Khensur Jampa Tegchok. Photo by Piero Sirianni.
We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of another one of our precious and kind Buddhist masters. Khensur Jampa Tegchok passed away on October 28 at 1:55 a.m. local time in a hospital in South India. His body was then returned to Sera Je Monastic University in Bylakuppe, India. Khensur Jampa Tegchok was an inspiring and generous teacher for many FPMT students as well as for the monks of Sera Je Monastery.
Born in 1930, Khensur Jampa Tegchok became a monk in 1938 at the age of eight. He studied the major Buddhist treatises at Sera Je Monastic University in Tibet for 14 years before fleeing his homeland in 1959. After staying in the refugee camp at Buxa Duar, India, Geshe Tegchok went to Varanasi, where he obtained his Acharya (Master) degree and taught for seven years. He then began teaching in the West at the invitation of Lama Yeshe. He served as the principal teacher of the Geshe Studies Program at Manjushri Institute in England and then brought the program to Nalanda Monastery in France, where he remained to teach for 10 years. In 1993, His Holiness the Dalai Lama appointed him as abbot of Sera Je Monastic University in India, a position he held until 1999. Khensur Jampa Tegchok also taught extensively in Europe, New Zealand and the United States, particularly at Land of Medicine Buddha, as well as at Kushi Ling and Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (where he taught for the Masters Program) in Italy.
Khensur Jampa Tegchok is the author of Transforming Adversity into Joy and Courage: An Explanation of the Thirty-seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, published by Snow Lion Publications, and Insight into Emptiness, published by Wisdom Publications.
For a Mandala July-September 2010 article on FPMT geshes, FPMT-registered teacher Ven. Steve Carlier said about Khensur Jampa Tegchok, “When he taught at Sera the monks would say that they felt that if you listened even a little bit, you would have the qualities he was speaking of, or it was as if you almost had them. That is what it was like at Manjushri Institute and Nalanda Monastery, and later at Land of Medicine Buddha. This must reflect Khensur Rinpoche’s depth of realization, besides his unexcelled grasp of the words and context of the teachings.”
In the same Mandala article, Ven. Lobsang Drolma said, “He is just a Kadampa lama. One simply needs to observe a little. One will not find any super word to say or impressive description to offer. The emotive aspects are not there, the exaggeration, the ‘wonderfuls.’ He has the aspect of the simplest of the monks. One can see him in a corner of the Bodhgaya stupa making prayers, or in whatever center he visits, circumambulating the stupa, with modesty, at times when nobody can see him. I have seen the ways he takes care of his disciples – his love is very big. And also he has given his life, offered it to others.”
In an interview for Mandala, Khensur Jampa Tegchok said, “The only advice I could give is that the person should take ethics and truth as principles. And then try to stay in peace as much as possible.”
The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive has published online Khensur Jampa Tegchok’s teaching on the Heart Sutra and the Seven Point Mind Training. You can read Mandala’s stories on Khensur Jampa Tegchok online.
Khensur Jampa Teghchok’s death follows closely after the death of Khensur Denma Locho Rinpoche, who passed away on October 23, 2014. Another great teacher, Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche, passed away on August 28, 2014. The deaths of these three gifted, generous and much-loved Buddhist masters are a great loss for students of Dharma everywhere.
