Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche (1918, Bhutan - 10 June 2003) was a great teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, widely recognized in the Himalayas, with many students in East and West.
As a boy he was ordained as a monk at the monastery Phunaka Dzong (in Bhutan). He trained with important teachers of the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, especially Drukpa Kagyu and Karma Kagyu. After meeting with his 16th Holiness Gyalwa Karmapa in Bhutan in 1944, Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche became one of his closest students and received the transmission of the Karma Kagyu lineage. Their relationship was so close that the Karmapa 16 once said, "If I am the Buddha, Lopon Tsechu is my Ananda." Activity
From its center in Kathmandu (Nepal) and after the occupation of Tibet by China, Lopon Tsechu was a key figure in nurturing the development of Buddhism in Nepal. He exercised a formidable influence through the various Buddhist communities in Nepal and was respected as a great lama and as a skilled politician.
Lopon Tsechu was the first teacher of Lama Ole Nydahl, one of the most prolific Western Buddhist teachers, and was the greatest influence on Lama Ole's work of establishing the "Diamond Road Buddhism" in the West. >
At the invitation of Ole Nydahl, Rinpoche visited the West for the first time in 1988 to teach and broadcast to various students.
For the next nineteen years Lopon Tsechu inspired thousands of people in Europe, the Soviet Union and the United States.
In 1997 Rinpoche inaugurated the Buddha Dharma Center, a monastery near the great Swayambhu stupa (in Kathmandu).
Lopon Tsechu built many stupas, monuments symbolizing the Buddha's illumination, both in the East and in the West. The jewel that crowned his career and one of his great legacies is the Stupa of Enlightenment in Benalmádena (Spain).
Inaugurated in 2003, it has a height of 33 meters, making it the largest stupa in the western world.
He died on June 10, 2003, at 86 years of age. He was one of the last monks of a generation of lamas trained in ancient Tibet. Lama Ole Nydahl described Rinpoche's death with the metaphor of "a great oak that fell silent in the forest."
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