Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche (1926-2006) was born in the province of Amdo – eastern Tibet – in 1926, and at age six was recognized as the reincarnation of the former abbot of the Kirti Gompa, and ordained as a monk at age nine. Rinpoche received teachings from many high lamas of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and was one of the holders of the tantra of Kalachakra lineage, having received that empowerment when he was fourteen years old. At the age of 32, and having completed his monastic studies he was appointed as the Abbot of Kirti Gompa.

After escaping from Tíbet in 1959, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche taught Tibetan orphans at the Tibetan Children’s Village, Dharamsala, India. At the age of 45, he began a fifteen-year meditation retreat in a small stone hermitage above Dharamsala, “big enough for a bed, prostrations, and a stove”. He spent the first seven years meditating on the lamrim, three years on the Seven-Point Thought Transformation, then two years on generation and completion stage tantra. For the final three years of his retreat, Rinpoche repeated all of the above. Rinpoche gave Kalachakra commentary to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and was a teacher of Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said of Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, “He is a great Kadampa master who shows real Kadampa tradition…so completely renounced. There’s not one slightest worldly activity, not the slightest eight worldly dharmas, no self-cherishing thought. Even talking, everything is as much as possible pleasing to sentient being’s minds.”

Rinpoche gave teachings around the world in many countries including Australia, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States.

Read more here.

A Teaching from Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche

How To Help The Dying and Those Who Have Died

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche gave this talk to staff and volunteers at the Karuna Hospice Service in Brisbane, Australia, 1992.