8th Arjia Rinpoche

Lobsang Tubten Jigme Gyatso (བློ་བཟང་ཐུབ་བསྟན་འཇིགས་མེད་རྒྱ་མཚོ་), officially the 8th Arjia Hotogtu (ཨ་ཀྱཱ་ཧོ་ཐོག་ཐུ།), born 1950 in Haiyan County, Qinghai) is one of the most prominent Buddhist teachers and lamas to have left Tibet. At age two, Arjia Rinpoche was recognized by Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama^[1] as the 20th Arjia Danpei Gyaltsen, the reincarnation of Je Tsongkhapa's father, Lumbum Ghe, the throne holder and abbot of Kumbum Monastery. He has trained with lineage teachers, such as the 14th Dalai Lama, the 10th Panchen Lama, and Gyayak Rinpoche—from whom he received many sacred teachings and ritual instructions.

Lobsang Tubten Jigme Gyatso
བློ་བཟང་ཐུབ་བསྟན་འཇིགས་མེད་རྒྱ་མཚོ་
8th Arjia Rinpoche in 2011 on Voice of America
Agya Hotogtu
Incumbent
Assumed office 1950
Preceded by	Lobsang Lundak Jigme Tanbe Gyaltsen
Member of the 7th, 8th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
In office April 1988 – March 1998 fled abroad in February 1998
Chairman	Li Xiannian→Li Ruihuan
Member of the Standing Committee of the 9th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
In office fled abroad before taking office in March 1998
Chairman	Li Ruihuan
Personal details
Born	1950 (age 73–74) Haiyan County, Qinghai, China
Residence	Bloomington, Indiana

During the Cultural Revolution in Chinese controlled Tibet, Arjia Rinpoche was forced to leave his monastery and attend a Chinese school, yet secretly continued to practice and study with his tutors. In addition, he was required to work in a forced Labor Camp for 16 years. Following the Cultural Revolution, Rinpoche continued serving as Abbot of Kumbum—overseeing the renovations in the monastery and reestablishing monastic studies. In 1998, due to the strained political climate in Tibet, Arjia Rinpoche went into exile claiming he would not compromise his spiritual beliefs and practices. He escaped to the United States where he now lives and started a Buddhist Center for Compassion and Wisdom (TCCW) in Mill Valley, California, a center committed to the preservation of Buddhist teachings, art and culture within and outside of Tibet and Mongolia. In 2005, he was appointed Director of the Tibetan Cultural Center (TCC) in Bloomington, Indiana by the 14th Dalai Lama. TCC was recently renamed the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center. Presently, he directs both TCCW and TMBCC.

Arjia Rinpoche excels in the knowledge and understanding of Tibetan art, architecture and the Tibetan Language. He has given classes in Buddhist Art and Sutra throughout the United States, Canada, Taiwan, India and Guatemala. In 1999, Rinpoche built a three-dimensional Kalachakra mandala and presented it to the Dalai Lama. Later, the Dalai Lama donated this mandala to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Kumbum Monastery, one of the six largest monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, is the birthplace of Je Tsongkhapa (founder of the school which is now headed by the Dalai Lama). Kumbum Monastery was once the home of 3,600 monks and well revered by the four well known Buddhist Colleges for higher learning: The Institute of Sutra, Institute of Tantra, Institute of Tibetan Medicine, and the Institute of the Kalachakra (Astrology). In the 1980s, after Buddhism began to revive in Tibet and in China, Arjia Rinpoche reestablished monastic life and traditional studies at Kumbum.

Throughout his life, Arjia Rinpoche was tutored by specialized teachers in the area of Buddhist philosophy, sutra and tantra teachings, as well as in Buddhist art and architectural design. He was in charge of the renovations of Kumbum monastery in 1991 and launched several projects including the following: Red Cross Organization in Kumbum, Disaster Relief Project for local villages, a clinic for villagers run by monks of the Tibetan Medical Institute and a school for local village children.^[2]

Arjia Rinpoche became vegetarian in 1999.^[3]

References

1. Dunham, Mikel (2016-03-06). "Mikel Dunham's Interview with Arjia Rinpoche Eye Witness to the Rigged Chinese Selection of the Panchen Lama" (PDF). archive.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 2020-02-21. In the following years, the boy's life became a series of extreme swings of fortune: first as a carefree child, then as a protected and revered incarnate, then as a youth singled out and ridiculed by the communists, then as a forced laborer in a Chinese camp until the age of thirty, then as a "rehabilitated counterinsurgent" released from hard labor and, finally, as a favorite of the Beijing hierarchy rising through the ranks. He was named Head Abbot of Kumbum Monastery, where he had once been denounced. Being Abbot proved to be more political than religious; it paved the way for even higher positions including Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Youth Association, Vice-President of the Central Government's Buddhist Association and a member of Beijing's Central Government.
2. Staff. "Rinpoche Bio". Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center, Bloomington Indiana. Archived from the original on 2009-03-24. Retrieved 2010-02-03.
3. Staff. "Arjia Lobsang Thubten Rinpoche (1950 - )". Shabkar.org. Retrieved 2010-02-03.