Vessantara

Dagyab Rinpoche is an eminent Tibetan Buddhist lama of the Gelug School. I was recommended to make contact with him in 1988 by Sangharakshita’s teacher Dhardo Rinpoche, which I did with Sangharakshita’s agreement. I have kept in contact with him ever since. He escaped from Tibet to India with the Dalai Lama’s party in 1959, and moved to Germany in 1966 — so he has a deep understanding of what we westerners are like! One of his special concerns is the preservation and further transmission of Buddhist Tantra. Of the Gelug lamas in exile he is the holder of the most tantric transmission lineages.

Although I have been fortunate enough to receive various teachings from him over the years, the strongest teaching has been witnessing his great devotion to his own teachers, his openheartedness and devotion to the bodhisattva ideal.