Life and Education in Tibet
Kelsang Gyatso was born on Dharmachakra Day (the 4th day of the 6th month of the Tibetan lunar calendar) 1931 in Yangcho Tang, eastern Tibet. His lay name was Lobsang Chuponpa. His ordination name "Kelsang Gyatso" means "Ocean of Good Fortune". His mother made great sacrifices to enable her son to attend the Ngamring Jampa Ling Monastery because he showed interest and aptitude from an early age. He joined the monastery when he was 8 years old and later described memorizing the Medicine Buddha Sutra:
In my first monastery, Jampa Ling, this was the principal practice. The Tibetan translation of the Sutra is about fifty pages long. I memorized this together with some additional prayers, because this was one of the commitments for being able to stay in the monastery.(In November 1986, Kelsang Gyatso oversaw the rebuilding of Ngamring Jampa Ling Monastery after its destruction, and it was fully restored and reopened by September 1988.)
According to Cozort, Kelsang Gyatso is "a highly trained geshe." After studying on the Geshe training program at Jampaling, Kelsang Gyatso passed two examinations at Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, and received his Geshe degree. Later Kelsang Gyatso continued his studies at Sera Monastery near Lhasa, one of the great Gelug monastic universities of Tibet. At Sera Je, he successfully completed the full Geshe studies of five large philosophical texts. He was a member of the Tsangpa Khangtsen, one of the fifteen houses at Sera Je monastery. Contemporaries at Sera Je included Geshe Lhundub Sopa, Geshe Rabten, and Lama Thubten Yeshe.
Waterhouse cites three reasons, traditional in Tibetan Buddhism, why Kelsang Gyatso is authorized to be a Spiritual Guide, saying "The combination of experience, lineage and knowledge makes Geshe Kelsang ideal as a teacher. He has the credibility of a genuine Tibetan teacher and the vision to instigate an organization (the New Kadampa Tradition) to present that teaching to westerners."
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