Venerable Tenzin Gephel was born in 1960 in Northern India, a year after his parents escaped from Tibet.
He received his primary education at Tibetan School for Children in Dharamsala. At 13, he took monk’s robes at Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, and received his ordination vows from H.H. Dalai Lama.
In 1997, he joined Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies in Ithaca, NY where he served as a resident teacher and led retreats. He simultaneously served as the Buddhist Chaplain at Cornell University for ten years. Venerable Tenzin Gephel is currently the resident monk and teacher at Blue Mountain Dharma, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation and learning center in Charlottesville.
In his free time, Venerable Gephel enjoys writing on a range of topics including Tibetan culture and Buddhism, as well as stories and poetry that often include a moral and a touch of humor.
Visiting Teacher Geshe Ngawang Sonam is a modern Buddhist scholar and an English translator for His Holiness The Dalai Lama.
His new translation of Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharya will be published this year. Geshe Ngawang Sonam was a top student during his basic schooling at TCV School in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh State, North India. Afterward he joined Sera Mey Monastery at Sera Monastic University in 1995. He received his novice monk’s vows in 1996 from the late Kyabje Dhakpa Rinpoche and his full ordination as a Bikshu from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in 1997. In 2008, after placing first in his examinations in his last year of Madhyamika Philosophy, he was selected to become one of the English translators for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since 2008, he has travelled extensively with His Holiness to nine countries around the world. In 2009, Sera Mey Monastery conferred upon him the Rigchung Degree.
In 2011, he travelled to several Tibetan camps in South India and gave extensive talks on Buddhism. He joined the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2016 and simultaneously completed his two final years of Gelugpa University Examinations. He became a Geshe Lharampa, [equivalent of Doctor of Divinity] in January 2019. Geshe Ngawang Sonam has been a speaker at conferences with scientists on many occasions, including two panels on Quantum Physics and Buddhism last fall. He has taught in India at various Buddhist communities and given lectures at Tibetan schools and college hostels.
Geshe Sonam will be visiting Blue Mountain Dharma again in 2020; check back for more details.