Property:TolExcerpt
From Damngak Dzö
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Nyemdowa Sonam Pel, the son of Nyemdowa Mawai Sengge, was a disciple of Drakpa Jungne, the fourth abbot of Drigung Monastery. +
Chennga Lodro Gyeltsen, one of the principal students of Khedrubje, was an early Geluk scholar-adept. He was educated in the classical scholastic curriculum and gained a reputation as a learned scholar at an early age. After his ordination, he received special instructions from Tsongkhapa's close disciple Tokden Jampel Gyatso. He served as abbot of two monasteries for a few years, but spent most of his adult life as a hermit. Although he wrote on a variety of topics, Lodro Gyeltsen is renowned for his extensive writings on Lojong, or Mind-Training, and Lamrim, or the Stages of the Path. +
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In the history of the Jonang tradition Tāranātha is second in importance only to Dölpopa himself. He was responsible for the Jonang renaissance in U-Tsang during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the widespread revitalization of the zhentong teachings. Like his previous incarnation, Kunga Drolchok, Tāranātha practiced and taught from many different lineages and was nonsectarian in his approach to realization. He was also one of the last great Tibetan translators of Sanskrit texts. The abbot of Jonang Monastery, he emphasized the practice of the Sakya teachings of Lamdre and the esoteric instructions of the Shangpa Kagyu, but he specially focused on the explication of the Kālacakra Tantra and the practice of its Six-branch Yoga as the most profound of all the teachings given by the Buddha. It is clear in his writings that Tāranātha considered Dölpopa to be the ultimate authority in matters of doctrine and practice. +
The Ninth Situ, Pema Nyinje Wangpo, was a student of the Thirteenth Karmapa and the Tenth Zhamar. He was a main teacher to Jamgon Kongtrul and the Fourteenth Karmapa. He built the Gyude Temple at Pelpung Monastery. He spent the twenty years in retreat, from about age sixty to age eighty. +
Gyalse Tokme Zangpo was a Kadampa master of the fourteenth century based at Ngulchu Monastery where he sat in retreat for twenty years. He had previously served as the abbot of Bodong E for about nine years, from 1326 to 1335. Significant in the transmission of Lojong teachings, his compositions include the famous ''Thirty-seven Practices of the Bodhisattva'', one of the classics of Tibetan buddhist literature. A specialist in tantric Mahākaruṇā, he was a disciple of Butön Rinchen Drup and a teacher of Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö, and is counted as seventy-third in the Lamrim lineage. +
Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa was one of the most influential Tibetan Buddhist scholars of the last millennium. Born in Amdo, he travelled to U-Tsang in his youth, never to return to his homeland. In U-Tsang he studied with numerous teachers of all traditions and engaged in many retreats resulting in his development of a fresh interpretation of Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka view and a reinvigoration of the monastic Vinaya. Widely regarded as an emanation of Mañjuśrī, Tsongkhapa composed eighteen volumes of works of which the majority dealt with tantric subjects. He was the founder of Ganden Monastery, which became the central monastery of the Geluk tradition that was founded on his teachings and writings. +
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Yanggonpa Gyeltsen Pel (yang dgon pa rgyal mtshan dpal), also known as Lhadongpa Gyeltsen Pel (lha gdong pa rgyal mtshan dpal) was born in the Lato (la stod) region of Tsang (gtsang), in 1213. Yanggonpa, the informal name he adopted, came from a hermitage he refers to in his Inner Autobiography as Yanggon (yang dgon), where he did his first Vajravārāhī retreat. The village of his birth was Chuja (chu bya), a lay settlement associated with the small monastic complex of Lhadong Monastery (lha gdong dgon pa), in the principality of Gungtang (gung thang), not far form the Tibet-Nepal border. This small monastic complex of Lhadong was the place of Yanggonpa's early religious education, and he did not stray far from the area of Gungtang during his lifetime.
He was born into the Tong (stong) clan, as the youngest boy in a Nyingma family. He had two older brothers and one older sister. He was given the name Dungsob Pelbar (gdung sob dpal 'bar) by his father, a lay lama associated with Lhadong, who passed away before his birth. He began his religious training at about age five and entered Lhadong monastery at age nine. Both his father's brother, Drubtob Darma (grub thob dar ma) and his mother, Chotongma (chos mthong ma), who was a respected Buddhist practitioner, transmitted teachings to him as a boy. Read more on Treasury of lives +
The Jonang tradition would ultimately place Yumo as a key link in the Tibetan Kālacakra lineage; Tāranātha would cite him as an advocate of their distinctive position of "other-emptiness" (gzhan stong) in a tantric context. +
