Ven. Sherab Gyaltsen Amipa

Venerable Khenchen Lama Sherab Gyaltsen Amipa Rinpoche was born in 1931 in the city of Sakya (Tibet) to a family with a long tradition of spiritual practice. Ven. Lama Sherab became a fully ordained monk, a Bhikshu, at the age of twenty. Having obtained the Geshe degree, he started teaching at the main Sakya Monastery. He left Tibet in 1959, and after a short stay at Kalimpong in 1960, he joined the monks at the Sakya Monastery in Darjeeling.

In 1967, following the request of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile (Department of Religious Affairs) requested Ven. Lama Sherab to move to a newly established Tibet Institute at Rikon (near Zurich), Switzerland. The main aim of the Tibet Institute was to support Tibetan refugees in Switzerland, helping them preserve their culture and religion in exile. Moreover, in this way, Dharma was brought to the western practitioners of Buddhism and bridges were built between the two cultures.

*image and bio courtesy of sakyatsechenling.eu