Tenzin Gyaltsen Negi | |
---|---|
Religion | Tibetan Buddhism |
School | Rimé movement |
Lineage | kagyud nyingma |
Other names | Khunu Rinpoche Negi Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen |
Personal | |
Nationality | India |
Born | 1895 |
Died | February 23, 1977 |
Religious career | |
Teacher | Khenpo shenga , khenpo kunpal ,kathok situ , Drikung Agon ,Dzongsar Khentse |
Students | 14th Dalai Lama, Drikung khandro , khenpo thupten , khenpo Konchok Gyalysen, HH Dilgo khentse ,Lamkhen gyalpo Rinpoche. [Karma Thinley Rinpoche]] |
Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen (Wylie: khu nu bla ma bstan 'dzin rgyal mtshan, 1894–1977), known also as Negi Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen (), was born in 1894 in the village of Sunam which lies in the forest-clad Kinnaur district of India in the western Himalayas. Khunu Rinpoche was neither a tulku nor a Buddhist monk but a layman (Wylie: dge bsnyen, Skt. upāsaka) who took the lay practitioner's vows .
He is renowned as one of the influential teachers in the Rimé (non-sectarian) movement within Tibetan Buddhism. A foremost scholar of Sanskrit and Classical Tibetan, Khunu Rinpoche traveled widely in Tibet and India disseminating essential teachings of Buddhist philosophy.
His students Drikung khandro ,Khenpo Konchok Gyaltsen, lamkhen Gyalpo Rinpoche include the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. Although the Dalai Lama had other highly qualified teachers and debate partners for religious matters the philosophical concepts which seemed still not clear enough to him he used to discuss with Khunu Lama. Among several teachings that the Dalai Lama received from Khunu Rinpoche was the celebrated Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra of Shantideva. The Dalai Lama called him the “Shantideva of our time”.
His seminal work on bodhicitta was translated and published under the title of "Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea: Verses in Praise of Bodhicitta" by Wisdom Publications in 1999.
He died at Shashur Monastery in Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh at the age of 82 on February 23, 1977.