His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Photo credit: yowangdu.com
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama founded the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in 1973, appointing Gen Lobsang Gyatso to establish and lead the institution, which is located in Dharamsala, India. From the very beginning, the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics has maintained a very close relationship with the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The most important activities of the Institute are carried out by consultation with His Holiness or, at times, on the suggestions and advice of His Holiness.
Gen Lobsang Gyatso, Founding Director
Gen Lobsang Gyatso was born in 1928 in a small village in eastern Tibet. He became a monk at the age of eleven, and later traveled to central Tibet to study at Drepung Monastery. After fleeing Tibet during the 1959 Tibetan Uprising, Gen Lobsang Gyatso, or “Gen la” as he was known at the Institute, eventually moved to Mussoorie to serve as a religious teacher at the Central School for Tibetans.
The Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, Founding Director, and his Reincarnation, Tenzin Tseten Rinpoche.
In 1973, after being appointed by His Holiness to establish the Institute, he re-located to Dharamsala, India. After some difficult early years the Institute became one of the success stories of the Tibetan exile community. In 1991, Gen la expanded upon the already-successful work of the Institute with the founding of a new branch at Sarah, the College for Higher Tibetan Studies. Under his guidance, the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics and the College for Higher Tibetan Studies developed into uniquely valuable Tibetan educational institutions, offering integrated studies in both traditional Tibetan disciplines and modern subjects.
Gen Lobsang Gyatso in the early 1990s. Photo credit: Sidney Piburn.
While the establishment of the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics and the College for Higher Tibetan Studies at Sarah is the work for which Gen la will be best remembered, he was also an accomplished writer.
A selection of Gen Lobsang Gyatso’s publications:
- Harmony of Emptiness and Dependent-Arising
, Paljor Publications, 1992.
- The Four Noble Truths
, Snow Lion Publications, 1994.
- Bodhicitta: Cultivating the Compassionate Mind of Enlightenment
, Snow Lion Publications, 1997.
- Memoirs of a Tibetan Lama by Gyatso, Lobsang (1990) Paperback
, Snow Lion Publications, 1998.
- Tsongkhapa’s Praise for Dependent Relativity
, Wisdom Publications, 2012.
A Tibetan patriot, meditation master, and unswerving follower of the Dalai Lama, Gen la emerged as a fearless social critic, and a deeply spiritual man. Gen Lobsang Gyatso died in Dharamsala in February 1997.
Gen Lobsang Gyatso’s Reincarnation
In 2006, His Holiness the Dalai Lama officially recognized a young boy from the Ladakh region of India as the reincarnation of Gen Lobsang Gyatso. The boy, Tenzin Tseten Rinpoche, was born on May 14, 2001 in the Ladakhi city of Leh, to a Zanskari father, Gain Chand, and a Tibetan mother, Kalsang Yangkey.
When news that the boy might possibly be Gen la’s reincarnation reached Dharamsala, two representatives from the Institute of Buddhist Dialects, Assistant Director Geshe Kalsang Damdul and the late Director’s nephew, Ven. Lobsang Yeshi, traveled to Ladakh to investigate. Both monks had been close to Gen la and were fully satisfied with their investigation, which left no doubt that the boy was the right reincarnation.
After His Holiness the Dalai Lama confirmed and sanctioned the reincarnation, Tenzin Tseten Rinpoche was brought to Dharamsala along with his parents. He was enthroned – as Tsen-nyi Khentul Tenzin Tseten Rinpoche – in a ceremony at the Tsuglagkhang, the main Tibetan Buddhist temple in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, on June 6, 2009.
Gen Lobsang Gyatso’s Reincarnation (center) with his attendant (left), Ven. Lobsang Yeshi, who is Gen Lobsang Gyatso’s nephew, and Ven. Thupten Legphel, an IBD alumnus, on December 2014, at Drepung Loseling Monastery in southern India.
Guests at the enthronement included the Tibetan Prime Minister and cabinet members, secretaries of various departments, heads of government and non-governmental organizations, heads of monasteries, heads of schools, and thousands of monks, nuns and Tibetan lay people. Relatives of the late director Gen Lobsang Gyatso and the relatives of the young reincarnated Rinpoche’s parents also attended the ceremony.
Tenzin Tseten Rinpoche is now studying at Drepung Loseling Monastery in southern India.