Geshe Lhundup Sopa

Interview by Ven. Elly van der Pas, Kalleen Mortensen, Mary Bennett and Carl Yoder.

Geshe Lhundup Sopa is the Abbot of the Deer Park Buddhist Center located in the countryside near Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The center site was chosen to host His Holiness the Dalai Lama who conferred the first Kalachakra initiation given in the West, in 1981. Geshe Sopa fled Tibet in 1959. Earlier that year he had been appointed as one of the Dalai Lama’s debate examiners. He completed his philosophical studies in the Tibetan refugee camps of north India, and in 1962 was awarded the highest geshe degree.

Geshe Sopa came to Madison and the University of Wisconsin as a faculty member in 1967, and in 1975 began teaching privately to a small group of students (many of whom had previously studied at Kopan Monastery with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Thubten Yeshe). He has continued this tradition to date and is currently teaching Nagarjuna’s Friendly Letter to the King. The center has been fortunate to have teachings from such an eminent scholar as Geshe Sopa and the many great teachers invited by him in the past, including the Dalai Lama, Serkong Rinpoche, Zong Rinpoche, Geshe Rabten, Lati Rinpoche, Geshe Lobsang Tensing.

This interview is compiled from two interviews with Geshe Sopa. The first was conducted by Ven. Elly van der Pas in the spring of 1994 during a visit to Vajrapani Institute in California. The second, in the spring of the present year, was conducted by three interviewers: Kalleen Mortensen, Mary Bennett and Carl Yoder.

Question: When did you first meet Lama Thubten Yeshe?

Geshe Sopa: I met Lama Yeshe in Sera Monastery in Tibet when he was very young, only nine or ten years old. His teacher, Thubten Wangchuk, who had the same teacher as me, Khensur Tobkay Rinpoche, the Abbot of Sera Je Monastery, came and suggested Thubten Yeshe become my student.

What was he like when was little?

Oh! [Laughter.]

Was he a good student?

Yes, he was a very good student, and he was a very, very pleasant boy. He had quite a few brothers. I think his uncle was also a monk and he was taking care of him, acting as his father. He was a very serious student. Some people, when debating, are very shy. They have sharp minds and deep intelligence, but sometimes in a debating situation, they don’t do much; they’re just too quiet. But some people have no shyness, and are able to debate in a playful way, joking and laughing. That’s a very good way, and Lama Yeshe had those qualities, always. Students in the West know Lama was a very pleasant person, and he had the same nature when he was young. Very light and very pleasant.

In Tibet, you don’t have classes like public classes here, with tutors who are paid. It is not like that in the monastery. We choose our own teachers – whomever we like in the monastery. Then we request the teacher to teach us. There is no payment. Once the teacher accepts, then the student is a disciple. The teacher always tries to give his students whatever they require, they try to help in many different ways, not just teachings, and personal advice too. You really trust your teacher, and you would ask him for whatever you need. He is the main person the students look to; the person on whom they rely. In Tibet, the spiritual teacher-disciple relationship is so deep and pure; following lam-rim.

Lama Yeshe had several teachers, which is the way in the monastery. My teacher was also his teacher. He was a very humble and good student; respectful of his guru.

What sere some of the basic texts he studied with you?

He studied the many Sera Je courses, beginning with Parchin, the Prajnaparamita texts. Every year he advanced higher and higher in his studies.

Did you come out of Tibet together?

No. At around nine in the morning of the day that I left, he came to my place. He was crying and asking what was going to happen. Of course, I had no idea of what to do, of what to tell him. That day, the Chinese were shooting at the Potala Palace. All the people in the monastery were frightened. So I had nothing much to say to Thubten Yeshe. We were both sad. I told him I hoped we would both be okay. I had heard His Holiness had escaped, so I went that night. I don’t know how long he stayed on, maybe a few days.

And when did you meet Lama Zopa Rinpoche?

I think in Buxa, Northeast India, where most of the Tibetans went; he was with Thubten Yeshe. Lama Zopa had been at Domo Geshe Rinpoche’s place, in Tibet near the border of Bhutan. From there, he was supposed to go to Lhasa, but then because of the problems he was not able to go. At that time in Sera, we knew this young lama was coming – actually, we called him the “Junior Domo Geshe Rinpoche.” Domo Geshe Rinpoche was already there and had taken his geshe degree.

When I escaped, I went to Dalhousie, and then in 1962 I visited Buxa. I saw Thubten Yeshe again there. After I left, he wrote to me from there, telling me how unhappy he was. He was feeling some sense of renunciation and wanted to go and do retreat somewhere. I was concerned about the physical conditions there, and I was also concerned about his starting but not finishing his studies, becoming a geshe. I wrote back, telling him to finish his studies. I don’t know if he got the letter, but then I heard that he had left for Darjeeling, taking Thubten Zopa with him.

When did you see them again? In the US?

I think so. They came in ’74 to Madison, Wisconsin. Lama Yeshe had already become famous with Westerners. From Darjeeling he had gone to Nepal with Zina [Rachevsky, his disciple]. They were able to buy Kopan Hill. Lama Yeshe was always saying that in Tibet monasteries were on top of hills, looking down, and this was a nice kind of arrangement. In the 60s, there was the hippie movement and a lot of Westerners were going to Nepal. Lama Yeshe was really useful to these young people, teaching them Buddhism. And the people were beginning to accept. He was very young and enjoyable, always laughing, and people liked him; some loved him. Many people were studying with Lama Yeshe and coming to know him very well. And they were telling others about him.

Were you in contact with Lama Yeshe in 1984 when he was in California, just before his passing?

No. He had already been sick in India before coming to California, but I didn’t have time to go to see him. I was thinking I could visit him in California, then he got very sick. And then it was the Tibetan New Year – which was the day he passed. Lama Zopa called me here and told me the situation. Later, I went to Vajrapani Institute for the cremation.

And when his reincarnation, Lama Osel, came here, wasn’t he about two or so?

I think so. He was very, very small the first time he came here, with his mother and father. I enjoyed seeing him. His faced looked a little similar to Lama Yeshe and right away I was feeling it was interesting, his way of acting, everything. At first when he came here he prostrated and of course I thought they probably taught him to prostrate. He talked a little bit and sat there. I gave him a toy. When he was leaving, without anyone telling him, he prostrated a couple of times, fully stretched out on the ground. For a long time he didn’t get up. [Laughter.] He just lay there. And one time in the temple, Lama Zopa and I were doing a long-life puja. At the time they were giving me a mandala, Lama Osel was crawling up the steps to me on the throne. And then he was trying to do the same things that we were; he was participating. He had no shyness; he was very, very friendly. It looked like he was enjoying the puja. When I next went to Vajrapani, to consecrate Lama Yeshe’s stupa, I arrived in the morning by car. Lama Osel was playing near the stupa, and while people were greeting me, he right away came into the car. It was very interesting.

Please tell us more about yourself.

I was born in Tibet, west of Lhasa, in Tsang Province. When I was around ten years old, I entered the Ganden Sherkal Monastery. It is a very good monastery, and it was very famous. It usually had four or five hundred monks. Its educational system was very similar to Sera’s. I had heard much about Sera Monastery. Geshes and monks went there and I saw some of them come back as very great scholars. Even Ganden Tripa, my teacher’s teacher, was there. I had a strong desire to go there to study.

My uncle was not a great scholar but he had great faith in study. He decided to send me to Sera when I was eighteen. He was my main sponsor during the years I was there. Just before 1959 I was ready to take my geshe examination. At the time I was teaching younger monks, I had many students, including Thubten Yeshe as I mentioned. But then I had to leave.

And you were still not a geshe then?

Not at that time. During the next two or three years, His Holiness, who himself was a great scholar, along with many of the monks re-established the monastic system in south India. The first geshe exam was in ’62. Geshe Thubten Gyaltsen from Los Angeles and I were the two geshes who passed that year. He is from Ganden and I from Sera.

In that same year, I was chosen to go to America. I think His Holiness had been requested by Geshe Wangyal who had a monastery in New Jersey. I was chosen to go with three young lamas from the Young Lamas Home School in New Delhi. An English lady, Freda Bedi, had organized for many young reincarnated lamas to learn English. Geshe Wangyal had a grant for three of these young lamas to come to America to learn English. They weren’t to go to ordinary school but were to stay in the monastery. So I was chosen by His Holiness to go with them to teach them Buddhism. One of the lamas, Kamlung Rinpoche, was my student in Tibet and I had lived with him in India. The others were Sharpa Tulku and Lama Kunga, a Sakyapa. Kamlung Rinpoche and Sherpa Tulku had attended Sera.

Of course at that time I didn’t know anything about America. It is so far to go at my age; so far from Tibet. I was thinking I would ask His Holiness for permission to stay in India. But then my guru, Trijang Rinpoche, told me not to ask. He said His Holiness was doing me a favor, asking me to go. My guru said it might even be good for me. A lot of people want to go to America, why not you?, he said. If you don’t like it, take a plane back in one or two days.

So I went to New Jersey in 1963. It was for four years and after 1966 I had to return. But then in 1965 or 1966, Geshe Wangyal requested His Holiness to allow me and Lama Kunga to stay as they needed the monastery in New Jersey to stay open. So I stayed there.

After a couple of years, I heard of a Wisconsin professor who was seeking a native Tibetan scholar for the study of the Tibetan language. He was Professor Richard Robinson, the chairman of Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin. He felt it was most crucial to find someone. A lot of Buddhist texts had been lost in Sanskrit when the Muslims conquered India, as you know. All of the Indian monasteries were destroyed and many texts were lost. But all of the scriptures and commentaries had been translated into Tibetan. Therefore, the Tibetan language is most crucial.

Professor Robinson heard I was in New Jersey, so he came to ask me to come to Wisconsin University. I thought, how can I go there? I can’t teach because of my English. But he was very, very insistent, saying I should come. He said I could learn a little English and he could learn a little Tibetan and together we could teach a class. He was very, very strong in urging me.

I went to Wisconsin one year, then another year, then for a third year. Later, Professor Robinson was supposed to go to the University of Hawaii, but he had an accident: his house caught fire and he died. I was stuck there! So I moved there so that studying could continue in the philosophy of Buddhism.

During that time, there was a lot of interest in the teachings. It was during the Vietnam War and there were a lot of hippies, a lot of young who were interested in studying. These young people, while they were in America, didn’t know there was a geshe here at the university. They slowly learned of me after they traveled in Nepal and India. As a result, I soon had quite a number of students around my house and studying at the university. Some of them were professors who now have jobs teaching Tibetan at universities. From the beginning, the studies got stronger, continued to develop. I also had private students. There were many people interested in studying, but not wanting to study at the university. Many different types of people with different interests in Buddhism in general and in Tibetan Buddhism, specifically.

After I was teaching for some time, the group wanted to form a society, have a name and title so together they could do puja ceremony for Buddha’s birthday and so forth. In the beginning I wasn’t interested. I was only interested in teaching then. But later, with more people, we decided we should have one, so we established the Ganden Mahayana Center. I finally moved to a local place, and right now my present place. Its name was changed to Deer Park Center.

His Holiness has come here three times. The first time was when he came to give a university lecture. The second time, in 1981, was for the Deer Park Kalachakra initiation, the first Kalachakra initiation in the West. After the initiation, we built a stupa, which is proper. The third time was in 1989, when His Holiness got his Nobel Prize. We had 8,000 people come. He lectured, then gave the Avalokiteshvara [Chenrezig] initiation. Then, His Holiness did a dedication for the stupa. After that, a lot of people requested me to come and teach and I had a lot of classes.

When one makes dedication, one makes prayers so that the wishes of one’s lama might come to pass. What are your virtuous wishes particularly with regard to the flourishing of Buddhism in the West?

I have all kinds of wishes. [Laughter.] You can’t explain all of your wishes. [Laughter.] We are in this period of degenerating times, and in general Buddhism is disappearing. Starting from its origins in India, it has gone outward, from southern India to Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, all those areas. Also, Mahayana Buddhism has gone to Nepal, Tibet, China and Japan. For centuries Tibetan Buddhism developed purely, with strong scholarship and yogic practice. It had strong influence.

All the Tibetan lay people believe that Buddhism is the heart of their country. For centuries the Mahayana teachings developed in Tibet, which was closed to the outside, undiluted with other religions and culture. Later came the destruction by the communists and all this influence was lost and degenerated everywhere.

Until 1959, Tibet was at a high point of its development and then suddenly it collapsed. But one fortunate thing was that not everything was destroyed under the communist Chinese. At that time, some were able to escape. His Holiness and many of the teachers and lamas were able to get out. Not everybody, but there were among them great senior lamas and teachers who came out and taught. All the Buddhist scriptures, the Kangyur and Tengyur, had earlier been sent to America and England as gifts by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.

We Tibetans call his Holiness Yeshe Norbu, which means The Wish-Granting Jewel. Tibetans have for a long time considered him as Avalokiteshvara, who manifested for the Tibetan people. A reincarnated lama whom everybody respects and honors.

For me, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is the most precious. This Lama of Tibet had a very bad situation, something that had never happened before. It came at a time when he was just sixteen years old. By then he had learned everything at the monasteries and taken the geshe examination. If we think about how unfortunate the situation could have been for the people of Tibet had the Dalai Lama been old and about to pass, or the communists had thrown away a young Dalai Lama baby, certainly that would not have been helpful. But His Holiness was right there, ready for the political and religious situation. Also, the Chinese weren’t able to capture him. He was able to get out.

Once he got out, along with other Tibetan monks, he was there mainly to preserve Buddhist teachings, which are the special heart of the culture. He is the jewel of the world for everybody. He especially established the three big monasteries, Sera, Drepung and Ganden, and tried to start the learning tradition in the monasteries. First starting with Buxa, and then continued with help from [Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal] Nehru and the Indian government. They did a marvelous job for the Tibetans; whatever we wanted they gave us. His Holiness established the three main centers, also Nyingma, Sakya and Kargyu centers. Everywhere religion was strongly preserved and subsequently it spread to Westerners and over the whole world, to all people who were interested in learning.

In the last few years, I have visited different places and almost everywhere there are Tibetan Buddhist centers. People are interested so much so in this teaching and practice that they themselves are dedicated to bringing special teachers from India to centers in Europe, Canada, this country, Asia, Australia, South America. This way of spreading the teachings is not an attempt to convert people in the world; we don’t do that. But people are particularly interested in the teaching, so we teach, and that is the way it should be. The desire to have this arises from people’s heart, because everybody wants to have peace and happiness, and nobody wants misery or suffering. The essence of the Buddha’s teaching is individual liberation, freedom, and worldwide compassion and love. This is the heart of the Tibetan culture, and now it is not just kept in one small country but has gone everywhere. It has been of invaluable benefit worldwide, and I hope this will continue more and more strongly.

While there are many highly valuable scriptures and commentaries, most are not available in English. Many of them, however, are beginning to be translated. That is valuable because people can begin to read these scriptures themselves, can have the choice to do their own studying. This is happening. First the student is studying, reading, then is ready for more. With a taste of teachings, they want to go deeper. Nobody wants to proceed without knowing much, with only blind faith.

The source for the teaching is these translations. It will happen slowly but everything will be translated eventually. That, in general, is my wish. I’m not talking about my personal wish – I have a lot of personal wishes. [Laughter.] But in general, that is it.

There are so many problems in the world: misery, suffering, sickness, poverty and the environment of physical and mental destruction. The most essential help is in the teachings, the mental training. People in the world will develop peaceful minds, knowledge, wisdom, and then that excellent personality will spread everywhere. This will be the cause of peace, rather than that which is rotten, evil, and destructive.

Buddhist teachings, all spiritual teachings, are like medicine for the sickness of the world. That is what Buddhism is saying. Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacaryavatara says that in the world all the fear, misery, suffering, all these problems, arise from egotistic view, selfishness, wanting for oneself, one’s own happiness. But having compassion, and the wish for happiness for others rather than just for selfish purposes, will create so much happiness.

So what is the best medicine? There are temporary cures, herbs, medicine, but the only permanent real medicine that leads to freedom from sickness and misery is the spiritual teaching, spiritual Dharma. Dharma is the medicine, the cure for the problem, the cure that brings peace and happiness. There are many different religions and every spiritual teaching is supposed to lead to peace, happiness and solving problems. Especially our Buddhist teachings exist mainly for that purpose. So I wish that spiritual teaching continues strongly and spreads everywhere, to every part of the world. In that way all people can have this medicine. Okay?

In the dedication chapter in Bodhisattvacaryavatara, Shantideva prays that the Dharma remain in the world as long as samsara is there. And, it will remain a long time with the assistance of certain kinds of wealth. Dharma centers need financial help; wealth along with honor and respect. With that, these teachings may remain as long as samsara remains. That this teaching may remain with wealth and respect, is one of his dedications. So with that, I think the worldwide happiness would be very excellent.

This is my wish. But there are selfish wishes too. [Laughter.] Those I won’t tell you. [Laughter.]

For beginners or anyone studying Buddhism, what approach or course of study is the most valuable?

I think the most valuable at the beginning is the summary of the essence of the whole Buddhist teaching from the beginning to the end, the lam-rim. Become familiar with that before taking each topic one by one. Especially for people who are interested in all of the Buddha’s vast teachings. There are many lam-rims: small, intermediate, and more advance texts. They serve as a manual of Buddhism, an overview.

It is much easier to get interested in some deep scripture, but first you must learn how to practice, and how to live one’s own life. For this, studying lam-rim is good. For example if you plan to visit another country, you need a map, a manual. It will tell you how many miles away is the city or town you are interested in. Then you go there, and every detail of how you got there and what you will be seeing, all of it is in the manual. This is what the lam-rim is in the Buddhist realm.

Can you say something about tantra coming to the West and, for those who study Buddhism, what approach is best to take?

Tantric teaching is the highest level of teaching and the most secret teaching. It requires so much preparation. To receive tantric teaching you require the three preliminaries: the special thought of renunciation; bodhicitta, special universal love and compassion based on special spontaneous mind of altruism; and the viewpoint of wisdom that understands reality or truth, shunyata. These three are called the three principal aspects of the path, the door to any kind of tantra.

The main meditation is the understanding of these three dominant aspects. Without these, the high tantric rituals and practices — powers, the wrathful deities, union with consort — can be misunderstood. On the surface it could look like you can kill others, steal from others, and have sexual enjoyment.

People just grab tantric teachings without developing the three preliminaries. They may get some kind of result, but the result will not be good, high. A black magical result may arise and, instead of getting a high result, the practitioner will create the cause for a lower rebirth by treating others badly and themselves too. Therefore tantra is a most dangerous area.

People should first examine, study and learn mainly lam-rim. Lam-rim provides the three principal aspects, as I mentioned. When you have them, your tantric practice will be good. But a lot of people are interested just in the results, rather than the cause. That is not good. But to have an interest in learning, studying, in order to know what is proper and what is the cause, that is good. The method side is the most important.

Jumping around too much is not good. If you want to fly somewhere in an airplane without learning how to fly, or even without knowing how to get to the airport, and you take the machine and try, you will be destroyed. You and your passengers are in a dangerous situation. So that is the analogy.

When you first came to America, there were few Americans who were Buddhists?

There were some Buddhists, mainly Japanese Zen, and a few Chinese Buddhists. But Tibetan Buddhism was almost unknown. People had heard about Tibetan Buddhism in a negative way; the essence was not known, nobody was teaching it. They didn’t know deeply people who had studied Buddhism in Tibet. And some thought Tibet a backward country closed to Westerners: Shangri-la, a mystic country, something exotic.

This is slowly changing now that Tibetans are in India, and because of the many places in the West like Thubten Yeshe’s centers, and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s. The essence is being slowly discovered by Westerners. In the last several years, everywhere I’ve been in Europe and South America there are centers popping up like flowers. People are very, very enthusiastic and sympathetic. They really want to learn, want to do practice, and not just look on as anthropologists, but to study the real essence of the teaching. Geshes and lamas have been visiting, teaching the essence of lam-rim and giving tantric initiations.

People in the world are intelligent. When they really become involved – looking, examining, analyzing – everybody has the ability to know, to understand. Buddhist teachings are for all human society, not only for Tibetans. They are for everybody.

What do you think is important for the future of Buddhism in the West?

I think the future is that the best teachers continue to teach and we have a good system and good centers, and people go there. Let the best part spread everywhere, but not the part mixed with the worldly, the Eight Worldly Goals: wealth, fame, praise, all these worldly common things. If you utilize the teachings of Buddhism as the way to get wealth, the religion becomes evil. That is a disservice to pure Buddhist teachings and, also, it will be a disservice to the public. And the public will dislike it.

The main thing is for people to have interest, to investigate, to open their minds. Once people have opened their minds, they have wisdom. People have special wisdom and intelligence in the West. People just don’t want to go merely on blind faith; they want to know, to check scientifically and logically: the source, what, how, where. And Tibetan Buddhism is logical and scientific. It explains so many teachings: there are so many commentaries, sub-commentaries, all taught by scholars, monks and lamas who have trained for years.

So therefore that tradition, when built in a solid way, will spread and stay long in the West. It will not easily disappear. There are many people who are interested and that way, more and more will learn the teachings; more and more people will continue. I don’t believe the whole of the West will come under the power of Buddhism. But it will go everywhere.

So I’m very happy that a lot of people are interested in the Buddhadharma and are establishing centers and foundations, groups and societies. These will greatly benefit people. But they should not mix up everything; they should try and present the pure essence of the teachings. This confuses people and it can be dangerous.

The most important and essential thing now is that the scriptures, commentaries, the real heart of the philosophy, are being put into English. Even though there are Tibetan scholars, having to translate the teachings makes it difficult. There are still language and communication barriers, but scholarship in Buddhism in the West is getting better, and I think this will go on. Finally all of the Buddhist scriptures can be put in to other languages, especially English.

Inevitably, with so much scholarship in the West, the pure philosophy will be mixed with other thoughts. This will happen, it is to be expected. But people will contemplate and publish ideas and write reviews, and in this way corrections can be made, making scholarship better and better. It is like finding gold. You need to analyze again and again, you need to purify it. In that way, the essential teachings can slowly be developed. Then you will have pure gold.

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