Namgyal Rinpoche

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The Venerable Kyabje Namgyal Rinpoche, Karma Tenzin Dorje (1931-2003), born Leslie George Dawson in Toronto, Canada, was a Tibetan Buddhist lama in the Karma Kagyu tradition.

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[edit] Early life

Namgyal Rinpoche was raised a Christian by religious parents who hoped he would one day become a minister. He attended a seminary college, and went on to graduate school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he became active in communist activism. He became disillusioned with the movement after a visit to Moscow, and moved to London, England in 1956.

[edit] Theravada Studies in Asia

While in London he became involved with Theosophy and then with Theravadan Buddhism through a chance encounter with Sayadaw U Thila Wunta, a Burmese forest-monk who accepted Dawson as a disciple. In 1958, they travelled together to Bodh Gaya, India, on a pilgrimage, where Dawson became a shramanera (novice monk). Later in the year they went on to Burma, where Dawson was ordained a bhiksu (fully ordained monk) and given the name "Anandabodhi." At this point he undertook intensive meditation practice, under the guidance of U Thila Wunta and Mahasi Sayadaw, and in Thailand with Chao Kun Pra Rajasiddhimuni. In Sri Lanka he studied the Pali Suttas and the Visuddhimagga, an extensive meditation text. He was the title Acharya, "teacher of Dhamma."

[edit] Return to the United Kingdom and Canada

In 1961 Anandabodhi returned to England at the invitation of the English Sangha Trust. He was a special guest speaker at the Fifth International Congress of Psychotherapists in London, where he met Julian Huxley, Anna Freud and R.D.Laing, among others. Shortly thereafter he founded the Johnstone House Contemplative Community, a Buddhist retreat center in Scotland. It was at this time that he first met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama and refugee living in Oxford. Anandabodhi provided him with assistance and bequeathed him Johnstone House, which became Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West.

In 1965 Anandabodhi returned to Canada with two of his senior students, Tony Olbrecht and Barry Goulden, where he established a new community over the five years that followed. He began to stress the study of psychology, western philosophy, exercise, diet, and the appreciation of fine art and music, as a supplement to traditional Buddhist training. He began taking students on trips with him on cargo ships to various foreign locales.

[edit] As Namgyal Rinpoche

In the course of an excursion to India, Anandabodhi was recognized by His Holiness the16th Karmapa, the supreme head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, as an incarnation of one of the most esteemed Nyingma lamas in history, Ju Mipham Jamyang Namgyal Gyatso. Anandabodhi was officially enthroned and given the name and title "Karma Tenzin Dorje Namgyal Rinpoche," and given relics of Ju Mipham.

Thereafter, Namgyal Rinpoche practiced and taught in the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism as a disciple of the Karmapa. He was subsequently recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with whom he developed a close friendship, and by His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, then head of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. He established dharma centers around the world.

At times, Rinpoche would revert to his given name, George Dawson, and abolish the outer manifestations of Tibetan Buddhism that he believed were being wrongly fetishized by students. He would reestablish them subsequently. His students report he performed miraculous feats, averting landslides and healing illnesses. He continued to teach until his death in 2003, having empowered a number of senior students to continue his work.

Rinpoche at times referred to himself as "The Teacher" or as "Star One". He sometimes adopted unorthodox sexual practices with his younger students, on the basis of which, and partly because of simmering internal rivalry, one of his meditation centres withdrew its association with his name and went on to form a breakaway group.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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