H.E. Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche is a teacher, author, poet, and artist, and the founder of the Heruka Institute in Seattle. He was recognized as the reincarnation of Dzogchen Gyaltsab Thodo Rinpoche by H.H. Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche. In the summer of 2015, the Tibetan terton Tenchen Sangngag Lingpa, of Kham, recognized him as a Choe-Dag — one of the owners of that terton's treasure Dharma.
His life has carried him from a nomadic family on the grasslands of Amdo, across the Himalayas on foot, through a refugee camp in India, and at last to Seattle — where he spent fifteen years in service to one of his root gurus, and where he now teaches a sangha that spans continents and languages.
A childhood on the grasslands
Rinpoche was born into a nomadic family in Amdo, in the highlands of eastern Tibet. His first schooling was in a local tent school, and later at a boarding school; his mother's devotion was among the earliest and strongest influences on him. He grew up in the years when Tibet's temples and monasteries were reopening, and he has spoken of a love of books and reading that shaped him from childhood.
Long before he became a monk, the Gelug master H.H. Lamo Yongzin Rinpoche — born in 1908 in north Kokonor Lake in Amdo — took him under his wing and taught him the traditional subjects, including Tibetan script and how to visualize the tantric deities. Lamo Yongzin Rinpoche would remain one of his root gurus.
Becoming a monk
He became a monk as a child. His training continued under the mahasiddha Lama Tamcho Gyatso, in a rigorous monastic regime, and it was in these years that he received the name Ocean of Wisdom.
Of his education he has said simply that it was “about fifty-fifty — half my studies were by myself and half were in monasteries at the feet of Buddhist Masters.”
Across the Himalayas
Around 1993, still a young monk, he left Tibet on foot, crossing the Himalayas into Nepal. From there he went on to India, where he lived for a time in a refugee camp and travelled the long road across the country to Drepung Monastery in exile.
Through the later 1990s he lived and studied in the monasteries of Kathmandu. At Tarig Monastery, in the mid-1990s, he first met H.H. Jigdal Dagchen Sakya — who would become one of his root gurus — at a time when he was writing a thousand-year history of the Sakyapa. He later stayed at Tharlam Monastery, where the connection formed that would eventually carry him to America.
It was in these years of exile — as a grown monk, not as a child — that he was recognized as the reincarnation of Dzogchen Gyaltsab Thodo Rinpoche by H.H. Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, the Nyingma master who was also a teacher of H.H. the Dalai Lama.
He would not see his parents again for twenty years.
Seattle
In late 2002, Rinpoche came to Seattle to live in the Sakya Monastery and write H.H. Jigdal Dagchen Rinpoche’s biography. He also gave teachings, wrote books and served his master while working hard to learn the English language. He took evening classes at North Seattle Community College, studied with a tutor, watched TV and listened to the radio to help accelerate his learning. Rinpoche also enjoyed walking around Green Lake, Seattle speaking with strangers to practice his English. In June 2010, Rinpoche became a United States citizen.
Fifteen years of service
At Sakya Monastery he completed the four-volume Tibetan biography of H.H. Jigdal Dagchen Sakya that he had been invited to write, and began a documentary film about him. He served as his guru's attendant and interpreter, taught Tibetan grammar and language, led public Dharma teachings and empowerments from 2006 onward, founded the monastery's annual live animal release, and served as vajra master for the annual Guru Rinpoche Bumtsok.
Each time in preparing tea, I would wash my hands, then his teacup, then make his favorite green tea, and offer him the tea. Each time I saw Dagchen Rinpoche drink this tea, I felt so blissful.
Of that service he has written that it was, for him, the essence of guru yoga — and that “service for one's gurus is the essence of the Buddha-Dharma.”
Writer, poet, and artist
Rinpoche has written sixteen books on Tibetan Buddhism, meditation, healing, and poetry. He has published four books in English:
- A Modern Liberation Odyssey: An Autobiography of a Tibetan Nomad Lama
- Handbook for Half-Buddhas
- Tibetan Zen
- 108 Questions: The Story and Teachings of Lord Buddha
He has also recorded five albums, including Tibetan Chöd, and is known for the beauty of his chanting voice. He is a published poet and an artist, and has spoken of the poetry of Dzogchen and Mahamudra.
His writing is plain, practical, and often funny. Tibetan Buddhism, he writes, “is like an ocean, but I believe you can drink at least one cup of it within this life time.” He teaches that drinking coffee, washing your face, and brushing your teeth can all become practice.
The Heruka Institute has limited copies for sale of Handbook for Half-Buddhas and 108 Questions: The Story and Teachings of Lord Buddha. Both books are available in English and Vietnamese. Please send an email to inquire about purchase.
Study across the traditions
Rinpoche has received empowerments, teachings, and transmissions from more than sixty masters, across the Nyingma, Kagyu, Gelug, Sakya, and Chöd lineages. He is also learned in Tibetan Shamanism and its healing and divination practices, especially in the tradition of King Gesar, and holds three separate transmissions of the Chöd.
The Heruka Institute
The Heruka Institute was formed in Seattle by a group of Rinpoche's students, inspired by his teachings, and received its nonprofit status in 2016. Its mission is simple: the advancement of Vajrayana Buddhism, and the promotion of a more compassionate and wise society.
Today Rinpoche teaches in Seattle and online, and travels to sangha communities across North America and Asia. His teachings and books reach practitioners in Tibetan, English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Spanish. As one of his students wrote, his “humble beginnings in Amdo were a seed — and that seed has grown into a great tree, shading the halls and temples of sanghas around the world.”