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A new dawn of Tulkus

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harrynephew:
Gomo Tulku is a very big name within the Gelugpa school of Buddhism and all his predecessors were very great and elite Lamas who made the teachings of Je Tsongkhapa shine far and wide. It is an interesting read to know how this current incarnation takes a different approach to benefit.

I thought I shared with everyone here

http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201208/leaving-om-new-buddhist-lifestyle

Leaving Om: Buddhism's Lost Lamas
Before they could even read, they were hailed as reincarnations of Tibetan Buddhist legends in the vein of the Dalai Lama. Now young adults, these reluctant would-be spiritual leaders are stepping out of their monk's robes, becoming rappers and moviemakers, and blowing the whistle on sexual abuse at Buddhist monasteries.

Read More http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201208/leaving-om-new-buddhist-lifestyle#ixzz223MXRANB


During a break in a mixing session at a recording studio in Milan, Gomo Tulku, a Tibetan-American hip-hop artist, plays the sample he's inserting into the intro of his debut EP—a group of vocalists singing what sounds eerily like a Tibetan Buddhist chant. One of his Italian producers had it programmed into his keyboard, and when Gomo first heard it, he recalls, he said, "That's dope, I want that. Yo, that's my culture!"

Swiveling in his Aeron chair behind the multitrack console, conferring with the engineers on the mix ("Si, perfecto, bello"), Gomo Tulku looks every bit the part of an aspiring rapper: jeans, black down vest, gray porkpie hat, oversize black-and-gold Super glasses (a Milan brand favored by Jay-Z and Rihanna). But the 23-year-old is not quite the playa he portrays in the video for his first single, "Photograph," in which he drinks in a club and rides in a stretch limo while a host of leggy Italian beauties grind on him. Known as the Rapping Lama, Gomo spent his childhood being groomed to be a high-ranking lama, and the video caused a minor uproar in the online Buddhist community. But Gomo is nearly a teetotaler and insists "Photograph" is a wholesome breakup song about the one romance he's had since leaving the monastery. "Listen to the lyrics!" he says. The hip-hop eye candy was his Italian director's idea.

The tulku in Gomo's name refers to his status—according to Tibetan tradition, a tulku is the reincarnation of a recently deceased high lama, "recognized" as a young boy through a mystical process of omens and visions. Gomo was anointed by the Dalai Lama himself, whose own recognition story is so well known in the West—a peasant boy from the sticks is magically able to identify his predecessor's favorite possessions—it became the basis for a 2002 M&M's commercial.

Gomo has titled his EP Take One because "this is like my first take, my first actual experience in life as a layperson in this materialistic world," he says. Gomo, an ethnic Tibetan born in Quebec and raised in Canada, Utah, and India, is savvy enough to appreciate that his years as a shaved-headed monk make for an irresistible backstory for an MC. His digital loop—hypnotic, rumbling oms that sound like a cross between a bullfrog and a low-pitched Jew's harp—conjures up a world of burgundy-and-saffron-robed monks wielding bone horns. But it also begs the question: When the Dalai Lama, who's 77, leaves the stage, will that world—1,500 years of religious traditions and spiritual explorations—be reduced to an ersatz sample in a hip-hop song?

To an extraordinary degree, America has been colonized by Tibetan Buddhism. At the core of the community are maybe 100,000 die-hard practitioners around the country. Beyond that is a larger circle of several million spiritual travelers who may pick up the Dalai Lama's best sellers or attend his talks. (He's achieved rock-star status, having drawn a crowd of 65,000 to New York's Central Park just to hear him speak.) Helping fuel the phenomenon is the soft (but real) power that makes it a cause célèbre and a second religion to the self-help set: the Hollywood stars like Richard Gere in the Dalai Lama's American entourage, the late Beastie Boy (and practicing Tibetan Buddhist) Adam Yauch's star-studded concerts for Tibet, not to mention the Buddha statuettes, thangka paintings, and prayer flags that adorn corner yoga studios and health clubs across the country.

For the hundreds of Tibetan tulkus who came of age after the Chinese takeover of their homeland in 1959, India may be where they serve in the monastery, but the West is where the students, the press, and the money are. Yet it's unclear whether the tulku system—which, since its origins in medieval times, has been more about the transfer of monastic power than the recognition of spiritual genius—can continue to advance the Dalai Lama's engagement with the West. The young Karmapa, the heir apparent to the Dalai Lama's mantle as the global face of Tibetan Buddhism, languishes in northern India because of political tensions involving China. In his absence, the young, Westernized tulkus may be the key to turning a new generation of Americans on to Tibetan Buddhism. The problem is, these cosmopolitan tulkus, skeptical of the notion that they're deceased lamas, aren't sure they want the job.

• • •

GOMO TULKU: A RAPPER'S SUTRA
Gomo's fate was seemingly sealed at the age of 3, when the Dalai Lama divined that he was the reincarnation of the boy's grandfather, a prominent Tibetan lama. When the official letter of recognition arrived from the office of His Holiness, Gomo's religious mother was "kind of sad, kind of happy," he says. She was losing her son to the monastery but, according to Tibetan Buddhist lore, also being reunited with her father's spirit. Gomo's early life was peripatetic: Born and raised in French-speaking Montreal, at age 5 he moved with his mother (his parents had divorced) to Bountiful, Utah, a mostly Mormon suburb of Salt Lake City. When he was 6, mother and (only) child traveled to the tiny Tuscan village of Pomaia. The next year, the Dalai Lama cut Gomo's hair, the first stage of his initiation into monkhood. "I remember I was nervous," Gomo says. "His presence was really strong." At his "enthronement," Gomo sat on a high, brocaded throne as hundreds of monks and Western students crowded in for a closer look at the new boy lama. "I was like, 'Wow, this is pretty amazing,'" he recalls. "There were photographers from dozens of newspapers and news agencies around the world." He drifts into hip-hop lingo. "The cops, the 5-0, were there, pushing them back."

After a full day in the studio, Gomo and I make the four-hour drive south to Pomaia, arriving at midnight. There, housed in a 19th-century stone villa, is the Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa. "The Little Tibet of Tuscany" (as a tourism website describes it) is a regular stopover for eminences like Richard Gere and the Dalai Lama. Stereotypical Bella Toscana imagery—skinny, conical cypress trees, herb-scented scrubby-pretty landscape—blends well with more recent additions like prayer flags and a giant copper prayer wheel. In the morning, amid the meditation hall's golden statues of the Buddha, ornate silk tapestries, and portraits of the Dalai Lama, Gomo brings a hushed purposefulness to his prayers.

"This takes me back in time to the monastery," he says after finishing his prostrations. "We used to always pray. As soon as I get into one of these places, I try to always have the right thoughts, right intentions, try to remind myself of the purposes that I should be going after." Gomo spent only a year in Pomaia before he was sent to the Sere Je monastery in Mysore, India, to which he would give, all told, 12 years of his young life. His days as a monk went like this: up at 6 a.m., prayers, chanting, memorizing page after page of scripture, and practicing Buddhist logical debate until around midnight each night. "I had a hard time," he says, "not from what I was given, but more from what was taken from me." It doesn't take a Dylanologist to decipher the lyrics to his song "Lost and Found": "All is gone, all is gone, I miss my mama's kiss/ Tryna make a child grown/ By leaving him all alone/ Destined to be on a throne/…Why didn't you, why didn't you stay?"

Gomo remained a good monastic soldier until he was 15, when he seized on a bold idea: to reunite with his mother for a year of American high school. In Bountiful, he was the weird Asian kid who spoke patchwork English and "probably looked like a dumbass." He was still keeping his monk's vows—no sex, no alcohol—a fact he hid from his classmates, except for his best friend. "I wanted to be able to experience that actual kid life," he says. "If they'd known I was a lama, it would've been a disaster." But compared with his previous existence, this sojourn was sheer liberation. His under-the-Bodhi-tree moment of enlightenment took place when he walked into a new Apple store in Salt Lake City and saw the T.I. video "Bring Em Out" playing on a just-released 60-gig iPod. That in-your-face slice of gangster rap "overwhelmed" him, he says. "The energy it had, it kinda brought me out."

Read More http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201208/leaving-om-new-buddhist-lifestyle#ixzz223LIsbZV

Positive Change:
It is most interesting how these "different" tulkus I feel are using skillful methods to bring Dharma to people who would otherwise be oblivious to it. Perhaps my hypothesis may be met with criticism but if one were to truly look at how he "operates" Domo Tulku Rinpoche, one will see the true motivation.

Here is a look at some of these "interesting personalities":

This is a guest post by Elizabeth Dias, a TIME contributor based in Washington.

When the Dalai Lama came to Washington same time last year, he wasn’t alone. Accompanying the spiritual leader of Tibetans-in-exile were a group of other leading rinpoches, or reincarnate lamas and teachers. These Tibetan clerics, or “precious jewels” as the term rinpoche means, often keep their national and international influences low profile. Kate Saunders, director of communications for the International Campaign for Tibet, says this in part because the “one thing virtually all Tibetans share is loyalty to the Dalai Lama.” Yet as His Holiness nears the twilight of his life, attention has already shifted to those who are shouldering the mantle of his spiritual leadership overseas — the Dalai Lama already ceded his political powers earlier this year. TIME caught up with four of these leaders to hear their own stories of Tibetan leadership.


Gomo Tulku Rinpoche (Photo: Courtesy Gomo Tulku Rinpoche)

Gomo Tulku Rinpoche, 22

A “Recording-Artist Rinpoche” may seem unlikely, but then you have Gomo Tulku Rinpoche. He hails from the same Gelugpa lineage as the Dalai Lama, who recognized Gomo Tulku’s reincarnation at age three.

While his previous incarnation reportedly enjoyed ritual dance and music, Gomo Tulku takes this passion to an entirely new level. Three years ago he quit the Sera Je Monastery in south India to pursue a music career in Italy. That was not an easy decision. Since age 7 he’d been trained to become a teaching monk. Without telling anyone, “I booked the tickets myself and I left,” he recalls. “Being a lama, if that is my role, as a teacher, then at least I need to know what life is.”

Today he has created his own sound, one that trades traditional chant for a fusion of contemporary hip-hop and R&B with some slash and pop, and on July 28, he is set to release his first single, “Photograph.” Gomo Tulku works with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition and its 160 centers worldwide even as he is busy “spitting lines.” Here’s the line he spit for TIME: “I’m constantly dazed and confused, I never cease to be amazed by the views.” It’s an impromptu composition, but nevertheless it reveals his honest approach of self-discovery. As he describes it, he is trying “to find myself in a different way and experience life and share it with my people” and to “have that direct interaction instead of being on the throne. I want to come down with you guys, just chill with you guys and talk.”


Reincarnate lama Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, listens to the Dalai Lama's teaching at Radio City Music Hall. Tibetan Buddhist leader in exile, the Dalai Lama, visited New York from May 19- 23. Hosted by Richard Gereâ??s Foundation, Healing the Divide, and the Tibet Center, the Dalai Lamaâ??s activities included a public talk and three days of Buddhist teachings on the way to develop compassion at Radio City Music hall. Founded by Richard Gere in 2001, Healing the Divide seeks collaborative solutions to humanitarian crises that threaten the development and welfare of marginalized communities throughout the world. The Tibet Center was founded in 1975 by reincarnate lama Khyongla Rato Rinpoche and currently directed by Nicholas Vreeland, an American Buddhist Monk. The Tibet Center leads and teaches Buddhist Meditation. Photograph and copyright- David Turnley

Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, 89

Few people have known the Dalai Lama longer than Khyongla Rinpoche. He was there the first day His Holiness arrived in Lhasa as a toddler and was seated on his throne in a peacock-adorned tent. They shared tutors and eventually fled Tibet only days apart in 1959. Today their relationship remains close—the Dalai Lama sometimes greets him with a tap on the head and his attendant with a pinch to the nose.

This esteemed lama founded New York City’s oldest Tibetan Buddhist organization, The Tibet Center, in 1975. At age 6, he became the head of a Gelugpa monastery in Tibet. Now 89, Khyongla Rinpoche plays the self-deprecating monk. “I’m not important at all, among the many thousands to Tibetan incarnate lamas, Rinpoche is only one,” said Khyongla Rato Rinpoche. “You’re interviewing the wrong person.”

Unlike most elderly lamas, Khyongla Rinpoche has branched out to embrace new means of communication.  He has starred in the 1993 film Little Buddha at the Dalai Lama’s request, and today uses his favorite film March of the Penguins to teach his students the hardships love requires. “If I’m [reborn] a penguin, I’ll have to do like this,” he jokes as he waves his arms.



Arjia Rinpoche, Director of the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center, February 24, 2010. (Photo: Robert Scheer / The Indianapolis Star / AP)

Arjia Rinpoche, 60

A former abbot of Kumbum monastery, one of the largest and oldest on the Tibetan plateau, Arjia Rinpoche ruffled quite a few feathers in Beijing when he fled Tibet in 1998. Before the Karmapa Lama fled in 2000, Arjia Rinpoche was considered the most senior lama to flee Tibet after the Dalai Lama.

Recognized at age two to be the re-incarnation of Lama Tsong-khapa, a 13th century Buddhist reformer, Arjia Rinpoche knows firsthand the challenges Tibetan Buddhism faces. Chinese authorities forced him out of his teenage monk robes and into the work force for 16 years, during which he saw family members disappear or be imprisoned. His own monastery changed drastically under Chinese watch. “The people say, ‘It’s more like Buddhist Disneyland,’” he notes. Eventually China tapped him to lead the Chinese National Buddhist Association, but when the Chinese government prepared to force him to become their Panchen Lama’s tutor in 1998, he realized he could no longer let China’s political agenda against Tibet dictate his spiritual life. “More and more political things had interrupted my practice. That’s why I escaped,” he says. He fled to Guatemala before receiving asylum in the United States.

Today Arjia Rinpoche insists there may be a hopeful future ahead with China. “I can see lots of difficult things in China—the control of media, human rights,” he says. “But at the same time I can see lots of positive things there too. China might have a big change. In my lifetime, I saw lots of big changes in China.”

Currently he runs the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington, IL, but his reputation extends far and wide: even while he’s tucked away in the corner of a Thai restaurant in a Washington, a Western devotee found her way to his feet to seek his blessing. He is not too worried about the selection of the next Dalai Lama. Instead he shares the Dalai Lama’s openness to His Holiness’s next incarnation. “Maybe next life a westerner, maybe as a woman. That’s really a possibility.”




Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche, 42

Women are traditionally rare birds among Buddhist lamas. But that shows signs of change. A nun who grew up the only woman among 500 monks in India, Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche represents the Mindrolling lineage, one of Buddhism’s few with a history of female masters. She leads the Lotus Garden Retreat Center in Stanley, VA, where one of her primary projects is directing nuns in a range of social service projects, from actively educating Tibetan women toward financial independence to creating independent living opportunities for senior citizens in Tibetan refugee camps.

Khandro Rinpoche’s hair has often sparked controversy and confusion. Bucking a tradition of nuns keeping their hair long, Khandro Rinpoche keeps hers neatly shaved. But what many people believe was a profound spiritual decision actually was initially a slip of the scissors. At age 19, after much debate between her elders about whether or not she should shave her head in typical Tibetan-monk fashion, a barber accidently chopped off a chunk of her locks. To the chagrin of the emotional mothers in the room, Khandro Rinpoche replied, “Just cut the whole thing off.” She has gone shaved ever since.

In Washington with iPhone in hand, Khandro Rinpoche is a savvy communicator and ready to face the critical challenges ahead. “I think the next five decades are going to be hard work,” she reflects. “Now I think is the time where Western Buddhists have to exert more effort. It is about saying this is not an Eastern philosophy that we are blindly following but it is something that we have to let grow in our own selves and adapt to our way of living life.”

dsiluvu:

--- Quote ---Today he has created his own sound, one that trades traditional chant for a fusion of contemporary hip-hop and R&B with some slash and pop, and on July 28, he is set to release his first single, “Photograph.” Gomo Tulku works with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition and its 160 centers worldwide even as he is busy “spitting lines.” Here’s the line he spit for TIME: “I’m constantly dazed and confused, I never cease to be amazed by the views.” It’s an impromptu composition, but nevertheless it reveals his honest approach of self-discovery. As he describes it, he is trying “to find myself in a different way and experience life and share it with my people” and to “have that direct interaction instead of being on the throne. I want to come down with you guys, just chill with you guys and talk.”
--- End quote ---


Well this paragraph sorta sums up his motivation doesn't it? We can't ignore the fact that the world is spinning a different tune now and perhaps these high Lamas/Tulkus have decided to take on a different approach, maybe an even grosser one to connect with people. And if you read carefully in the end the motivation is still to benefit others. So what if he decides to be a wrapper and spit out rap music... this is probably his skillful method to bring spirituality and Dharma to those who would probably never go near Dharma. Does that mean they don't deserve Dharma? They probably need it the most. These days to reach out to society, sometimes you need to blend in and be part of it. There's too many distractions these days, you got to find ways to stand out from the chaos of samsara in order to help someone.

It is like Vajrayogini's practice, the more and more degenerate the world becomes, the more and more powerful and efficacious her practice becomes. These days you see Lama's even in monks robe like Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and the likes finding new alternative ways and approach to bring the Dharma home. Their way of reaching out to others may be different and certainly unconventional, but the essence of the Buddha Dharma remains the same. These Lamas/Tulku are skillful Bodhisattvas and Mahasiddhas of our 21st century if you ask me. Below is a clip of Words of my Perfect Teacher... it is a great movie about unconventional methods a teacher uses to teach and how they break our concept of how a teacher should be...

Words of My Perfect Teacher Small | Large
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UJoE5o5e98

Barzin:
Yes, when I came across this article i was blown away with the content.  Some stories on Kalu Rinpoche are also quite disturbing at first.  But later I realize in the Western world, this is exactly what they like to see and hear.  The new generation of Tulkus obviously has taken the method of benefiting others in a modern, down to earth way.  So that the younger generation can connect.  The "cool" factor.  I personally think that this approach will attract lots more younger generation to connect to dharma.  Interesting, I really have high hopes on this new generation and tulkus and hope that their dharma career flourish and benefit many of today's degenerated world.

Ensapa:
I do find the sexual abuse of Kalu Rinpoche quite shocking, but at this day and age, sexual abuse is something rampant and perhaps, he allowed it to happen to himself so that it would make him easier to relate to for people in general as many people these days happen to be able to relate to and sympathize with sexual abuse better. However, I am not sure how rampant it is in the monasteries but if it is, it does represent an interesting perspective of things, something that has not been talked about or addressed by anyone, ever. Perhaps something needs to be done? Perhaps, this is an issue that is more important than banning Dorje Shugden and putting in all efforts into it, and the Dalai Lama should really talk about this as this is within his domain as the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism.


--- Quote ---For those who know only the gauzy Hollywood imagery of Little Buddha and Kundun and the beatific smile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, it's almost incomprehensible that Tibetan Buddhism would have its own Catholic Church–style problem. But Kalu says that when he was in his early teens, he was sexually abused by a gang of older monks who would visit his room each week. When I bring up the concept of "inappropriate touching," he laughs edgily. This was hard-core sex, he says, including penetration. "Most of the time, they just came alone," he says. "They just banged the door harder, and I had to open. I knew what was going to happen, and after that you become more used to it." It wasn't until Kalu returned to the monastery after his three-year retreat that he realized how wrong this practice was. By then the cycle had begun again on a younger generation of victims, he says. Kalu's claims of sexual abuse mirror those of Lodoe Senge, an ex-monk and 23-year-old tulku who now lives in Queens, New York. "When I saw the video," Senge says of Kalu's confessions, "I thought, 'Shit, this guy has the balls to talk about it when I didn't even have the courage to tell my girlfriend.'" Senge was abused, he says, as a 5-year-old by his own tutor, a man in his late twenties, at a monastery in India.


--- End quote ---

And


--- Quote ---Kalu's revelations have quietly rocked the Tibetan Buddhist establishment, and even some of its most distinguished figures have been taken aback. Robert Thurman, the Columbia University professor and the Dalai Lama's American confidant (and yes, Uma's father), says of Kalu's video, "I thought it was one of the most real things I've seen." About the knife-wielding incident, which some might find hard to credit, Thurman wrote in a subsequent e-mail, "Sadly, it all does seem credible to me. . . . The whole thing just reeks to high heaven." Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, the lama who directed The Cup, the one relatively unsentimental feature film about Tibetan children raised as monks, is concerned about sexual abuse at monasteries. "I think this is something we should look at," he says. "It's very important that people don't forget: Buddhism and Buddhist are two different entities. Buddhism is perfect." Buddhists, he suggests, are not.


--- End quote ---

But whats interesting to see and know is that while most sexual abuse victims tend to spend their lives trying to rebuild an identity that they "lost", Kalu Rinpoche actually sparked something, for the other Nyingma monasteries to check. Kalu Rinpoche's resolve is to actually clean up his monastery of politics and the center he founded of politics, and that is an interesting resolve by a tulku like him. Would it not be interesting if Osel did that instead? :P just thinking out loud.

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