Namgyal Rinpoche

A photo of the mural depicting Ananda Bodhi, who was later recognized as Namgyal Rinpoche, in the Maitreya Hall at Sayadaw U Thila Wunta's Dat Pon Zon Aung Min Gaung Monastery in Yangon. Photo by Catherine Pawasarat, mural painting by Victoria Oginski. Namgyal Rinpoche, Karma Tenzin Dorje (1931–2003), born Leslie George Dawson in Toronto, Canada, was a Buddhist monk (bhikkhu) ordained in Burma who later became a lama in the Tibetan Kagyu school of Vajrayana Buddhism.

Early life Namgyal Rinpoche was born Leslie George Dawson in 1931, October 11, and raised in Toronto, Canada by parents of Irish and Scottish descent and attended Jarvis Baptist Seminary, before going on to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA, where he studied philosophy and psychology and became active in Socialist politics. After visiting Moscow to address an international youth conference, he became disillusioned with politics, and moved to London in 1954.

Theravāda studies in Asia While in London he studied Buddhism and in 1956 met the Sayadaw U Thila Wunta, a Burmese monk who accepted Leslie Dawson as a student. That same year he traveled to Bodh Gaya, India to rejoin the Sayadaw and received ordination as a sāmaṇera (novice monk). He continued on to Burma where he was ordained as Ananda Bodhi He began intensive training and meditation practice under the guidance of U Thila Wunta and Mahasi Sayadaw, then in Thailand with Chao Khun Phra Rajasiddhimuni at Wat Mahadhatu in Bangkok. In Sri Lanka he studied the Pāli Canon, the Visuddhimagga, and other classical texts before receiving the title acharya (teacher of Dharma).

Return to the United Kingdom and Canada In 1962, Ananda Bodhi returned to England at the invitation of the English Sangha Trust. He was a special guest speaker at the Fifth International Congress of Psychotherapists in London where he met Julian Huxley, Anna Freud and R.D. Laing, among others. In 1964, he came into contact with Tibetan Buddhism, "was instantly and deeply impressed." (Earlier Tibetan centres were the Kalachakra Temple of Saint Petersburg, Russia, founded in 1915; the temple founded by Kalmykian refugees in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1929, and the Lamaist Buddhist Center in Howell, New Jersey, US, founded in 1958).

In 1965, Ananda Bodhi returned to Canada with two of his senior students, Tony Olbrecht and Barry Goulden, where he established a new community, The Dharma Centre of Canada in 1966 (incorporated as a charity 1972), and founded the Centennial Lodge of the Theosophical Society (1967). Over the years that followed, Namgyal Rinpoche began to stress the study of Western psychology and philosophy, exercise, diet, and the appreciation of fine art and music as a supplement to traditional Buddhist training, and began taking students with him on voyages to various countries around the world, often on cargo ships.

As Namgyal Rinpoche Namgyal Rinpoche with students at a retreat in May, 2003, at Iriai Mura, Izu Peninsula, Japan. Photo by Catherine Pawasarat. Namgyal Rinpoche is known as the first Western Rinpoche.

In 1971, Ananda Bodhi led a large group of students to India where they had audiences with Sakya Trizin at Dehra Dun and the Dalai Lama at Dharamshala. He took a group of about one hundred students to Rumtek; One of the Karmapa's biographers writes that "planning Karmapa's first 'tour' to the West began with a simple handwritten aerogram that Sister Palmo sent in his name to Namgyal Rinpoche's Canadian Sangha expressing his wish to visit North America and then Europe."

Namgyal Rinpoche and Karma Thinley Rinpoche and their Sanghas received the Karmapa when he flew into Toronto on October 23, 1974. The Karmapa visited both of Namgyal Rinpoche's centers in Canada, one in Toronto and one in Kinmount. The Karmapa selected and blessed a site for a planned Kagyu monastery, consecrated a Milarepa stupa, gave empowerments and a Black Crown ceremony as well as shramanerika vows at these two Canadian Namgyal Rinpoche centers.

At the Dharma Centre of Canada in Kinmount, Ontario, the center was "basic and difficult to heat," though the Karmapa "liked it anyway," Karma Thinley Rinpoche explained, "due to his fondness for Namgyal Rinpoche." One source offers that the Karmapa stayed at the Dharma Center of Canada near Toronto for three weeks, conferring the Black Crown ceremony, giving refuge, bodhisattva vows, Kagyu lineage empowerments, and monastic ordination, and consecrating the temple, stupa, and a shrine in the forest.

Another source offers that the Karmapa stayed for two weeks at Namgyal Rinpoche's center in Kinmount, and offered two to three Tibetan empowerments each day he was there, so that "the full monastic tradition may be experienced by Westerners." Sister Palmo, disciple of the Karmapa who was present in his entourage, commented that "The Canadians showed their tremendous interest in meditation. They have gotten quite far under the guidance of Namgyal Rinpoche in a rather unorthodox way, and it is fitting in some way that some of the deepest teachings of the tour were given in the Canadian forest in the center of Namgyal Rinpoche." After the Karmapa departed from this visit, Namgyal Rinpoche led many of his students in retreat for one month.

Namgyal Rinpoche was one of the 16th Karmapa's first Western students, along with Hannah and Lama Ole Nydahl. The 16th Karmapa named Namgyal Rinpoche to be "one of my chief disciples," which he shared In a meeting of the Karma Kagyü Society Canada in 1977. Namgyal Rinpoche brought many people in Canada to Vajrayana teachings, and his Dharma Center of Canada includes the practice of other Buddhist traditions as well.

Namgyal Rinpoche continued to teach until his death in Switzerland on October 22, 2003, having empowered a number of senior students to continue his work.