Geshe Jampa Gyatso was born in Dham in north-central Tibet in early 1932, although his passport has his birth date as December 15, 1931. The first of seven children of a Tibetan nomad family,he was named Pelgye by his parents. As an infant he suffered from frequent illnesses that at times even risked his life, but his health dramatically improved when he reached the age of four. During that same year, a visiting Nyingma lama predicted that the boy would leave home at thirteen to become a monk, and would never want for physical nourishment. At the age of seven he received the intermediate renunciate vows from the famed Purchog Jamgon Rinpoche of Sera Je Monastery. Rinpoche, recognized as the manifestation of the future Buddha Maitreya, gave the boy the name ‘Jampa Gyatso,’ which means ‘Ocean of Love.’

Although it wouldn’t be until the age of twenty-two that Jampa Gyatso would become a fully ordained monk, at the age of thirteen he did indeed leave home to live and study at the famous Sera Je Monastery outside Lhasa as predicted nine years earlier. His routine for the next three years was strict: rising at four a.m., he would clean the room and make offerings on the altar before making a fire fortea. At first his time was spent mainly in memorizing texts and helping with chores, though he would sometimes ‘escape’ for a walk to Lhasa or a nearby lake.

At sixteen, Jampa Gyatso began his formal study of Buddhist philosophy with the text called Collected Topics, memorizing pages while he did his chores. He attended the various daily assemblies of monks in the main hall and began to learn and practice the art of debate, which is used as a means to study and actualize the meaning of the philosophical texts. It was at Sera that Jampa Gyatso met Lama Thubten Yeshe, who would become one of his dearest friends. Jampa Gyatso and Lama Yeshe were ardent debaters, and formed debating groups amongst their friends to practice the art of debate together. When theyweren’t in class or debating, Jampa Gyatso and Lama Yeshe, along with another friend, would sneak off to Lama Yeshe’s room. There, behind the locked door, they would read the songs and biographies of great meditators.

During this time Jampa Gyatso took ordination as a novice monk with the great master, Tag Rig Dorje Chang, studied the vows, and received lam-rim teachings from the tutor of the Dalai Lama, Trijang Rinpoche. For the next six years he studied the Perfection of Wisdom sutras and continued to receive teachings on the lam-rim. Encouraged by his guru, Geshe Tashi Bum, at the age of twenty-two Jampa Gyatso received full ordination.

Geshe Jampa Gyatso spent the next several years helping in the preparation of the land that was donated by the Indian government to the Lower Tantric College. He worked in the fields until a request from the Religious Affairs Department petitioned him to leave to take part in a new research program at the Higher Tibetan Institute in Varanasi. With the help of other scholars, Geshe Jampa Gyatso chose to investigate and compare the various interpretations of the aspects of the three knowers (a topic from the Perfection of Wisdom sutras) from the viewpoint of the different philosophical schools. His research at Varanasi culminated in 1976 with a final thesis of 480 pages.

Jampa Gyatso’s life took a dramatic turn in 1959 when the Chinese occupation of Tibet forced him, like thousands of other Tibetans, to leave his native land. Leaving his texts and possessions behind, on March 27, 1959, on the advice of his guru, together with Lama Yeshe he joined a party of thirty-five to escape toward Bhutan and eventually on to India. The route was rigorous, and when Jampa Gyatso arrived in Buxa, India, he was very ill. He was immediately admitted to a regional hospital where he remained for five months, then to a larger hospital in Rajastan where he stayed for almost a year and a half.

After nearly two years of hospitalization, in 1961 Jampa Gyatso returned to his studies, this time at the monastic settlement in Buxa. There he continued with six years of study and debate. Then, in 1967, along with fifty other older monks, Jampa Gyatso entered the newly instituted Buddhist studies program at the Sanskrit University in Varanasi to study toward the degree of Acharya, which he received in 1970. Then at the request of the Religious Affairs Department of the Tibetan Government, Jampa Gyatso continued his studies at the Lower Tantric College (Gyu Me). One year later, after completing extensive examinations at the three monasteries of Sera, Ganden, and Drepung and having debated in Dharamsala at the annual prayer festival in 1972, he became a lharampa geshe, the highest level awarded.

He returned immediately to the Lower Tantric College, where shortly thereafter he received a letter from his old friend, Lama Thubten Yeshe, founder of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT). For several years, Lama Yeshe had been teachings Buddhism to an ever-increasing number of interested Westerners, and he now solicited Geshe Jampa Gyatso’s help by requesting him to travel to the West to teach. Geshe Jampa Gyatso consented and in 1980, after four years of delays and changes in itinerary, he left for Italy where he has been the principal resident teacher and spiritual guide at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa ever since.


(Extracted from Geshe Jampa Gyatso’s book Everlasting Rain of Nectar, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1996.)