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Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche (Tibetan:དཔལ་ལྡན་ཤེས་རབ་,Wylie:dpal ldan shes rab) (10 May 1938 – 19 June 2010), also known as "Khen Rinpoche," was a teacher, aNyingmascholar, aguru, and aDzogchen master in theNyingma school ofTibetan Buddhism. He was considered byPenor Rinpoche to be one of the most learned living Nyingma scholars.[1] Palden Sherab founded the Orgyen Samye Chokhor Ling Nunnery, the first nunnery inDeer Park (Sarnath)[2][3]
Born inKham, Tibet, Palden Sherab escaped invading Chinese forces in 1960 to arrive in India and join other monastic leaders to collect and salvage Tibetan Buddhist teachings carried by the exile community. He was appointed the Nyingma professor at theCentral University of Tibetan Studies in 1967. Palden Sherab's root lamas areDudjom Rinpoche, Penor Rinpoche,Dilgo Khyentse; his main lineages areMipham Rinpoche's textual teachings andTerton Tsasum Lingpa's revealed Tersar.[jargon] He considered Khenpo Ashe, hisshedra teacher, very kind.
A student ofDudjom Rinpoche, Palden Sherab taught in France and the United States. He founded thePadmasambava Buddhist Center andPalden Padma Samye Ling retreat center inupstate New York, which grew to include monasteries and centers in Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, India and Russia. Palden Sherab designed and managed the construction of the retreat centers, monasteries and a nunnery, and the Miracle Stupa in India. His seat is at the Orgyen Samye Chokhor Ling Nunnery inSarnath.
Palden Sherab was born in the village of Joephu (Tibetan:རྒྱུས་ཕུ་,Wylie:rgyus phu) on 10 May 1938, in the year of the Earth Tiger. Joephu is in theDhoshul (Tibetan:རྡོ་ཤུལ་,Wylie:rdo shul) region ofKham,Tibet, near the sacred mountain of Jowo Zegyal (Tibetan:ཇོ་བོ་གཟེ་རྒྱལ་,Wylie:jo bo gze rgyal). His father was Lama Chimed Namgyal Rinpoche; his siblings included two sisters and a brother, and his grandparents were respected scholars and practitioners. In accordance with local tradition, his family were seasonal nomads. His mother Pema Lhadze introduced him to the monk Lama Ahtsok, who was on a solitary retreat in a nearby cave.
Palden Sherab began monastic studies at age six at the NyingmaGochen Monastery (Tibetan:སྒོ་ཆེན་སྒོམ་,Wylie:sgo chen sgom), which was founded in the late 17th century by the treasure revealer andcrazy wisdom terton Tsasum Lingpa. Tsasum Lingpa was a recognized reincarnation ofNubchen Sangye Yeshe, one ofPadmasambhava's twenty-five students.[4] Palden Sherab is a recognizedemanation of Nubchen Sangye Yeshe.[5] He was known for reading very fast at Gochen Monastery, and was considered eccentric. Palden Sherab's nickname was "the cyclone", due to his constant activity.[6]
The monastery had been administered for generations by Palden Sherab's family. At the age of 12, he was invited to attend theTaklung Kagyu school'sRiwoche Monastery's Shedra, where he could be trained to take over asKhenpo (abbot) of Gochen Monastery. Palden Sherab then entered the Riwoche Monastery, in theRiwoche (Tibetan:རི་བོ་ཆེ་,Wylie:ri bo che) region of Kham. He received the teachings ofMipham Rinpoche and of theKatok Monastery through Khenpo Ashe, his Shedra teacher, in addition toLongchenpa'sSeven Treasuries, three volumes of Rongzompa and the teachings of Katokpa Dampa Deshek, Katok Khempo Nyakchung, and Getse Mahapandita. During China's invasion of eastern Tibet, Palden Sherab graduated from the Shedra's monastic education at Riwoche Monastery that traditionally includes grammar and poetry, astrology, astronomy, medicine, the arts, Sanskrit, Buddhist philosophy, and the major Buddhist texts.
During the winter of 1960 and ongoing Chinese invasion, he left the monastery to join his family as they escaped into the Himalayas. With India as their destination, they escaped capture three times; once was atPemako inNyingtri. Palden Sherab's youngest sister, Ting Ting Karmo, died after departing Dudjom Rinpoche's centers in the hills there.[7]
Having just arrived in India, another sister, Yangzom, and his mother died at a refugee camp inAssam. His father and his brother, Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, survived.[7]
Palden Sherab and his family were moved to a refugee camp inKalimpong and lived with other Tibetans escaping the Chinese invasion forces. He taught from thePrajnaparamita, and from Mipham Rinpoche's teachings, and taught Tibetan grammar from theSumtak, daily. The family then moved to a camp inDarjeeling for six months, where Palden Sherab continued teaching from Mipham's commentaries, from Shantideva'sBodhisattvacaryāvatāra orThe Way of the Bodhisattva, and from theSumtak to the exile community.
InMussoorie in 1965,Dudjom Rinpoche asked him to be theNyingma representative at a year-long scholarly conference of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, convened by the14th Dalai Lama. Spiritual leaders of theKagyu, theSakya and theGelug traditions attended as did theNyingma tradition.
Khunu Tenzin Gyaltsen Rinpoche was the main speaker at the conference that was focused on preserving and protecting Tibet's culture and spiritual heritage.[8] The conference also focused on recovering the sacred Pali, Sanskrit, and early Tibetan Buddhist texts which were missing or were destroyed by China during its invasion. Palden Sherab was responsible for salvaging thousands of texts and commentaries, and the completeTibetan canon, including theMahayana and theVajrayana Buddhist teachings, was recovered.
The Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (later renamed theCentral University for Tibetan Studies) resulted from the conference, and opened inVaranasi in 1967 before moving toSarnath. Palden Sherab was appointed by Dudjom Rinpoche to found the institute and to represent the Nyingma tradition, and he received the NyingmaKama, the NyingmaTerma and theGuhyagarbha tantra from Dudjom Rinpoche.[9]
For a time, he was the only professor and administrator in the Nyingma department. Palden Sherab taught there for 17 years, up to 13 classes a day during the early years.Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and other Nyingma teachers were pleased with his work, and gave him more teaching opportunities. Dilgo Khyentse became one of his root lamas,[9] and Palden Sherab also taught in the Tibetan department of Varanasi'sGovernment Sanskrit College.
When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the dharma will come to the land of the red man.
— prophecy by Guru Padmasambhava[10]
Palden Sherab first traveled to the United States in 1980 with his brother, Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, at the behest of Rhoda P. Lecocq of California.[11] In Vermont, connections were established between Dudjom Rinpoche, Palden Sherab and his brother, and VenerableKhandro Dhyani Ywahoo of theCherokee Nation at theSunray Meditation Society.[12] The connection fulfills Padmasambhava's prophecy of "when the iron bird flies" and aHopi prophecy of white brothers wearing a "red cap or red cloak".[a]
In 1981, Palden Sherab taught atDudjom Rinpoche's Dorje Nyingpo center in Paris. He co-foundedDharma Samudra, a non-profit publishing company inBoulder, Colorado, with his brother four years later. Palden Sherab has written and published a number of works on Tibetan history, biographies of Vajrayana masters, on Tibetan language and grammar, poetry and logic.
In 1989, he and his brother founded the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center.[13] Its main retreat center and monastery is Palden Padma Samye Ling, (Tibetan:དཔལ་ལྡན་པདྨ་བསམ་ཡས་གླིང་,Wylie:dpal ldan pad+ma bsam yas gling) located in Sidney Center,Delaware County, New York. The center has grown to 19 retreat locations and monastic institutions in the US, Puerto Rico, Russia and India.[14]
Palden Sherab directed the design and construction of these projects which include several monasteries, a nunnery, and retreat centers. Land inSarnath was purchased in 1972, and construction began in 1990 for Padma Samye Chokhor Ling Monastery. The monastery was consecrated in 1995.[15] Palden Sherab met and received teachings fromKhenchen Jigme Phuntsok during his 1990s travels to the West.[9]
The first Buddhist nunnery inSarnath atDeer Park, wherethe Buddha first gave teachings, is Orgyen Samye Chokhor Ling Nunnery which was opened by Palden Sherab in March 2003 and was consecrated on 12 November 2006[2] by theMaha Bodhi Society and other Buddhist institutions. Then in 2004 at Jetavan Grove inShravasti, where the Buddha spent the rainy seasons in retreat andperformed miracles, Palden Sherab rebuilt a memorial stupa which is called the Miracle Stupa for World Peace.[16][17] Palden Sherab died on 19 June 2010 at Palden Padma Samye Ling.
The search for theyangsi (reincarnation) of Palden Sherab was undertaken. He was located in Nepal, where he was born. In 2019, he was enthroned in India byTerton Namkha Drimed Rabjam Rinpoche, and given the name Palden Yonten Thaye Lodro Chokyi Gyaltsen. His seat is the Orgyen Samye Chokhor Ling Nunnery in India.
An abbreviated list of Palden Sherab's mostly Nyingma tradition teachers from Tibet, India and the U.S. include:[9]
An abbreviated listing of the lineages that Palden Sherab holds include:[9]
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