Lama Yeshe Losal
OTHER LAMAS
LAMA YESHE LOSAL is the chairman of the Rokpa Trust, abbot and retreat master of Samye Ling in Scotland and executive director of The Holy Island Project. Ven. Lhamo writes about Lama Yeshe’s work.
Holy Island is a place to engender world peace through inner peace – and as such is now well known throughout the world. It is a place where Buddhist philosophy is put into practice: Lama Yeshe is committed to develop it in an environmentally conscious way and to make it available for everyone, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike. That is why plans for its future revolve around a purpose-built retreat center for intensive meditation, as well as a Centre for Peace and Reconciliation where people can follow their chosen path within the context of respect and tolerance for others’ beliefs.
Since its acquisition by Rokpa Trust in April 1992, Holy Island has been home to a small group of volunteer workers from several countries, whose imagination has been fired by Lama Yeshe’s vision of building an interfaith retreat center where people of all beliefs can come to develop themselves physically, mentally and spiritually.
Work is already underway on the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, which is at the north of the island. Ten nuns are permanently in retreat at the south end. We are currently engaged in fundraising to finance the building of a unique retreat center that will house 108 retreatants. The internationally acclaimed design for this is an ecologically sound combination of innovative technology and ancient tradition within a pure and natural environment.
As Samye Ling has grown, more and more young people have come to Lama Yeshe expressing an interest in the life of a monk or nun. To find a way of helping them he became the first to experiment with giving short-term ordination for one year. Since embarking on this program in 1993, the “experiment” has proved to be extremely successful: although numbers fluctuate, there are now between 50 and 100 Sangha members. As a result there is a strong body of monks and nuns living in Samye Ling and related Samye Dzong centers, who have life-long ordination, including ten fully ordained monks and ten fully ordained nuns. To ensure that Sangha members are taken care of and fully provided for throughout their lives, Lama Yeshe established the Samye Sangha Foundation with the aim of making monks and nuns completely self-supporting.
Through the Holy Island Project he has put much energy into the practical application of Buddhist principles in protecting and nourishing the local and wider environment. He teaches Buddhism, meditation and its benefits and in recent years has been invited on several occasions to give meditational instruction to members of the business community at international conferences.
Lama Yeshe Losal was born in 1943 in Kham, East Tibet, and spent his early years training at Dolma Lhakang Monastery where his older brother Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche was abbot. After escaping from Tibet in 1959, although not at that time recognized as a lama, he continued his education at the Young Lamas’ Home School in New Delhi and Dalhousie, India. During his years there he became good friends with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, even going to hospital together. After finishing school he attended a Tibetan Administration Course in New Delhi and, having qualified, went to Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim to serve as Private Secretary to His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa.
Since he was a young boy, Lama Yeshe received teachings from many of the highest Kagyu lamas, including extensive teachings and initiations from his root guru, His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, and also teachings from the 12th Tai Situpa, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Gyaltsap Rinpoche, and the Very Venerable Kalu Rinpoche.
In 1969 he left Rumtek to join his brother in Scotland, in the newly established Kagyu Samye Ling. Still a lay person, he spent five years there. Then when His Holiness the Karmapa toured the US and Canada in 1974, Lama Yeshe was invited by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to accompany His Holiness as one of his 16 attendants. During this trip, His Holiness asked Lama Yeshe to stay in the US and start a center with another of his lamas, Lama Tenzin Chönyi.
They were able to establish and run Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Center in Woodstock, New York, His Holiness Karmapa’s main seat in the USA, now one of the biggest Buddhist temples in the US with 42 subsidiary branches – one in almost every state.
In 1980 with the blessing and approval of His Holiness Karmapa on the auspicious date of the anniversary of Lord Buddha’s nirvana and parinirvana, lama Yeshe received both getsul and gelong ordinations from His Holiness and eight other teachers. Following the ordination he went straight into solitary retreat at Karma Triyana, under the guidance of the abbot, Khempo Karthar Rinpoche, remaining there until 1985.
In 1985, at the request of his brother Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, he again returned to Scotland to continue retreat at Samye Ling Purelands Retreat Centre and in 1989 became retreat master with responsibility for the 45 Western practitioners then in four-year retreat. He also became the first Tibetan lama in Europe to complete two traditional forty-nine-day dark retreats; one was in Nepal in 1993 under the guidance of Tulku Urgyen and one on Holy Island in 1997.
Despite a heartfelt wish to remain in retreat for 20 years, towards the end of 1991 Lama Yeshe was obliged to return to the world to take responsibility for the running of Samye Ling and also to direct The Holy Island Project.
Lama Yeshe is one hundred percent committed to establishing Vajrayana Buddhism within the European culture. This has led him in recent years to become busy on many levels: he is deeply involved with interfaith dialogue and has connections with leading members of many of the world’s great religions. In November 1998 he was selected to receive the “Sasana Kirthi Sri” award at the International Sarvodaya Bhikku Congress in Sri Lanka, the first Tibetan lama to receive this honor. He extended his trip to Sri Lanka to travel on to Burma and Thailand where he made connections with many influential Buddhist teachers. He sees the nurturing of this link with the Theravadin community as an important step in interfaith relations.
Lama Yeshe Losal’s guiding inspiration and constant prayer is to bring together not only the different schools of Buddhism but also all the various faiths. His deepest wish is to encourage all to work together, to unite their stores of ancient knowledge and wisdom, to join efforts to protect and benefit this fragile planet, Mother Earth.
