington in the United States of America, one of the first Tibetan lamas to settle and teach in the United States.[2]

Dezhung Rinpoche III, likely Seattle, date unknown

Tulku Dezhung Rinpoche IV in 1999

Rinpoche was the teacher of a number of renowned Tibetologists, including Turrell V. Wylie and E. Gene Smith, Tibetan Art expert Jeff Watt and the root teacher of leading translator Christopher Wilkinson. [3]

Rinpoche died in 1987. His reincarnation, Dezhung Rinpoche IV, was born in Seattle in 1991, and trained at Tharlam Monastery in Nepal.[4][5][6]

References

1. Jackson, David Paul (2003). A Saint in Seattle : The Life of the Tibetan Mystic Dezhung Rinpoche (1st ed.). Boston: Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-396-6. OCLC 54479651. Kunchok Lhundrup, born on the third day of the first lunar month of the fire-horse year (ca. February 26), 1906; died 1987.
2. Jackson, David Paul (2003). A Saint in Seattle: The Life of the Tibetan Mystic Dezhung Rinpoche. Wisdom publications. pp. 768 pages. ISBN 0-86171-396-6.
3. Wilkinson, Christopher (2015). The Gods and Demons are Not Two. CreateSpace. p. i. ISBN 978-1519615701.
4. AP (29 January 1996). "Seattle Boy, 4, Enthroned as a Lama in Nepal". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
5. Halverson, Matthew (2 February 2016). "Seattle's Sonham Wangdu Is Tibet's Dezhung Rinpoche Reincarnated". Seattle Met. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
6. Moriwaki, Lee (20 January 1996). "Buddhists Revere 4-year-old As Reincarnated Lama". Sun Sentinel. Retrieved 5 August 2017.

External links

• Biography of Dezhung Rinpoche