Namkhai Norbu : The Lamp That Enlightens Narrow Minds

The Life and Times of a Realized Tibetan Master, Khyentse Chokyi Wangchug

Author(s) : Namkhai Norbu

ISBN : 1583944923

EAN : 9781583944929

Cover : Paperback

Pages : 204

Size : 216 x 140mm

Publisher : North Atlantic Books

Published : 2012

Category : Biography 

Category 2 : Tibetan Buddhism: Kagyu

Synopsis:

The Lamp That Enlightens Narrow Minds presents a remarkable account of the life of Khyentse Chökyi Wangchug (1909-1960), a realized Tibetan tulku (reincarnated lama or teacher). The book's historical references provide a detailed portrait of Tibet on the verge of invasion and occupation by Chinese forces in the decades leading up to 1959 when Chinese repression led the Dalai Lama to take refuge in India.

 

Narrated by Wangchug's nephew, author and international Tibetan master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, this inspired biography describes the extraordinary events of Wangchug's life during this momentous period in Tibetan history. Born in 1909 in a valley south of Derge, an ancient center of Tibetan culture, Wangchug was recognized at an early age as a reincarnation of a tulku and thus received Buddhist teachings from the greatest masters of the epoch. A privileged observer of his uncle's life, Norbu reveals the complexity of Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy and the conflicts caused not only by Chinese forces, but also by people close to Wangchug who had become members of factions motivated by bigotry and personal greed. Despite the difficulties he encountered, Wangchug maintained a state of equanimity and dedicated himself to a life of peace and compassion for all sentient beings. Ultimately tortured and imprisoned by the Chinese, he and two other realized Tibetan teachers passed away at the same moment while meditating.

 

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu's son, Khyentse Yeshe (born in Italy in 1970) was subsequently recognized as the current reincarnation of Khyentse Chokyi Wangchug by His Holiness Sakya Trizin, head of the Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism.

 

"This book is a fascinating study of one of the major lamas of twentieth-century Eastern Tibet...filled with extraordinary details of the complex lives of Tibetan religious masters of this period." Professor Janet Gyatso.

 

"This is a compelling account of the life of one of the famed Khyentse Wangpo incarnations, written by his nephew, a renowned Buddhist teacher himself. It is also a record of spiritual life in Tibet as experienced and lived by a Buddhist master in a traditional environment and then, in his later years, in the turbulent circumstances of displacement and violence that marked the history of Tibet in the second half of the twentieth century." Professor Elliot Sperling.

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