10 min
Interview · Venerable Thubten Kalden
Meet Venerable Thubten Kalden
Ten minutes on how a Brazilian investment banker became a monk, and on the centre he now helps run in Florida.
Overview
What does gelug point to?
The Gelug school was founded by Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) and is the youngest of the four main Tibetan traditions. Its name means "the virtuous way", and its reputation rests on rigour: a curriculum that can run twenty years, ending in the geshe degree.
What marks it out is debate. Students face each other in the courtyard and take positions apart aloud, because a conviction you cannot defend is not yet understanding. Alongside that sits the lamrim, the graded path, which orders the whole teaching into steps a person can actually walk.
The great monastic universities — Sera, Drepung, Ganden — are Gelug, and so are the Dalai Lamas. Sutra study and tantric practice are not treated as alternatives here but as two halves that need each other.
A conviction you cannot take apart is not yet yours.A central teaching within Gelug
Teachers
Teachers across every lineage of Gelug.
Gelug holds many schools and lineages beneath it. Its teachers are gathered below.
Gelug
Dalai Lama
Head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the world's most recognised Buddhist teachers, now teaching mainly from Dharamsala.
SchoolGelug
DM
Gelug
Drupon Ma Gyalten Samten
Tibetan Buddhist teacher who leads the introductory meditation retreats at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, the week-long courses for people with no practice behind them.
SchoolGelug
GD
Gelug
Geshe Dorji Damdul
Director of Tibet House in New Delhi and a former interpreter for the Dalai Lama, who teaches emptiness and the Nalanda philosophical tradition to students in over a hundred countries.
SchoolGelug
GK
Gelug
Geshe Kelsang Wangmo
Geshe Kelsang Wangmo was born in Germany and ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1991. She entered the traditional geshe curriculum at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, a seventeen-year course of study, and in 2011 became the first woman to be awarded the geshe degree. Since 2004 she has taught Buddhist philosophy in English in Dharamsala, and she also serves as a translator for senior Tibetan teachers.
SchoolGelug
GP
Gelug
Geshe Phuntsok Tsultrim
Geshe Phuntsok Tsultrim became a monk in Tibet and studied at Sera Je Monastery in India, where he received his geshe degree in 2005. In 2014 Lama Zopa Rinpoche chose him as resident geshe of Chenrezig Institute in Queensland, Australia, where he teaches in Tibetan with an interpreter.
SchoolGelug
GT
Gelug
Geshe Tenzin Namdak
Geshe Tenzin Namdak, born in the Netherlands, trained for more than twenty years at Sera Jey and is the resident teacher at Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London.
SchoolGelug
Artists
Musicians and singers.
Devotional music and chant from within this path, alongside its teachers.
GS
Gelug
Gaden Shartse Monks
The Gaden Shartse Monks come from Gaden Shartse, a Gelug monastic college re-established in exile in South India. They tour internationally to share Tibetan Buddhist ritual practice: during their visits they create sand mandalas, chant and perform pujas, and dissolve the mandala at the end of their stay. The tours also raise funds for the monastery.
SchoolGelug
TG
Gelug
The Gyuto Monks of Tibet
Monks of the Gyuto Tantric University, one of the great monastic institutions of the Gelug order, known for a chant in which a single voice sounds a chord.
SchoolGelug
TM
Gelug
The Monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery
Monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery have toured internationally since 1988, performing Gelug ritual chant, temple music and sacred dance, and creating sand mandalas.
SchoolGelug
Gelug
The Monks of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery
The monks of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, the seat of the Panchen Lamas, founded in Tibet in 1447 and re-established in exile at Bylakuppe in southern India. They tour with cham, the masked ritual dance, with the ritual music of long horns, cymbals and deep chant, and with the making of sand mandalas.
SchoolGelug
Talks & videos
Watch across gelug.
Documentaries, interviews and talks connected to this path and its sub-paths.
107 min
Talk · Venerable Thubten Kalden
Buddhist Heart Advice for a Happy Life
A full evening at Tushita in Dharamsala, where he taught as resident teacher for two and a half years.
140 min
Talk · Venerable Thubten Kalden
Practical Buddhism for Everyday Life
More than two hours at Choe Khor Sum Ling in Bangalore on taking the teachings into an ordinary working day.
59 min
Talk · Geshema Dawa Dolma
Diving into the Heart of Emptiness
A session from her course at Thosamling on emptiness, taught to international nuns and lay students.
Listen
Recordings from across gelug.
Talks, guided meditations and podcast conversations from the teachers within this lineage.
Ven. Robina CourtinGelug
A Apple Podcasts
What's Love Got to Do With It?
Robina Courtin on why love and compassion, the thing that brings most people to a spiritual path in the first place, sit further along the Lamrim than people expect.
From the podcast The Workshop is in the Mind
Khensur Rinpoche Geshe Tashi TseringGelug
A Apple Podcasts
Using Our Mind and Body as a Laboratory
Geshe Tashi takes a line of the Dalai Lama's about treating your own body and mind as a laboratory, and works out what impermanence and interdependence look like when you actually do that.
From the podcast A Buddhist Life
The Monks of Tashi Lhunpo MonasteryGelug
↗ tashilhunpomonks.bandcamp.com
17 Golden Greats
Nineteen tracks of chant and monastic music from the monks of Tashi Lhunpo in exile in Bylakuppe, from deep-voiced recitation to the full orchestra.
The Monks of Tashi Lhunpo MonasteryGelug
↗ tashilhunpomonks.bandcamp.com
Calm Abiding
Seven long pieces meant to be left running, recorded by the monks of Tashi Lhunpo as support for sitting practice.
Upcoming events
Events across gelug.
Events tagged to an unpublished school or lineage automatically remain discoverable here while that level stays unpublished.
07NOV
Teachings with Ven. Sangye Khadro in Taos
Taos, New Mexico, United States · Weekend teaching
See event pageWeekend teaching
07NOV
OQ Live Conversation with Ven. Thubten Chodron
Online · Online conversation
See event pageOnline conversation
08NOV
Pilgrimage to Rajgir with Drupon Ma Gyalten Samten
Bodhgaya, Bihar, India · Pilgrimage
See event pagePilgrimage
08NOV
Lama Atisha's Bodhisattva's Jewel Garland
Online · Online teaching series
See event pageOnline teaching series