dralopbiographybrief

A Brief Life Story of the Great Scholar
Drabi Lopen Lekshed Jamtsho, Ocean of Wisdom
Compiled by his disciple, Rigzin Karma, Rendered into English by Claude

 In the verdant valleys of the Land of the Thunder Dragon, where lotuses of the learned and accomplished bloom in full splendor, there arose a sovereign of speech whose brilliance could steal the hearts even of those devoted to the highest aims. To that lotus — Ocean of Wisdom — I bow.

With that garland of homage offered, what follows is a brief account of the life of the great lord of scholars, the Drabi Lopen Lekshed Jamtsho, Ocean of Wisdom.

Birth and Early Formation

The great scholar known as Lekshed Jamtsho — “Ocean of Wisdom” — was born at dawn on the eleventh day of the fourth summer month of the Fire Pig year, May 30, 1947, in upper Menchuna in the Thimphu region of Bhutan, a land known to be endowed with all ten virtues. His father was Dasho Dophu; his mother, Phurpa Drolma. Many auspicious signs attended his birth. He was given the name Kuenley Gyaltshen.

From childhood he passed through the gates of the glorious Drukpa tradition, joining the monastic assembly at Pungthim Dratshang. He applied himself without fatigue to the three ritual arts of dance, chant, and liturgical melody — but it was grammar and logic that seized his heart entirely. Still young, he entered the linguistic division and devoted himself to study with singular resolve.

Higher Studies

In 1961, when Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche established the first school of Buddhist learning at Wangtse — under the patronage of King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck and Queen Kesang Choden Wangchuck — he was among the very first students to enroll. Within a short time he had gained renown as a master of the Five Minor Sciences.

He later studied at Tharpa Ling in Bumthang and at Dzongsar Shedra — then temporarily based in Sikkim — and at various institutions across Nepal and Bhutan, sitting at the feet of masters including Lama Gyalwang Nyima, Khenpo Tsondrü, Khenpo Dawa Özer, Khenchen Kunga Wangchuk, Khenpo Lodrö Zangpo, and above all the supreme crown jewel of the learned and accomplished, Drubwang Gedun Rinchen, from whom he received exhaustive training in the major treatises of the inner sciences.

Note: Dzongsar Shedra was temporarily based in Sikkim at this time.

His name renown as “Ocean of Wisdom” — Lekshed Jamtsho — spread like divine music across the mountain ranges of the Himalayas.

Practice and Realization

Yet hearing and reflection alone could not quench his thirst — like a man drinking salt water, the deeper he studied, the more urgent his longing for direct realization became. Like the bodhisattva Sadāprarudita, who wandered ceaselessly in search of the Dharma, this holy one too set out in earnest.

He approached the great protectors of the Drukpa lineage — Kyabje Yeshe Sengge and Tenzin Dönkun Drubpa — and received the complete empowerments, transmissions, and instructions of the Six Dharmas of Nāropa; the Mahamudra instructions of the Three Roots Unified; and the whispered lineage of Rechungpa. Entering retreat at sacred sites including Chakri Dorje Den, he pressed practice to the very marrow.

Thus he ascended not only to the heights of scholarship, but to the seat of realization itself — his being adorned with the supreme ordinary and extraordinary accomplishments born of the three Ngagas and the four tantra classes, and his understanding arrayed with the philosophical ornaments of the inner sciences, both major and minor. He became a living victory banner of the doctrine.

Founding the First College

In 1988, by the deep command of His Majesty Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck and Kyabje Tenzin Dönkun Drubpa in concert, he founded the first government-affiliated school of Buddhist learning in Bhutan — Tango Nangpi Thorim Shedra — the foremost of its kind. For eleven years he taught there without fatigue, guiding a constellation of sharp-minded young monks and tulkus, producing generation upon generation of dharma-holders.

Note: Tango had existed as an informal institution for centuries, but Lopen formally established it as a structured college.

He was peerless in the three excellences of scholar, monk, and noble being. By his learning, the minds of the intelligent were clarified at a single encounter. By his discipline, even the weariness of ordinary people was soothed at a single hearing. By his kindness, he taught each student precisely according to the strength of their motivation and faculty — and so the learned students he produced numbered in the hundreds and thousands. This is simply what those connected to him witnessed.

Reform of Monastic Education

In 1999, by the command of the 70th Je Khenpo, Tülku Jigme Chökyi Drakpa, head of the Drukpa Chödé, he assumed the role of Drabi Lopen — head of the central monastic body’s scholastic affairs. Until that time, the monasteries and temples of the four regions of Bhutan had no tradition beyond the three ritual arts. He now established, for the first time, a formal curriculum of Buddhist learning across all institutions.

From that moment onward, monks who had bloomed only in the garden of ritual began to be nourished by the honey of literacy and philosophical reasoning. Even those fully occupied with ritual duties were encouraged to study something. Among younger novices, in the spacious halls of ceremonial work, he would move through the assembly like a wind stirring flags — giving teachings on karma, refuge, and bodhicitta — and through this, countless faithful bees were able to plant the seed of definitive realization within their streams. This was entirely the grace of that holy one.

National Service and the Constitution

In 2001, with the royal household and court of Bhutan as patrons, a directive was issued to introduce formal scholastic education in all government-affiliated monasteries. Regarding this as an extraordinary opportunity for service to the doctrine, he gathered approximately thirty sharp-minded monastics from various institutions and inaugurated a scholastic training program at Pungthang Dechen Phodrang’s Deshek Kabgyed temple in Punakha. For six months, without a single break and without a flicker of fatigue or hesitation, this sole teacher taught every day without interruption.

The curriculum spanned the full breadth of the tradition: grammar texts including Dag Yik Ngak gi Drönma, Sumchu Pa, and Takji Jugpa; the Lekshed Jönwang and its commentary; introductory works including Khepa La Jugpa’i Gö and the Bodhicāryāvatāra; epistolary works including Suhrillekha and Tharpa Rinpoche’i Gyen; and for advanced students, the Debjor Rinchen Jungé, the Nyonjoed Jamtshoi Chuthig, the second chapter of Nyenga, and the grammar text Drazhung Jigten Kuentu Gawai Duegar.

The author of this account feels fortunate to have studied in that place, in the assembly of Lekshed Jamtsho’s students during that time — to have gone there to gather the wish-fulfilling jewel of learning — was the finest ripening of merit and the most priceless fortune of this life. That is not forgotten.

In 2002, beside Pungthang Dechen Phodrang, he built the shedra known as Lekshed Jungé — Source of Excellent Wisdom — with temple, residential quarters, and all necessary supports. He served the monastic community, the government’s advisory councils, and the National Assembly in capacities too numerous to recount. Most notably, beginning in 2004, he served for approximately two years as the principal architect of Bhutan’s new Constitution. His Majesty King Jigme Khesar later conferred upon him the royal honor of Chok Gyur Druk Thukséy.

After stepping down from formal duties, he remained in residence at Lekshed Jungé for eleven more years — not a single day passing in ease or rest — bestowing scholastic training on students and ripening empowerments and liberations on the fortunate without exhaustion. He forged new dharmic connections with dharma-holders and faithful patrons reaching to the four corners of the world.

Passing and Signs

In short, the wondrous and vast deeds of this holy one are not a proper object of measurement — like trying to assess purifying dust in a great city. From the very center of what can only be shown as a shoreline of an ocean of activity, even recalling a single droplet of his life’s deeds is enough to plant the seed that ripens into omniscience in the stream of the fortunate. It is for this purpose — to show, according to the individual discriminating faculty of ordinary beings, a reflection on the water of what our ordinary minds can hold — that this account was composed.

On the second day of the twelfth Bhutanese month of the Water Female Snake year — January 3, 2014 — near Riwo Druzing Nyipa, the palace of Chakrasamvara, he demonstrated the dissolution of the illusory body. For twenty-one days he remained without wavering from the luminous meditative equipoise of dharmakāya’s clear light. On the twenty-third day of that month, surrounded by thousands of disciples and faithful — lay and ordained, gathered from every corner of the world — his sacred remains were offered in cremation. Signs and marks beyond imagination were displayed.

That Lekshed Jamtsho had gone not only as a scholar but as one who had reached the seat of realization was confirmed: among the ashes appeared extraordinary relics of many kinds, which faithful students and patrons invited to temples and monasteries across the land. Fragments of these remarkable signs may be found in scattered video recordings and on social media platforms.

This brief life of the great scholar Lekshed Jamtsho — like a firefly’s lamp — was written by Rigdzin Gyukarna Wangpo, one of his students, also called affectionately by Lopen as Wangdü Phodrangpa, in the garden of luminous self-appearance, or in the charnel ground of Ardam Dragrong. It was set down on July 15, 2022.

By whatever merit accumulated through writing this account, may every perception — seen, heard, remembered, or touched — become a cause for all beings to be held in the embrace of the self-knowing awareness that is the ultimate teacher. 

In the celestial expanse of Śākyamuni’s doctrine,

amidst the wheeling constellations of the learned and accomplished,

may the cooling rays of Lekshed Jamtsho’s wisdom and compassion

dispel the darkness of ignorance for all wandering beings.

 

Sarva Mangalam.