OBITUARIES

Massimo Corona writes: If Geshe Yeshe Tobden’s life story is an amazing example of Dharma, even more so is his death. Since last February Geshe-la’s health became seriously weak. It was decided that this year he would travel to the West, but early in the year everything was put on hold due to the deteriorating condition of his health.

During June and July, his health got much better and he was set to leave. The day before leaving Dharamsala, July 26, Geshe-la, as he always did, went to see His Holiness to get his blessings and unexpectedly His Holiness told him not to go, to postpone the trip at least a month. On July 30, suddenly Geshe-la got much worse. His Holiness said that the conditions were very serious and that it could help if he were to be taken to Chandigarh hospital.

On the morning of July 31 he was brought to Chandigarh, but his breath ceased when they got to the hospital at 9:25 p.m. They got back to Dharamsala at 4 a.m. and immediately Losang, Geshe-la’s attendant, went to see His Holiness, who said not to despair, not to ask for divination but only to recite Guhyasamaja Root Tantra and The Praise to Interdependence until the white and red drops would come out from the nostrils [the sign that the consciousness has left the body].

So 17 yogi-meditators, most of Geshe-la’s disciples, came down from the mountain and began the recitations. His body and face were not at all transfigured but lucent, and they remained in this manner until August 12 when the white and red signs appeared.

People who went to pay homage said that in the room one could smell perfume and would feel blissful and in peace. In the early morning of August 13 the body was carried near Trijang Rinpoche’s stupa where His Holiness indicated that the body should be cremated.

The fire was lit at 4 a.m. and burned without smoke for fourteen hours. The next morning at sunrise when the fire went out, a rainbow was seen. The last miraculous sign happened on August 16, when Geshe-la’s disciples went to gather the ashes: in the middle of the fire slightly towards the west, they clearly saw the imprint of a child’s foot.

May this compassionate teacher, great bodhisattva, quickly return among us and lead us to the freedom of enlightenment.

Geshe Yeshe Tobden was born in 1926 to a family of well-to-do farmers in a village one day walking distance from Lhasa. At the age of 12, following the prediction of a great lama, his mother gave the child to Gen Damchö of Sera Me monastery so that he could take the monastic vows. When he was 18, his beloved mother died, soon followed by his young sister and his father.

Geshe-la, left alone, decided to sell his family house and property and offered whatever he obtained to the monastery. Not satisfied with that, in order not to be a burden for his Gen-la, who was taking care of many young monks, he went to live alone in a small hut outside the monastery. Until the Chinese invasion, he lived there in absolute poverty but at the same time studied vigorously, mainly with his root guru Chu-sang Rinpoche.

In 1959, Geshe-la was arrested and imprisoned by the Chinese, but after four months he was able to escape and for one and a half years he traveled by foot across occupied Tibet to the Indian border. The border was closed as the flux of refugees had stopped long before, so he was again imprisoned by the Indian border guards thinking he was a Chinese spy. Luckily a Tibetan guard, who had been a Sera monk, recognized him and he was freed. He also sponsored him to go to Buxa where the Tibetan monasteries were being rebuilt.

Here Geshe-la went back to his studies and, at the age of 37, he became geshe lharampa. After a teaching assignment to the University of Varanasi, his friend Geshe Rabten told His Holiness that there was this geshe whose only wish was to go into seclusion and meditate. His Holiness wanted to hear the motivation from Geshe-la himself, who in a simple manner told that he always had, since his childhood, the desire to meditate on renunciation, bodhichitta and emptiness. His Holiness was impressed by Geshe-la’s sincerity; consequently, he relieved him from the teaching assignment and guaranteed his support, including the permission to come and see him whenever Geshe-la needed advice.

At the age of 44, he finally fulfilled his life-long wish and retired to a small stone house about Upper Dharamsala, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama is based.

Although in 1976 he became seriously ill, he did not want to leave his retreat place. Eventually, at the insistence of Lama Thubten Yeshe, he accepted to come down to Tushita Meditation Center, where he could enjoy better living conditions. A couple of years later, Lama asked His Holiness if Geshe-la could come to Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy as resident teacher. His Holiness, knowing how great was Geshe-la’s desire to meditate in seclusion, agreed on the condition that it wouldn’t be for long.

Geshe-la remained in Italy for almost three years, but so intense were his blessings and relationships developed with his Italian students that, moved by great compassion, he returned to Italy regularly to teach and care for his students in every possible way.