Tibetan Buddhist scholar speaks at GVSU

Gelek Rimpoche, founder and spiritual director of Jewel Heart Tibetan Buddhist Center, will visit Grand Rapids as part of a multi-city lecture tour following the teachings by the Dalai Lama in Ann Arbor. He will speak in Grand Valley State University's Loosemore Auditorium, 401 Fulton St., at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 4.

Born in 1939 in Lhasa, Tibet, Rimpoche has played a crucial role in the survival and transmission of traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Recognizing the opportunity for the interface of spiritual and material concerns in today’s world, Rimpoche has also opened a dialogue with science, psychology, medicine, metaphysics, politics, and the arts.

Mentored by some of Tibet’s greatest Buddhist masters, Rimpoche is among the last lamas educated in Drepung Monastery before the Communist Chinese invasion of Tibet. Rimpoche feld to India in 1959. He later edited and printed over 170 volumes of rare Tibetan manuscripts that would have otherwise been lost.

Rimpoche is known for his familiarity with contemporary culture, and his special effectiveness as a teacher of Western practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. He is an internationally recognized spiritual teacher and bestselling author of "Good Life, Good Death" and "The Tara Box: Rituals for Healing and Protection from the Female Buddha," as well as over 30 teaching transcripts. Rimpoche lives in Ann Arbor and is a U. S. citizen. For more information, visit www.jewelheart.org.