Khyongla Rato

 

Khyongla Rato is a reincarnate lama and scholar of the Gelugpa order of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in southeastern Tibet in the region called Kham. In 1928, senior Gelugpa monks divined that a five-year old boy living in this remote part of Tibet was the reincarnation of the ninth Khyongla of Tibet.

On his sixth birthday, monks on horseback took him from his parents’ home to a monastery some distance away where he was installed as its spiritual head. For over three decades he lived the sober life of a monk, studying at the most famous monasteries in Tibet and earning the Lharampa Geshe degree. In 1959, along with thousands of monks, as well as the Dalai Lama, he fled on foot over the Himalayas to safety and to a radically different life in India, and eventually the United States.

In 1975, he founded The Tibet Center, the oldest Tibetan Buddhist Center in New York City. The Center offers classes in Buddhist practice and theory on a weekly schedule. Ancient Indian and Tibetan texts are taught together with methods for integrating them into daily meditation and practice.

Nicholas Vreeland

 

The Venerable Nicholas Vreeland is the Director of The Tibet Center. He holds a Ser Tri Geshe Degree from Rato Dratsang, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Karnataka, India, where he studied for 15 years. In 1998, he returned to New York City to assume administrative and teaching responsibilities. He is the editor of An Open Heart, the New York Times best seller by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Visit Photos for Rato, an exhibition of photographs by Nicholas Vreeland, organized by friends of Photos for Rato in order to raise funds for the reconstruction of Rato Dratsang, one of Tibet’s most prestigious monasteries.