Tibetan Lama and Filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche Will Visit Yale
For Immediate Release
Contact: Marilyn Wilkes (203) 432-3413
Tibetan Lama and Filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche Will Visit Yale
New Haven, CT � Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, a widely revered Tibetan lama and acclaimed filmmaker, will give a free and public talk, titled “Projecting the Dharma: Film and The Transmission of Buddhism to the West,” in Levinson Auditorium at the Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street, on January 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Dzongsar Khyentse is recognized as the main incarnation, or “tulku,” of the Khyentse lineage, one of the most honored lines of reincarnating teachers in recent history. He is celebrated around the world as a progressive spiritual leader, a writer and cinematic auteur.
Born in Bhutan in 1961, Rinpoche received his traditional training at the Palace Monastery of the King of Sikkim, at Sakya College in Rajpur, India, and later enrolled at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.
He studied filmmaking with Bernardo Bertolucci, after serving as consultant on the Italian director’s “Little Buddha.” Under the name Khyentse Norbu, he is the writer and director of two acclaimed films, “The Cup” (1999), about the cultural clash between Buddhist monastic austerity and World Cup enthusiasm, and “Travellers and Magicians” (2003), a love story set in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. He is the subject of the 2003 documentary “Words of My Perfect Teacher.” He is also the author of the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist (Shambhala, 2007).
From a young age Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche has been active studying and promulgating Tibetan Buddhist teaching. He supervises his traditional seat of Dzongsar Monastery and its retreat centers in Eastern Tibet, as well as his new colleges in India and Bhutan. He has also established centers in Australia, North America and the Far East. These are gathered under his foundation, Siddhartha’s Intent, an international association of non-profit educational centers, which recently funded a chair of Tibetan Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley.
His visit to Yale is funded by a grant from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, through the South Asian Studies Council of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale and by the Hixon Fund, through the Yale Department of Religious Studies.
Contact Information:
Marilyn Wilkes
The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
(203) 432-3413