The Tibet Center is proud to announce that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has appointed its Director, The Venerable Nicholas Vreeland, as the new Abbot of Rato Monastery, which is based in India.  This is a historic moment; this is the first time that a Westerner has been appointed as abbot of an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery.  On making the appointment, in Long Beach California on April 20, 2012, The Dalai Lama stated, “Your special duty (is) to bridge Tibetan tradition and Western world.” 

Vreeland will split his time between The Tibet Center in New York and the monastery in India. The original Rato Monastery, located on the outskirts of Lhasa, Tibet, was established in the 14^th Century to preserve the teachings on Buddhist logic. By 1959, Rato had grown to 500 monks, with scholars from all the great monastic universities of Tibet converging there every year for a month of intense philosophical and logical study and debate.  In 1983, the monastery was reestablished in a Tibetan refugee settlement in the south Indian state of Karnataka, where two years later Vreeland became a monk and began his monastic studies.  He sat for his Geshe degree (Doctorate of Philosophy) in 1998, after which he returned to New York to assume duties as the Director of The Tibet Center —Kunkhyab Thardo Ling — where he had first begun his studies of Buddhism with the Center’s founder, the Reverend Khyongla Rato Rinpoche in 1977. 

The Tibet Center has been a co-host, with the Gere Foundation, of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visits to New York a number of times, including two public talks in Central Park and teachings at Radio City Music Hall.  Vreeland has edited the New York Times bestseller, An Open Heart, and the recently released, A Profound Mind, both authored by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 

Though there are over 1,000 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, Rato Monastery is one of only a dozen important Tibetan Government monasteries under the Dalai Lama’s patronage.  Today there are approximately 100 monks at Rato ranging from the age of 6 to 90. 

Vreeland has been a photographer since he was 13 years old, and assisted Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. A recent exhibition of his work, entitled Photos for Rato, toured major cities around the world and raised most of the funds needed for the construction of Rato Monastery’s new campus and temple, which was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama on January 31, 2011.

 The Tibet Center and all its students are deeply saddened and mourn the loss of our brother and fellow student Adam Yauch. A true music pioneer, he influenced a generation. His many charitable works have been of enormous benefit to the cause of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people. We will miss his warmth and friendship. The Tibet Center sends prayers to his family. May he be born in a completely pure realm.

Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva Part 2

Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva Part 3 Conclusion

(click on photo to buy on amazon.com)

Excerpted from A PROFOUND MIND, the new book by  H. H. the Dalai Lama (Author), Nicholas Vreeland (Editor), Richard Gere (Afterword).

Photo by Jane L. Wechsler

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Ven Geshe Vreeland gives a talk on Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Chap IV Conscientiousness, Pt 3, from May 2009.

If you click on the image to the right to buy the book, The Tibet Center will receive 4% of your purchase from Amazon.

Photo: Jane L. Wechsler

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James (Jimi, Jigme) Neal was born in Trieste Italy in 1948, and grew up near Seattle, USA. Studied Acting, music and revolution at university until 1971 when he departed to India overland via Europe.  On his second journey to India and Nepal in 1974 he first met Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 7th Kopan medaocourse in Nepal and has been studying, practicing and teaching Buddhism from then up to the present time.

Jimi was a fully ordained monk from 1980 to 1995. In 1981 he was one of the founding monks at Nalanda Monastery in France at the request of Lama Yeshe. 

He has had the good fortune to have taken extensive teachings, initiations and commentaries in Sutra and Tantra from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Song Rinpoche, Ling and Serkong Rinpoche, Kirti Tsenshap Rinpoche, Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche, as well as his own root Lamas: Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. He has completed retreats on the preliminary practices, Vajrayogini, Heruka, Yamantaka and others over the span of the last thirty years.

He has lead retreats and taught the Dharma at FPMT centers India, Nepal, America, France and Spain as well as teaching throughout Israel.

He has lived in India for most of his adult life and presently resides near Dharamsala with his wife Valerie.