Short Biography
One of the first Western Buddhist monks in the Tibetan tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, Jhampa met Ven. Lama Yeshe and became one of his first male sangha members in 1971. From that time Jhampa studied mainly in Dharmsala, India, learning the Tibetan language. He studied under His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche (His Holiness’s senior tutor) and the Ven. Geshe Rabten and Geshe Dhargaye.
Over the next 10 years in India he was introduced to many tenets of Buddhism, interspersing this with periods of meditational retreat. He had the opportunity to study and work as a translator for Masters of all 4 sects of Tibetan Buddhism. By 1980 he had completed 6 years of study of the sutras and tantras and approximately 4 years of short retreats such as the four preliminaries and several deities.
In the fall of 1980, Jhampa entered the traditional Great Retreat and spent the next three and a half years on the mountain above Dharmsala, India. This was under the spiritual guidance of Ven. Ling Rinpoche. Upon completing that retreat he returned to Canada. Jhampa is no longer an ordained monk. He established three Dharma centers on Vancouver Island and lived there for 18 years. He adopted and helped raise two children. Jhampa taught weekly there and translated on a weekly basis in Victoria for the Sakya Geshe Tashi Namgyal. He taught in the Community Education programs in three campuses of Malaspina College for 9 years. Jhampa currently lives and teaches 6 months a year in Torreon, Mexico. He offers annual summer retreats in Canada on a variety of deity practices.
He is one of the first Western practitioners to be given permission by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to teach all levels of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. His talks are spiced with humorous and fascinating anecdotes of his experiences of transforming a Western mind to grip the Buddhist perspective. Being born and raised in the West gives Jhampa’s way of sharing the insights of the East a uniquely relevant twist.
If you want to know more, you can read the long biography !