Geshe Lhakdor , also Geshe Lobsang Jordhen and Geshe Lhakdor Lobsang Jordan , (born in 1956) is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar who has co-authored and co-translated several books on Tibetan

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

. He was also an English translator of the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

. He is a Director of the

Library of Tibetan Works and Archives The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) is a Tibetan library in Dharamshala, India. The library was founded by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama on 11 June 1970, and is considered one of the most important libraries and institutions of ...

in Dharamshala,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He is also an Honorary Professor at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

, Canada.

Early life

He was born in Yakra,

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

in 1956. He had to escape from Tibet, when he was only 6 years old in 1962. After coming into exile he attended the Central School for Tibetans in Dalhousie, India from 1972 to 1976. In 1976, he joined Institute for Buddhist Dialectics in

Dharamshala Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855. The ...

, India where he studied Buddhist Philosophy and successfully completed his Master of Prajnaparamita in 1982. From 1986 to 1989, he worked as a translator and research assistant at the

Tibet House Tibet House is an international, loosely affiliated group of nonprofit, cultural preservation organizations founded at the request of the Dalai Lama, to preserve, present, and protect Tibet's ancient traditions of philosophy, mind science, art, ...

in New Delhi. In 1989, he received his Master of Philosophy from the

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

. And he completed his

Geshe Geshe (Tib. ''dge bshes'', short for ''dge-ba'i bshes-gnyen'', "virtuous friend"; translation of Skt. ''kalyāņamitra'') or geshema is a Tibetan Buddhist academic degree for monks and nuns. The degree is emphasized primarily by the Gelug lineage, ...

Degree from

Drepung Drepung Monastery (, "Rice Heap Monastery"), located at the foot of Mount Gephel, is one of the "great three" Gelug university gompas (monasteries) of Tibet. The other two are Ganden Monastery and Sera Monastery. Drepung is the largest of all ...

Loseling Monastic University in Karnataka State, South India.

Career

He served as the translator and religious assistant of the Dalai Lama in 1989. While working as the Dalai Lama's assistant, he translated several books of the Dalai Lama from English to Tibetan and from Tibetan to English, such as ''The Way to Freedom'', ''The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace'', ''Awakening the Mind and Lightening the Heart'', etc. In 2005, he became the Director of the

in Dharamshala, India.

Honor

Geshe Lhakdor was conferred with an Honorary Professorship by the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada in 2002 and the University of Delhi, Psychology Department in 2008.

Books co-translated

He has also worked as a co-translator of the several books by the Dalai Lama . * ''The Way to Freedom'' * ''The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace'' * ''Awakening the Mind and Lightening the Heart'' * ''Stages of Meditation'' (commentary on the

Bhāvanākrama The Bhāvanākrama (Bhk, "cultivation process" or "stages of meditation"; Tib. , ) is a set of three Buddhist texts written in Sanskrit by the Indian Buddhist scholar yogi Kamalashila (c. 9th century CE) of Nalanda university.Adam, Martin T. Med ...

). Translated with Losang Choephel Ganchenpa and Jeremy Russell. Snow Lion, 2003.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lhakdor, Geshe 1956 births Geshes Gelug Lamas English–Tibetan translators Tibetan–English translators Living people Delhi University alumni People from Shigatse