Living Traditions of Practice: Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen
Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen ཁུ་ནུ་བླ་མ་བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ (1894/1895–1977) stands as one of the most influential yet humble Buddhist masters of the modern era. Called "the Śāntideva of our time" by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Khunu Lama's profound teachings on bodhicitta shaped an entire generation of practitioners. His masterwork The Jewel Lamp: A Praise of Bodhicitta and his transmission of Śāntideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva continue to inspire practitioners worldwide.
Despite his extraordinary knowledge and spiritual attainment, Khunu Lama lived a life of remarkable simplicity and humility. A scholar of all major Tibetan Buddhist traditions, he taught in a nonsectarian fashion and became a trusted advisor to the Dalai Lama on the most difficult philosophical matters. The Dalai Lama's deep reverence for Khunu Lama—keeping a copy of The Way of the Bodhisattva close at hand and teaching it widely since receiving its transmission—testifies to the profound impact of their relationship and Khunu Lama's teachings on contemporary Buddhist practice.
This page explores various aspects of his remarkable life, teachings, and enduring legacy through scholarship, teachings, multimedia, and editorial reflections on how Khunu Lama's wisdom continues to guide practitioners in our time.
Khunu Lama in Perspective
To truly understand Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen's significance for Tibetan Buddhist traditions and for the study of bodhicitta in particular, we need to see both who he was and how he came to matter so profoundly. The following essays provide essential context and perspective on his life and enduring influence. Greg Forgues's essay charts his early years in the borderland villages of Kinnaur, his formative studies across Tibet and India, and how he developed a unique synthesis of Tibetan and Indian Buddhist traditions through decades of scholarship and contemplative practice. The second piece by Simon Houlton explores his pivotal relationship with His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama—tracing how they met, why the Dalai Lama recognized him as a primary teacher, and how their connection became a vehicle for transmitting bodhicitta teachings to practitioners worldwide. Together, these accounts reveal both the inner development of a humble master and the profound ripple effects of his wisdom across generations.
The Jewel Lamp: A Praise of Bodhicitta
བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་ཀྱི་བསྟོད་པ་རིན་ཆེན་སྒྲོན་མ།
Byang chub sems kyi bstod pa rin chen sgron ma
Composed in 1959 amid the turbulent events surrounding the Chinese takeover of Tibet, The Jewel Lamp stands as Khunu Lama's most celebrated and enduring work. Written as a daily verse for an entire year, this collection of 356 poems represents a masterful synthesis of Tibetan and Sanskrit poetic traditions, offering profound yet accessible teachings on bodhicitta.
Directly inspired by Śāntideva's classical text The Way of the Bodhisattva, Khunu Lama transforms philosophical teachings into vivid, contemplative verses that speak to both the mind and the heart. Through rich imagery and poetic beauty, he guides readers toward understanding bodhicitta not as an abstract ideal, but as a transformative force that can reshape daily life—turning hardship into compassion, conflict into wisdom, and ordinary moments into opportunities for spiritual growth.
His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has championed The Jewel Lamp throughout his teaching career, calling it a work of exceptional importance and teaching from it regularly to audiences worldwide. It remains one of the rare instances where the Dalai Lama publicly teaches and praises a contemporary master's composition—a testament to the text's profound spiritual value and its relevance for modern practitioners.
Whether you approach this work as poetry, as spiritual instruction, or as a companion for daily reflection and practice, The Jewel Lamp invites you to discover the wisdom that has inspired practitioners for generations.
Explore the text in Tibetan or in English translation.
The text presents bodhicitta as the most precious quality one can develop, using extensive poetic imagery and metaphors to describe its benefits and supreme importance. Khunu Rinpoche draws on traditional Buddhist sources while offering his own devotional perspective on this central concept.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who was a student of Khunu Rinpoche, has been particularly devoted to this text. He received the oral transmission directly from Khunu Rinpoche himself, noting it was "the first teaching I received from him." The Dalai Lama has taught from The Jewel Lamp on multiple occasions, including extended teachings in Sydney, Australia in 2013. The work is valued for its clarity, inspirational quality, and its role in preserving the emphasis on compassion and altruism in Tibetan Buddhist practice. It has been translated into English and is studied within Tibetan Buddhist communities as both a teaching text and a source of contemplation on compassionate motivation.Featured Writing and Scholarship on Khunu Lama's Life and Works
Commentaries by Khunu Lama Rinpoche
The commentary explains Atiśa's presentation of the three levels of practitioners: those of small capacity (seeking better rebirth), medium capacity (seeking liberation from samsara), and higher capacity (seeking enlightenment for all beings). Khunu Lama emphasizes the centrality of bodhicitta—the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings—as the defining feature of Mahāyāna Buddhism that distinguishes it from other spiritual paths.
The teaching covers the essential practices: generating bodhicitta, observing moral conduct, developing single-pointed concentration, and cultivating the wisdom realizing emptiness. Khunu Lama stresses that both method (compassion and skillful means) and wisdom must be practiced together to achieve enlightenment. He concludes by encouraging his Western students to study Dharma deeply, learn Tibetan, and spread these teachings, noting that concern for others' welfare rather than one's own is the fundamental distinction of the Mahāyāna path.The teaching systematically covers the essential elements of the Buddhist path: proper guru devotion as the foundation of all spiritual attainment; recognizing the precious opportunity and impermanence of human life; understanding karma and its inevitable consequences; developing renunciation of samsara; cultivating bodhicitta by recognizing all beings as former mothers suffering in cyclic existence; practicing the six perfections, especially moral discipline; developing the union of calm abiding (shamatha) and penetrative insight (vipashyana); and entering the Vajrayana path as the swiftest route to enlightenment.
Khunu Lama emphasizes the Madhyamaka view as the most refined Buddhist philosophy and stresses that Tibetan Buddhism uniquely preserves all aspects of the Dharma—Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna—in their complete form. He concludes by encouraging his Western students to master Tibetan language and grammar to fully access these teachings and then spread the Dharma in the West, adapting presentations skillfully to suit different capacities of mind, like a doctor prescribing appropriate medicine.The Lost Voice of Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen: A Historic Discovery
In 2013, the Conserve Tibet Project set out on a mission to recover and preserve rare Tibetan recordings before they were lost to time. Among their discoveries was an extraordinarily rare recording of Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, a revered Tibetan Buddhist master known for his profound wisdom and humility.
This recording, made in 1974, had nearly deteriorated beyond recognition. Now, through advanced audio restoration techniques, Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s voice can be heard with unprecedented clarity.
Watch the incredible journey of discovery, preservation, and restoration as we unveil this long-lost piece of Tibet’s spiritual heritage.
These rare audios and videos that have historical importance to the Tibetan people were collected and digitally preserved as part of the Conserve Tibet Project in 2013 - 2015 with the help of Thupten Chakrishar, Jamyang Dorjee, Rinchen Dharlo, Tsulrim Chophel, Shelley & Donald Rubin and Alexander Gardner, Ph.D.
The Dalai Lama on Khunu Lama
In this video, His Holiness the Dalai Lama shares precious memories and insights about his revered teacher Khunu Lama Rinpoche. His Holiness speaks movingly about Khunu Rinpoche's extraordinary mastery of all the major subjects of Buddhist learning—from philosophy and logic to his legendary expertise in poetry and grammar. What made him truly exceptional among scholars was his ability to illuminate these subjects through a vast treasury of citations from the great Indian and Tibetan texts, woven together with remarkable skill. But perhaps most touching is His Holiness's account of Khunu Rinpoche's profound humility. Despite his towering scholarship, he lived almost like a beggar in the simplest of circumstances. His Holiness reveals how he could actually feel the depth of Khunu Rinpoche's realization of bodhicitta—the awakened heart of compassion. Watch His Holiness's deeply personal recollection of receiving the oral transmission of Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra in Khunu Rinpoche's humble room at an ashram in Varanasi—an experience that moved him profoundly and continues to inspire his teaching to this day.
White Lotuses and Spring Rains: Nature Imagery and Buddhist Practice in the Poems of Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, with Annabella Pitkin
How should a Buddhist cultivate the aspiration to become enlightened for the sake of others? This question has inspired Buddhist writers across centuries and cultures. In 1959-1960, the twentieth-century Himalayan Buddhist poet-meditator Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, best known today as a teacher of the 14th Dalai Lama, took up the challenge of writing a poem a day for one year as a response to this question. Written in Tibetan, Khunu Lama's poems are also deeply shaped by his lifelong study of Sanskrit literature. This talk explores a selection of his poems, focusing on those that invoke the beauty of the natural world as a metaphor for Buddhist awakening.
Annabella Pitkin is a scholar of Buddhist literature, culture, and intellectual history with a focus on Tibet and the Himalayan region. She is Associate Professor of Buddhism and East Asian Religions at Lehigh University. Her book Renunciation and Longing: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Himalayan Buddhist Saint (University of Chicago Press, 2022) explores themes of nonattachment, devotion, and memory in the life and work of the great poet-meditator Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen.
Tibet and the Himalayas: Remembering Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen Rinpoche
༸གོང་ས་མཆོག་གི་དགེ་བའི་བཤེས་གཉེན་ཁུ་ནུ་བླ་མ་བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱལ་མཚན་མཆོག་གི་མཛད་པ། ༸གོང་ས་༸སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གི་དགེ་བའི་བཤེས་གཉེན་ཁུ་ནུ་བླ་མ་བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱལ་མཚན་མཆོག་གིས་གསན་བསམ་སློབ་གཉེར་མཛད་ཚུལ་དང་ཕྱིར་འཁྲུངས་ཡུལ་ནང་བསྟ
The Deeds of Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, the Spiritual Teacher of His Holiness. How Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, the spiritual teacher of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, studied and contemplated, and how he served the Buddhist community in his birthplace. (In Tibetan)
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