Giving teachings and initiations

In 1924, when he was just 23, Geshe Yonten of Ganden Shartse College requested him to teach, so he gave the oral transmission of the Collected Works of Je Tsongkhapa and His Main Disciples to about 200 monks, followed later by granting the empowerment of Vajrayogini according to Naropa to about 60 Lamas, incarnate Lamas and monks.

From then onwards, Trijang Rinpoche would receive numerous invitations to teach and give empowerments at many of the most prominent monasteries of the time. From the ages of 24 to 27, he travelled and taught extensively at many Gelugpa places of learning all over Tibet, becoming increasingly well known and teaching many thousands of monastics and lay people. He also taught at Sakyapa and Nyingmapa Centers at their request. He would often give teachings on the Lamrim, confer initiations to various practices including Avalokiteshvara, Chakrasamvara and Padmasambhava, and lead retreats. During his extensive travels he was known for making many offerings to the Sangha of many monasteries, helping them to rebuild their temples and reviving teachings in places where the teachings had degenerated or were lost.

During the next few years, until 1932, he received profound teachings from Pabongka Rinpoche, including the oral instructions of many secret Gelugpa lineages; he also engaged in Tantric retreats.

Tutoring Kundun

In 1933, the 13th Dalai Lama died, and Trijang Rinpoche helped Ling Rinpoche and other great Lamas from Sera Monastery and Namgyal Monastery consecrate the body and the reliquary. He was later also elected to be the Junior Tutor to the 14th Dalai Lama in 1941, when he was 30 years old. Together with Ling Rinpoche, who was the Senior Tutor, he helped to educate the young Dalai Lama, initially teaching him how to read and memorize texts to be recited. In 1942, he was one of the Dalai Lama’s ordaining monks (and later in 1954, acted as the "inquisitor into the secrets" when the Dalai Lama took full ordination.)

Later, it would be Trijang Rinpoche who granted the Dalai Lama some of the most important empowerments, including Heruka Five Deities according to Ghantapa, Vajrayogini according to Naropa, Chittamani Tara, Guhyasamaja; also, many extensive oral transmissions and discourses to the most central teachings of the Gelug lineage – the Collected Works of Je Tsongkhapa, the Guru Puja, Gelugpa Mahamudra and Yamantaka Tantra, the 800-verse Prajnaparamita Sutra, Wheel of Sharp Weapons and Lojong, among others.

The 14th Dalai Lama describes Trijang Rinpoche as his "root Guru" in two of his books. Trijang Rinpoche played an especially supportive role to the Dalai Lama during the struggle against the Chinese occupation at the most difficult and turbulent time of Tibetan history. The escape of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from Tibet in 1959 was also due to the wisdom and efforts of Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, who also personally accompanied His Holiness on this perilous journey.

In between, while overseeing the full education of the Dalai Lama, he also always continued to teach and give empowerments to larger and larger numbers of monks at the tantric colleges, Tashi Lhunpo, Ganden, Sera, Namgyal and elsewhere.

According to Helmut Gassner, translator for the 14th Dalai Lama for 17 years, “Trijang Rinpoche was in many ways one of the most important figures of his time. In the 50s, he was the power behind His Holiness, a pillar of strength in the difficult and troubled times for the Tibetan people. This fact was well known to the Communist Chinese and so Trijang Lobsang Yeshe became their main enemy. It was also Trijang Rinpoche who taught His Holiness the Dalai Lama the concepts of Buddhism as well as the understanding of politics and mastering of social skills.”

Throughout this time, Trijang Rinpoche and Ling Rinpoche are both remembered for having a very respectful relationship, working very closely as tutors to His Holiness. He and the senior tutor Ling Rinpoche would also exchange teachings and initiations. For example, in 1969 he taught Ling Rinpoche the Lamrim Chenmo, and in 1970 he granted him Yamantaka empowerment. In return, in 1970 he received from Ling Rinpoche the Action Tantra empowerment of Vairochana and also teachings on the Lamrim.

While in exile in India, Trijang Rinpoche continued to teach the Dalai Lama, as well as many other disciples at the newly located monasteries in Buxa, the Tantric colleges in Dalhousie and a Tibetan monastery in Varanasi. At this time, he also granted many empowerments. It is these teachings and practices that continue to be shared with the world by his disciples, who in turn have become renowned masters – Zong Rinpoche, Geshe Rabten, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, SeraMey Geshe Lobsang Tharchin Rinpoche, to name just a few.

As the great monasteries of Tibet – such as Ganden, Sera and Drepung – began to re-establish themselves throughout the Tibetan settlements in India, Trijang Rinpoche contributed significantly to keeping the teachings alive by continuously teaching and granting empowerments to hundreds of monastics and laypeople alike. He also made offerings to the Sangha, and donated statues and thangkas to the main temples of these monasteries.

During the early days in India, both Trijang Rinpoche and Ling Rinpoche played vital roles in outlining the basic structure of the Tibetan Government in Exile, advising the Dalai Lama, and laying down the foundations of the three great monasteries in South India, the Tantric colleges and various smaller monasteries (while heads of other sects provided their leadership to their respective orders).

Notably, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche also wrote Gyallu, the Tibetan National Anthem, which was adopted by the community-in-exile around 1950 and is still used to this day. The anthem focuses on the radiance of Buddha Shakyamuni.

By the spread of Buddha’s teachings in the ten directions,
May everyone throughout the world enjoy the glories of happiness and peace.
In the battle against dark negative forces,
May the auspicious sunshine of the teachings and beings of Tibet
And the brilliance of a myriad radiant prosperities be ever triumphant.

A prolific author

Although respected by Lamas in all Tibetan Buddhist schools, and even invited by them to give teachings and initiations, Trijang Rinpoche taught primarily from the Gelugpa tradition of Je Tsongkhapa. He was also the holder of the Ganden Oral Tradition that was passed to him in its entirety by his root Guru Pabongka Rinpoche.

In 1938, when Trijang Dorjechang was 37, Pabongka Rinpoche was invited to Ganden monastery to teach the Lamrim Chenmo, the Great Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, which he did over a four-week period to over 2000 monks and many lay people. During that time, Je Phabongka gave his chief disciple Trijang Rinpoche a copy of the text in gold lettering, along with ritual substances and other precious items.

Later, Trijang Rinpoche was responsible for editing this classic Lamrim text by his root Guru, Pabongka Rinpoche, entitled Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. This continues to serve as the central text used in monasteries and Dharma centers everywhere in the world, studied by both the Sangha and lay people.

Trijang Rinpoche also authored many other pivotal Buddhist texts that have become integral study and practice texts for practitioners. Among these texts are Liberation for Your Safekeeping, a composition from notes on Pabongka Rinpoche’s discourses on Lamrim (which is included among the Collected Works of Je Pabongka);  nitiations into Chittamani Tara, White Tara and the Protector Dorje Shugden, various biographies, rituals, prayers and supplications, including for the reincarnation of various Lamas.

According to Geshe Helmut Gassner, the Dalai Lama’s translator for 17 years and one of only two ordained Western Geshes, “The great master Pabongka was in the first half of the twentieth century the pivotal or key lineage holder of the Oral Geden Tradition. Many other teachers before him mastered certain aspects of the tradition’s teachings, but it was Pabongka Rinpoche’s particular merit to locate and find all these partial transmissions, to learn and realize them, and bring them together once again to pass them on through a single person. In his lifetime there was hardly a significant figure of the Geden tradition who had not been Pabongka Rinpoche’s disciple. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche was the one capable of receiving and passing on the entirety of the Oral Geden Tradition once again. The Dorje Shugden practice is an integral part of that tradition.”

Many disciples regard Trijang Rinpoche as the most outstanding Master in every field of Buddhist teachings and Tibetan culture. He was the very source of all the fields of knowledge and a consultant in all of them. It was a well-known fact that he had really been the very epitome of a Master who had attained the highest realizations of the Sutras and Tantras, as well as an unsurpassable propagator.