Khunu Rinpoche, A Bridge Between Sects and Spiritual Traditions

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Khunu Rinpoche, A Bridge Between Sects and Spiritual Traditions

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

Khunu Rinpoche Tendzin Gyaltsen has been called a bodhisattva and saint by those who knew him. His knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism was so superior that he came to be accepted by lamas of different schools as one of the greatest Tibetan lamas of his time. Yet he was not ethnically Tibetan and was known as the "Precious One from Kinnaur," referring to his birthplace in northern India.

Throughout his life from 1895 to 1977, Khunu Rinpoche taught and studied with some of the masters of the twentieth century as he traveled through India, Tibet, Nepal, and Sikkim—Sanskrit pandits in Benares, Hindu scholars in Varanasi, Tibetan lamas in Sikkim, Tibetan philosophy scholars at Sera Monastery in Lhasa. His concerns, interests, and impact transcended sectarian, political, linguistic, and national borders.

Shortly after his exile from Tibet, the Dalai Lama asked Khunu Rinpoche to teach the more learned of the refugee lamas in Mussoorie. His Holiness requested personal instruction from him on Shantideva's Bodhicharyavatara (Entering the Path of Enlightenment), the great eighth-century guide for a bodhisattva. He also received the pointing-out instruction on the nature of mind known as the "Three Worlds Which Strike the Vital Points" from Khunu Rinpoche. The Dalai Lama's respect for him was profound: He would prostrate to Rinpoche in the dust when they met at the Great Stupa in Bodh Gaya, the site of the Budhha's enlightenment in India.

While never ordained as a monk, Khunu Rinpoche achieved an extraordinary degree of realization by observing the Bodhisattva vows. Focusing every action and thought upon the intent of enlightenment for all sentient creatures, he lived the life of a wandering yogi with a devoted female companion, the Drikung Khandro. Nor was he a prolific writer, but his lifelong devotion and study culminated in his single masterpiece, Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea: Verses in Praise of Bodhicitta (Wisdom Publications, 1999). Written in 1959, it is Khunu Rinpoche's account of a single year’s reflections on bodhicitta, the altruistic aspiration for enlightenment. The text is comprised of 356 four-line verses written in a blank diary, and their spirit and wisdom echoes Shantideva’s masterpiece, Bodhicaryavatara.

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Citation

Smith, Gene. "Khunu Rinpoche, A Bridge Between Sects and Spiritual Traditions." Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 8, no. 4 (Summer 1999):

Interconnections

Works related to this item

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhicitta'

Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhicitta'

Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhicitta'

Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhicitta'

Prajñā - One of the key terms for wisdom or knowledge, most often having the sense of insight, transcendent knowledge, or perhaps gnosis. In some contexts it can also refer to cognition or intellectual understanding. Skt प्रज्ञा  Tib ཤེས་རབ་  Ch 般若  

Go to the page with the definition of 'wisdom'