The Master from the New Generation – Geshe Sherab

Geshe Sherab is now headmaster at Kopan Monastery

I was born in 1967 in a very small village of about two hundred people in the province of Manang, which is in the western part of Nepal. Because my parents had five sons, they wanted at least one or two of them to join the monastery; it is an honor and a way of accumulating merit for the family. My parents had a disagreement about who should join the monastery, me or my younger brother, and finally they decided on my younger brother. They brought him to Kopan Monastery, but Lama Yeshe rejected him, saying that he was too young, although Lama had accepted others of the same age. I guess he didn’t have the karma in this life to be a monk. Then my parents brought me to Lama Yeshe and Lama accepted. So I had the karma.

At that time I wasn’t against becoming a monk, but at the same time it wasn’t my own decision. It was more or less like going to school. When I was around eighteen, as any normal teenager I struggled a lot, not knowing whether it was best for me to continue or to disrobe. But then, just before I went to Sera, I made the strong decision that being a monk continuously was how I was going to spend my life. Maybe that was when I became fully-ordained in my own mind. It was at that time that I was walking with one of my teachers, the late Geshe Jampa, from Kathmandu to Kopan. He mentioned that the Manang people are all extremely devoted, but they seem to lack an understanding of the Dharma. He told me that it would be good if I could help them understand more, so this had the biggest impact on me and made me want to go to Sera and study in depth…

I studied in Sera Je Monastery for the Geshe degree from 1987 to 2000. Now I am so happy that I made that decision and I sincerely appreciate and thank my teachers for their guidance. I feel gratitude to my parents especially for not supporting me to disrobe at that difficult time.

What has influenced me greatly, during that time and since, has been spending time around my teachers and observing how they practice, how they engage in their daily lives. One example most of Mandala’s readers will understand is being around Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It is so inspiring to see how Rinpoche practices and spends his time. It is a similar inspiration for me with my teachers at Sera.

After I completed my Geshe studies, I went to Gyume Tantric College for a year and then I was sent to the United States to help at FPMT’s International Office, as well as teach at the study group and the center there in Taos, New Mexico, and also at Santa Fe. I was there for two and a half years and then returned to Nepal. I did enjoy myself in the U.S. and to some extent I wasn’t sure if I should return to Nepal. In the end I made the decision to return; otherwise, I thought, “If I don’t go now, I will be stuck here in the U.S. forever…”...

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