The Treasury of Lives

Dezhung Rinpoche is considered one of the most highly learned Tibetan lamas of his generation. He was knowledgeable in doctrine and history, and taught both extensively, most famously at the University of Washington in Seattle. Trained in pre-Communist Tibet, he moved almost constantly among monasteries to receive teachings from multiple traditions, mainly in the Sakya. His incarnation line's seat was in Litang, but trained primarily in the Jyekundo and Derge regions. Chief among his many teachers was Gaton Ngawang Lekpa. In the 1950s his niece Jamyang Dagmola married Dagchen Rinpoche and together they settled in Seattle in the early 1960s. Among his many American students were Gene Smith, David Jackson, Janet Gyatso, Elisabeth Benard, and Cyrus Stearns. After retiring from the University he taught at dharma centers across North America. At the end of his life he reestablished one of his monastic seats, Tharlam Monastery, in Boudanath, Kathmandu, where he passed away in May 1987.

The Eighteenth Chogye Trichen was one of the most influential Sakya masters of the twentieth century. Born into a family that sent many sons into leadership positions at major Sakya monasteries in central Tibet, he was the abbot of Nalendra Monastery before going into exile in 1959. In India and Nepal, he worked in religious affairs for the Tibetan government and helped restore Sakya monasteries in Mustang, where his elder sister had married the king. He built two major Buddhist monasteries in Nepal: his main seat in Lumbini and the Maitreya Temple in Boudhanath. As one of the few lineage holders of many Sakya teachings in exile he was constantly moving across Tibetan communities to perform transmissions and empowerments. Among the main recipients of these was the Forty-First Sakya Trizin. In his final decades he traveled frequently in East Asia and made one visit each to North America and Europe.

Dudjom Rinpoche was a towering figure in twentieth-century Tibetan religion—one of the main preservers of the Nyingma tradition in exile and the first Nyingma representative in the exile government. He gave a series of major Nyingma empowerments in the early 1960s and composed the lengthy History of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism in 1964. He was a primary holder of the Dudjom Tersar tradition, based on the revelations of his prior incarnation, Dudjom Lingpa.