YANGSI RINPOCHE, Geshe Lharampa
President, Professor of Buddhist Studies
email: director@maitripa.org
Yangsi Rinpoche was recognized as the reincarnation of Geshe Ngawang Gendun, a renowned scholar and practitioner from Western Tibet, at the age of six. Rinpoche trained in the traditional monastic system for over twenty-five years, and in 1995 graduated with the highest degree of Geshe Lharampa from Sera Je Monastery in South India. He then completed his studies at Gyume Tantric College, and, in 1998, having the particular wish to benefit Western students of the Buddhadharma, Rinpoche came to the West to teach and travel extensively throughout America and Europe.
Rinpoche was a resident teacher at Deer Park Buddhist Center in Madison, Wisconsin for five years, and is currently the Spiritual Director of Ganden Shedrup Ling Buddhist Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Spiritual Director of Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle, Washington. Rinpoche is the author of Practicing the Path: A Commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo, published in 2003 by Wisdom Publications. Rinpoche teaches in English, and is admired wherever he travels for his unique presentation of the Dharma, his interest in and enthusiasm for Western culture, and his evident embodiment of the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhist path.
James Blumenthal completed his Ph.D. in South Asian Religions where he specialized in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist thought under Geshe Lhundup Sopa. He is currently an Associate Professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Oregon State University. Dr. Blumenthal is the author of The Ornament of the Middle Way: A Study of the Madhyamaka Thought of Santaraksitaand editor of Incompatible Visions: South Asian Religions in History and Culture in addition to numerous articles on Buddhist thought and practice. He translated Nagarjuna'sSixty Stanzas of Reasoning for His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the occasion of His teachings on the text in Los Angeles in 2004. Dr. Blumenthal has studied with many great lamas both in Asia and in the West. His main teachers are Geshe Sopa Rinpoche and Gyume Khensur Lobsang Tenzin Rinpoche.