A Moving Account of Gaden Monastery In Tibet

(This account of Gaden Monastery was given in Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen's biography in http://www.tdling.org/teacher. The description is so vivid, I had tears well up in my eyes just from reading it. Wow!)

Geshe-la set out on the thirty-three day trek across twenty-five mountain passes, the only monk in a party of fifteen merchants and pilgrims. Near Lhasa, they stopped near Gaden Monastery where some monks invited Geshe-la for tea the following day. The next morning as he climbed the hill toward Gaden, he saw the great monastery for the first time looking as though it would touch the sky. He wept tears of joy and knew without question that it was here, and not Sera, where he would continue his studies. That day was the anniversary of Lama Tsong Khapa's enlightenment. In the evening the light offerings of butter lamps and the sound of chanting filled every room in the monastery and Geshe-la felt deeply moved by its spiritual atmosphere.

He joined Shartse College, one of Gaden's two main colleges. The abbot at that time was the late Kyabje Zong Rinpoche who took a special interest in the young monk's progress. Geshe Gyeltsen studied logic, wisdom, compassion, ethics, phenomenology and mind training at Gaden for twenty years and later became a teacher of junior monks.

                Geshe Tultim Gyeltsen

         H. E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's Guru