LamaYeshe Biography Project
Attn. Adele Hulse
- Australia
IRL-Portsalon, 29.7.1998

Dear Adele,
..I love your idea for an extensive biography on Lama Yeshe. That you are working already 7 years on it shows how many facettes he had and what an outstanding and important personality he was. Lama Yeshe was my first Tibetan teacher and it was love at first sight or, to be accurate, at second sight. Already in 1972 somebody brought me a photo of him, showing him giving teachings in one of those Tibetan tents in Khopan/Nepal. I kept this photo beside my bed, because it had such a special attraction to me. I never would have dreamt to meet this Lama in person. And than came the great surprise. I couldn't believe to hear that exact this Lama would come to Europe (Les Bayard, Switzerland/Spring 1975 (74?)), to give together with Lama Zopa an 6 week Lam Rim course.
A.dream became reality. But this reality was not an easy one! Sitting for more than 10 hours a day cross-leged, having difficulties following his broken English, sleeping on the hard ground (just 5-6 hours a night), squeezed together in a much to small lecture room, unable to move and continiously learning some new prayers, mantras, visualizations etc. was not an easy task. At the beginning I could have killed him for all this pain, cramps, and the uncomfortable situation. But I soon found out that it was worth all that, ending in an experience of the highest enjoyment and enlightened happiness, even though one hardly could walk anymore and it was really a problem to keep the overtired eyes open. To the common amusement one could hear people snoring during some important lectures. But reaching the physical and psychological limits helped a lot to overcome the gross mind and to develop a sensibility for the refined senses, opening the inner channels and getting in contact with the deeper reality of mind. Nearly all participants came from a psychedelic background and had various enlightened experiences before. But this time we experienced a 'natural' enforced taste of what enlightenment is all about, guided by experienced teachers and on top of it we've got a solid and authentic knowledge about the fundamentals of Mahayana Buddhism. I started to understand how important it is to find a guru or teacher, offering shortcuts, a whole library can't replace.
 

e often were amazed how often he used newest findings of science to compare those with the views of Buddhist philosophy and psychology. To present the Mahayana the traditional way, would have been much easier for him, but he knew exactly that this would have ended in a cul-de-sac with no future. - In the field of tantric Buddhism, where things essentially are as they are, the possibilities of a revival to please the Western mind, are much more limited. But he tried at least to reduce all kinds of rituals to a minimum, to prevent, that untrained Westerners think that the ritual is the object of empowerment and get blended by this exotic spectacle. He also knew about the danger about wrong identifications with deities, not solidly based on a selfless bodhicitta motivation, but used for stupid power games. A common problem for enthusiastic beginners, coming from various esoteric or religious backgrounds. In his later years I saw him giving initiations, not even using vajra and gantha, just giving a verbal guiding tour through the sadhana. As a trained yogi and tantrician he knew of course that the ritual, used by an advanced practitioner is of high importance preparing the mind and the accompanying visualizations, to unify with the deity and the mandala. So he found a very good compromise for those advanced and dedicated students of him, which were open and ready to understand, and to integrate the secrets of rituals and traditional ceremonies, in inviting experienced Vajrayana teachers like Ven. Zong Rinpoche, Geshe Teckshok (also Lama Zopa) and others to perform empowerments and giving detailed teachings on all sorts of refined esoteric aspects. He decided to keep the image of  being just "the Lama", a true friend to anybody, hiding his magic perfections and thereby following the tradition of many Mahasiddhas of the past. 

f course I fevered towards the next year's repeat of this Lam Rim experience. This time in Cumbria/England. Some students of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa (Charles & Harvey) managed to buy a dilapidated, dump but huge castle-like manor house 'Conishead Priory', called then 'Manjushri-Institute'. I will never forget the Odyssey finding this haunted place in the middle of nowhere in a cold, Full Moon December night. The car packed with all my friends, lots of sleeping bags, the heating system of the car not functioning, and expecting a warm and cosy place, we finally found the mansion at two or three in the morning. No light in it, no people at all, just some howling owls. After shouting and knocking at all doors and windows, Harvey opened this heavy big and squeaking door and stared at us as if we were ghosts. By mistake we had  arrived a day or two to early and he let us in with the words 'welcome, you are the first official visitors at Manjushri Institute'. Huge empty, icy halls and rooms, no functioning washing facilities. No furniture, just a couple of mattresses lying around (flees included). Another Dharma adventure had started. But all the excitement when the course finally started and the intensity of the teachings from 6 in the morning of up to 12 midnight superimposed the freezing dumpness, the stiff fingers, the scratching flees and the haunting neo-gothic building. Basically this course was of the same intensity and on the same subjects as Les Bayard. But this time I managed to get two or three private meetings with Lama Yeshe and told him about my strange childhood, my psychedelic past, my work as an astrologer and my idea of establishing a centre, combining Western astrology with Tibetan Buddhism. At this time I already worked as a professional astrology teacher since a couple of years (1970) and he showed great interest in my work and enthusiastically enforced me to go on with my project and, suggesting the name 'Manjushri-Mandala' for this new centre, he immediatly agreed. With the additional agreement of Geshe Rabten some months later Manjushri-Mandala was born. I don't know why, but both trusted me to work as a Buddhist teacher and  encouraged me to teach Lam Rim, giving meditation instructions and organizing retreats (e.g. Manjushri, White Tara, Vajrapani, Shine, Vajrasattva), what I did for a couple of years. I must add that they did this not lightheartedly. They knew and found ways to proof, that I did intensive Buddhist studies since the late sixties. So their decision was not just based on the result of a few Lam Rim courses, empowerments and retreats. Lama Yeshe was already to busy those days to come and  visit me Germany, but Geshe Rabten and his main disciple Gonsar Tulku came in 1976 and 1977 to give teachings and initiations at Manjushri-Mandala.  On one occasion I asked Lama Yeshe for his birthdata, which by then nobody knew for sure. After a short meditation he gave me his data: 15th of May 1935, 5:00 LMT ('sun was just showing from behind the mountains') in Tölung/Dechen near Lhasa.

   - Now you should know, that it was not easy for me all the years to live with a few secrets, which I was to shy to share with other people, without risking to be taxed as a dreamer, boaster or even an esoteric confidence trickster. Having a healthy amount of self criticism, self doubts and being no esoteric sentimentalist, it was difficult for me to accept the fact that by my experiences, which I had from early childhood onwards, and after overcoming heavy inner fights, that in a former existance I must have had a strong connection to Manjushri, the naga-realms and other magical worlds as described in the Buddhist tantras. In Lama Yeshe I had confidence and so I took together all my courage to speak to him quite openly about just this. He listened very carefully to my story, giving me a special Manjushri blessing afterwards, and taking it as possibility that I may be a Buddhist tulku (rebirth). When I repeatedly told him the story in 1981 (or 82?), he invited me to visit his Tushita centre in Northern India to stay a couple of month to find out more about me. I went to Tushita in 1983 for the big 2-month Dharma Experience course, but dealing with hundreds of students and monks, and organizing a daily schedule for highly advanced teachings and empowerments, there was no time to contact him personally. So I decided to possibly come back the next year. His untimely death in 1984 destroyed this plans, and in the meantime I found ways to live with this past of mine quite happily and unproblematic. Not searching for confirmation anymore and giving it a low profile.
   - Just for curiosity a few details of what I've told Lama Yeshe: In my childhood, up to the age of twelve or thirteen 'realistic' daytime visions of magical animals like dragons, majestic golden turtles, various kind and helpfull naga-goddesses, mystical serpent beings, emanating from the water, fulfilling my wishes and protecting me when I felt in danger or fear. Sitting for hours at a lake or a little stream nearby I could communicate with many of them and they gave me various teachings and empowerments, but I can't remember clearly what it was about. But whenever I could, I went to the lakes in our area and choose a timing when no other people were around. I really loved those little secret places of mine and I often wondered why adults couldn't see or experience all the magic which happened directly in front of me. I also was able to experience all kind of  elementary beings, lower gods, witches or demons, living on trees or hiding in bushes, having conversations with animals (e.g. birds) and plants, even whole landscapes as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I often made a long way round to avoid certain magical spots which gave me fear. I was also building little fantasy altars beside my bed and had a protector, a friendly demon-like being with an immense magical power, who watched over me during the night. I called him 'The Dark Man', and he always stood in a special corner of my bedroom. Many years later I recogneized him as Yamantaka (-a wrathful form of Manjushri), discovering a painting of him in a Buddhist book. All this magical reality was abosolutely normal for me (as for many other children too), but I think I never spoke about this to my parents or other people, because I knew they wouldn't understand or just laugh about a childs fantasies. But when I recently was in Berlin and spoke about my strange childhood, an old aunt of mine remembered that I told her about some of my strang experiences. Maybe she was the only person at that time which had an open ear for a childs secret little problems.
   Of most importance was my special deity, a bright and radiant being which I called 'Manju'. Whenever I had problems or wishes I called for Manju, who manifested himself promptly and who announced himself with a wind breeze to fullfill my little wishes. When I was sixteen it happened that I started a longer lasting friendship with possibly the only person in Berlin, who ever was in Tibet and Lhasa, working as a silk merchant between China and Tibet during the second WW. He tried to teach me the meaning of the Kalachakra symbol (also connected to Manjushri), which he studied in a Tibetan monastery. But I wasn't open to all this at that stage. Fourteen years later I enthusiastically initiated a 1-year workshop to study exactly this Kalachakra symbol in full detail.
   - Enforced by strong psychedelic experiences from the mid-sixties onwards, but also in normal meditations and in dreams I had many clean-clear visions of a skyblue-transparent Buddha with a very fine golden aura. I recognized him immediatly as my child-god Manju, and of course I was very exited! Always in the teaching mudra he allowed me to receive very deep and unbelievable insights about the magical evolution of the universe, the interactions between the elements and esoteric astrological correlations, not using words but pictorial, film-like explanations. I must confess that it was to much for me to keep all this in memory or even understand this mystical crash course in full. Today I interprete this experiences (which still last on) as wisdom transmissions, initiations, kept somewhere in my mind for further clearance in further existences (I don't like the word incarnation, because it associates a physical body and excludes an etheric existance, - in Buddhist terms the Samboghakaya level). I was quite alone with all this and had no further explanations. Imagine my over-exitement, when, in the early seventies I discovered a Tibetan thangka painting in a book showing a deity named 'Manjushri' and which looked similar to the Manju of my many visions. Tears came to my eyes and I was exploding with enjoyment and relief. Later I discovered also painting of naga deities and Naga-Buddhas, which were so close and realistic friends of mine in my early childhood. And all this growing up in the bombed ruins of the after-war Berlin, not knowing anything about Tibet, but living in natural harmony with it's kind of reality. Unbelievable, here was a culture and esoteric tradition, knowing all about all my little secrets, practicing Manjushri meditations on a daily basis, taking those things seriously and all this since thousands of years! Couldn't believe it, but I immediatly felt back 'home'.
   Just two details I had to clear up. Firstly the name. Here I discovered the information, that the ending 'Shri' is just a title of honor like 'his holiness'. So Manju was the right 'intimate' word for a deity (aspect of mind) I must have a special connection to. Then there was the color. Even though Manjushri can have the color resp. light-body of all 5 elements, I didn't find a sky-blue description or painting of Manjushri. This became a small problem for me, developing slight doubts in the credibility of Tibetan Buddhism. Also none of my Buddhist teachers (I asked many high ranking teachers of all 4 major Tibetan tradtions about a skyblue Manjushri) had an answer for this. Doing several retreats on the popular orange form of Manjushri I went berserk, because he persistently showed himself in his skyblue form. I even developed childish doubts in Lama Yeshe, Tibetan Buddhism in general and other Lamas, giving possibly wrong teachings on Manjushri. I had to live with these doubts to the end of the eighties, until I found the missing link, studying the biography of Je Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa tradition and honored as an emanation of Manjushri. At one stage of his life, Tzongkhapa heard about a secretly famous yogi living far away in a remote area who practiced on the skyblue Manjushri. Tzongkhapa showed great interest in this and wanted to receive those rare instructions and initiations. Three times he undertook a long journey to meet this yogi and three times he missed him, until he finally gave up. I'm not so much interested in the meaning of all this. But for me it was just a great relief, that my offstream and clean-clear visions of the skyblue Manjushri were/are not a false invention of my mind, but had a tantric tradition too, even though it's a tradition seemed to have become extinct. - Another fact completed my Manjushri connection. Long before I discovered all this, I decided against the advice of most of my friends and against all reason to become a professional astrologer. A strange and courageous decision at those days (late sixties). Another surprise when I found out that Manjushri is the highest patron of astrology and related esoteric sciences. Mythology even says that he did hide all advanced astrology teachings on the peak of his sacred mountain Wu-Tai-Chan at the border between Tibet and China, waiting until manking would be ready for them. Maybe he allowed me to get some vague insights into his hidden magic box, a box, which lies deep in anybody's mind, just waiting to be discovered. - But now I really should come to an end. Enough about all this! Lama Yeshe would have said 'I talk to much' ;-) 
p.s. For  me it was/is an essentail part of  my biography. For a Non-Buddhist  reader  this may sound a bit 'up in the sky'. They should just ignore my little story and stay sceptical. For the experienced and advanced Tibetan Buddhist this is just a normal down-to-earth  thing,  not even  very special ;-)
   There are so many stories concerning Lama Yeshe, but there is one, which I want to share, because it touched my heart and improved my deep trust in him. As you can see from my biography I was enthuasiastically and seriously envolved in the psychedelic movement of the sixties and early seventies. Not so much as a playground to have an easy going and funny time of self-entertainment. I was more the type of a systematical spiritual seeker, analyzing and learning from my discoveries I made with the help of some 2000 intensive LSD experiences. Lama had an open heart for people with this kind of background, being dissatisfied with the answers of Western culture, religion and philosophy concerning the nature of mind and the meaning of life, being on the road to discover what the East might have to offer. Basically an academic  movement, spreading from Californian universities all over the world, even to Germany ;-)  - I just give this reminder to understand, that dealing with hippies meant dealing with a kind of an intellectual advangarde of that era and not with some dull drug consumers of later times. Having no proper Western tradition of meditation, LSD, having the potential for mind-expanding experiences, was the only option to open new doors for finding an understanding of Eastern esoterics and philosophy, a vehicle, which often enough catapulted ones mind to the peaks of the Himalayas. And arriving there, there was this famous 'Hippie Lama', called Thubten Yeshe, who put us under his wings, knowing how difficult it was to get here and how hungry we were for getting profound teachings and instructions. Most of the other lamas were to proud or had no complex understanding to mix with those colorful and suspect outsiders coming from the West, hanging around Tibetan monasteries and waiting for 'food'. There were rumours that Lama Yeshe had tested LSD himself in his early Nepal days. But even if not, he must have heard enough about the nature of psychedelics to get a complex picture. - Anyhow, his first courses in Europe were crowded by Europe's spectacular hippie hi-society, most of them already with various tantric insights, but no general concept of explanations or a right understanding. So, especially in Les Bayard the tension was very high: What would this Lama think about LSD and us hippie's in general. The last one was an easy one. Everybody felt his warm and understanding kindness towards us paradise birds, even giving us the feelig that he is one of us. But nobody had the courage during the many question/answer discussions to openly place the crucial question concerning LSD. Also I felt to shy for it. Than, nearly at the end of the course somebody asked this essential question. There immediatly was a complete silence in the room, even breathing stopped. Lama Yeshe closed his eyes for a moment, smiling from inside, and feeling the importance of the question, until he came over with the Solomon words: "LSD is the wisdom of the West". Whow, tears filled our eyes. There was a real Tibetan Lama and spiritual authority, exactly knowing what he said - and he backed up our trip so far. A really touching experience I never will forget. It meant so much for us at this time. - Of course he didn't encourage us to go on with it, just after given us a 2-month lecture of how to develope similar experiences using Buddhist methods, but he signalized that we didn't waste our time, using LSD as a vehicle arriving safely in Les Bayard/Switzerland. - I know that at later occasions he didn't repeat this unorthodox statement, dealing with a more conservative sangha of a different generation.
 

   It's difficult to characterize such a multilayered and unique personality like Lama Yeshe, but, knowing him for 9 years I will try to find a few keywords: a pioneering bridge-builder between East and West, unorthodox maverick, Buddhist hippie, thought provoking, sharp thinker and analyst, intuitive, creative, unpredictable, controverse, spontanious, individualist, vajra-pride (spiritual pride), stylish, open-minded, quick, soft but strict, heart-centered, rethoric talent, humorous, quick-witted, friend of good food, complex, natural sense for beauty, bright intelligence, satirical, comprehensive magic recources, human, powerful, mischievous, dramatic, entertaining, radiating, charming, organizing talent, self-confident, adventurous, eccentric, boyish, ready to help, generous, good listener, reading people's mind, occasionally moody, honest, unconvential. To his closer students and monks he could be rigorous and demanding. But this was common use and part of a more intensive monastic Buddhist education. By his heart he always stayed a caring and loving teacher and friend. In Buddhist tantric terms a unique mixture of Manjushri, Vajrapani, Chenrezig, Green Tara and Heruka...
..
   - With kind regards from Ireland, Champa Legshe (Hans Taeger)