The Biography of Geshe Lhundup : 

 

 

Painting : Wang Yi Guang
Painting : Wang Yi Guang

Born in Tibet in 1976, Lhundup Gyaltsen is a Geshé (Doctor of Philosophy) from the Tibetan Bon tradition. He followed a long course of Buddhist teachings in a monastery, including various Tibetan yoga techniques that he experimented with for many years.

 

Geshe Lhundup was born into a nomadic family, in Tibet, in a small village called Damrani, located in Nagchu prefecture of Kham province, about 750km north of Lhasa.

 

When he was 6, he tended his family's yaks and sheep, then it was around the age of 12 that he made the decision to become a monk. He entered the Patsang Monastery in Kham. Patsang is one of the great lines of Yungdrung Bön families.

Geshe Lhundup received the teachings and transmissions of Dzogchen and Trul-Khor, as well as Tsa-Lung from several great Dzogchen masters of the Bön tradition, holders of their lineages, notably during a retreat in a cave in the mountains at 14. It was in 1993, at the age of 17, that Geshe Lhundup decided to leave his native country.

He was then on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet (6656m high and 50km around) for 2 months. He made 19 circunambulations and finally he walked towards India. He and a group of 29 other people, including four other Bönpo monks, fled through the Himalayas on foot.

 

They walked for a month to reach Nepal. They were first welcomed in Kathmandu by HE Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche, the oldest teacher in the Bön tradition and founder of the Triten Norbutse monastery in Nepal. He encouraged them to continue to Menri Monastery in India, where they could study in order to prepare for the Geshe level. (PHD Doctor of Philosophy).

Geshe Lhundup studied at Menri Monastery in Dolanji from 1993 to 2009, progressing through the eight classes of the Bön Dialectical School. Traditional studies courses for all monks consist of Sutras, Tantras and Dzogchen, as well as Tibetan Grammar, Poetry, Astrology, Medicine, Mandala Painting, Calligraphy, yoga and meditation.

 

After 15 years of study and exams, he received the diploma of Geshe. In 2008, his first book was published in India “Mahayana: the basis, the way, the consequence of Dzogchen” Book written in Tibetan, intended for students of Dzogchen Philosophy. (English translation in progress).

 

When he left Menri Monastery, Geshe Lhundup went to Dharamsala, an international city in India, to learn English there, so he met the Dalai Lama there.

 

In 2010, Geshe Lhundup arrived in France. After exercising various professional activities, he feels the call to devote himself fully to the teachings, which he was already doing in the monastery with younger lamas.

This time in the West he will impart the philosophy of Dharma to students eager to learn the science of the nature of the mind and who wish to discover meditation, the teachings of Dzogchen and Yundrung Bön: the ancestral philosophy of Tibet.

 

Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche contacted him in 2013 to give him advice and offered to start teaching his students in France for the Ligmincha association. He became the resident lama of Paris and for France for a few years then he decided to create his own structure, the Sagesse du Tibet association which represented him.

 

In the meantime, in 2016, Geshela became a French citizen. And the following year, for the first time in 25 years of political refuge, he finally returned to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, with his French passport to see his family.

 

Since 2018, the Association Sagesse du Tibet (1901 law under number W784005768) works to preserve the Bönpo culture of Tibet by organizing the transmission of the teachings of Géshé Lhundup. 

 

Lessons are offered in the form of one-off internships (weekends or weeks, etc.), year-round, group or private lessons, or by video conference on zoom.

The supervision during his internships is provided by Geshe Lhundup himself, or by a teacher or a competent person depending on the activity. All proposed practices are wellness practices and are not intended to replace diagnosis, treatment or medical advice.

 

A page for donations helps support Géshé Lhundup in his daily life, to help organize his teachings and to advance his projects.


 

HE Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoché avec Géshé Yundrung Tsultrim et Géshé Lhundup à Shenten
HE Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoché avec Géshé Yundrung Tsultrim et Géshé Lhundup à Shenten