Kelsang Gyatso - Journey To The West

Journey To The West

Even before coming to the West, Kelsang Gyatso was "by all accounts, a very well respected scholar and meditator" within the Tibetan exile community. Since then, "this diminutive and unassuming Tibetan has won the hearts and minds of people from all cultures and walks of life."

Kay remarks that Lama Yeshe's decision to invite his former classmate to be Resident Teacher at the FPMT's Manjushri Institute in England was advised by the Dalai Lama. The invitation was extended by Trijang Rinpoche, the root Guru of Kelsang Gyatso. He arrived in August 1977 and gave his first teaching on Lamrim on September 10. Kelsang Gyatso later recounted that Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche asked him to go to England, teach Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Chandrakirti's Guide to the Middle Way and Lamrim, and then “check whether there was any meaning in his continuing to stay."

In Kelsang Gyatso's own words:

When I was in India I received an invitation from Manjushri Institute in England through Lama Yeshe, who was my very close friend in Tibet. He and I were from the same monastery in Tibet and we had the same Teacher. He wrote to me and requested me please to go to England and give Dharma teachings. I received this invitation but I didn’t answer for two months. At that time it was difficult for me to say yes due to certain commitments to local Tibetan people, and also I thought how could I teach as I could not speak English? I had no confidence. Lama Yeshe was very clever; he went to visit my root Guru Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, and requested him to ask me to go to England to teach Dharma. He knew if my root Guru asked me, then I would agree to go.

Under Kelsang Gyatso's spiritual direction, Manjushri Institute "became a thriving training and retreat center." Kelsang Gyatso taught the General Program at Manjushri from 1977 to 1987. At that time, the Geshe studies programme was taught by Geshe Jampa Tekchok and then Geshe Konchog Tsewang (1982–1990). (In 1990 the Geshe Studies Programme at Manjushri Institute was cancelled, as it had been in most of the other FPMT Centres where it had been established.)

On October 13, 1983, Kelsang Gyatso became a naturalized British citizen: “I became a subject of the British Queen”.