A 21st CENTURY TIBETAN ‘POLYMATH RENAISSANCE GENIUS’, 17th KARMAPA BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE. An overview of the 17th Karmapa’s outstanding activities and teachings on Buddha Dharma, female empowerment, vegetarianism, environmentalism, art, theatre and poetry

Today, the first day of the fifth Tibetan month (19 June 2023) is the 39th birthday of HH 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje. Normally, it has been celebrated on the 26th June, his birthday according to the non-lunar, western calendar), but it is now being celebrated on the Tibetan lunar month and day of his birth. 

Prior to his birthday today, the Tsurphu Labrang issued a statement that due to the recent passing of the 9th Thrangu Rinpoche, the 17th Karmapa’s teacher, he had requested  there be no big celebrations of dancing and singing for his birthday, but to make smoke offerings to the local deities of his birthplace, see letter here:

Thus, for this birthday tribute article, I give an overview of the 17th Karmapa, a man who stands out without parallel among all the Tibetan Buddhist lamas oif the 21st Century, for his polymath and extraordinary talents and abilities and vast and unprecedented activities since his dangerous escape out of Tibet into exile India, in year 2000. Despite many setbacks and challenges, such as having court cases launched against him, being falsely accused of being a Chinese spy, and still not being allowed to visit and teach at Rumtek Monastery, and now, being unable to get an Indian visa to return to India for over 5 years, the 17th Karmapa has continued to blaze a trail of high quality and authentic Buddha Dharma activities in terms of teachings, research, translations, female empowerment and equality, environmentalism, vegetarianism as well as being a talented and accomplished writer, playwright, poet and artist/painter.

When one considers the activities of other lineage heads  (or teachers) within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is really no-one who can compare with the scope, profundity, progressive and high quality of his Dharma activities and abilities. The fact he is a lineage head of one of the four major lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, with huge amounts of responsibility, followers, public and personal pressures and challenges, and not much free time makes his accomplishments and achievements even more extraordinary and worthy of the words ‘polymath’ and ‘genius’.  The name ‘Karmapa’ means the one who ‘does actions’, thus it is without doubt that in terms of activities alone (never mind other great qualities), Ogyen Trinley Dorje has clearly shown and proven himself to be the supreme and only Gyalwang 17th Karmapa, and there is no-one else who comes close to it.

The 17th Karmapa was discovered in Tibet in 1991 on the basis of the sacred, handwritten prediction letter personally given by the 16th Karmapa to 12th Tai Situ Rinpoche in 1980. He was enthroned at the main seat of the Karmapas, Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet in 1992 and is accepted as the official Karmapa by the vast majority of Karma Kagyu teachers, followers, including getting the official seal of recognition from the 14th Dalai Lama (for more on that see recent podcast interview with the author of Dance of 17 Lives, Mick Brown). Thus it is even more beyond belief (and outrageous) that the 17th Karmapa is still not able to visit and teach at the Indian seat of the Karmapas, Rumtek Monastery, while other junior, lesser qualified (and even totally unqualified ‘name-only’) teachers are still doing so. 

Below I give a brief overview (with links) of these his activities. For any articles, translations and transcripts I have published about the 17th Karmapa on this website, see website section here. If all his teachings since 2000, especially those in the last few years were compiled into a Collected Works, they would be without parallel this century, or even previously. For those reasons and more personally, with deep devotion, respect and gratitude to the 17th Karmapa for personally and swiftly bringing me onto the Dharma path in 2005, I offer this tribute.

May the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s life be long and healthy, may his activities flourish, may he be swiftly allowed to return to India and visit/teach at Rumtek monastery, and wear the black crown. May we never be separated from him in all our lifetimes until full awakening!

Music? Long-Life Aspiration Prayer for 17th Karmapa, Karmapa by Tenzin Kunsel, Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair by Nina Simone, The Very Thought of You by Ella Fitzgerald, You Are So Beautiful by Joe Cocker, When Will I See You Again by The Three Supremes.

Written and compiled by Adele Tomlin, 19th June 2023.

Dharma teachings – original research and translations of an academic standard and preservation/publication of the Kangyur and other texts

Since the 17th Karmapa came into exile, despite not having his own monastery to live in the whole time, has given extensive teachings in India and internationally. In particular, the last few years he has moved into presenting academic-style and level presentations of original research and his own translations from Chinese into Tibetan. No other Tibetan Buddhist lama (or lineage head) is producing that level or amount of work. If these teachings were all transcribed and published, there is no doubt that the 17th Karmapa’s output would be comparable to that of the 8th Karmapa and other prolific Tibetan Buddhist masters.

The 17th Karmapa has also undertaken vast and important activities on the preservation and dissemination of Buddha Dharma. Founding Adarsha, a repository/library of Tibetan texts, as well as Dharma E-Books for freely available downloads of some of his compositions, and those of others in various languages, such as English and Chinese.

In addition, the 17th Karmapa has continued the activities of the Karmapas in relation to the preservation and dissemination of the Kangyur (words of the Buddha) texts, recently launching a new edition of the Litang Kangyur together with a digital edition Kangyur on the newly-created website, Adarsha, see here. 

For all articles, transcripts and translations published on this website connected to 17th Karmapa, see here.  

Female Empowerment and Equality

As I wrote about here before in ‘Actions Speak Louder than Words’: 17th Karmapa’s outstanding activities for females, the scope and level of activities on female empowerment and equality by the 17th Karmapa is beyond compare or equal among male Tibetan Buddhist teachers, never mind lineage heads. His work towards full ordination for nuns, female umzey chant leaders, the Arya Kshema annual nuns’ debate event and teaching,  Khenmo training and more is unprecedented in words and actions.

For example, in 2015, the Karmapa  participated in a discussion with Prof. Janet Gyatso about female empowerment and the full ordination of Tibetan Buddhist nuns at Harvard University see here:

Here is a podcast talk by 17th Karmapa on Gender Equality and Effective Activism taken from a talk at Princeton University in 2015.

Buddhism and vegetarianism – the previous Karma Kagyu masters and Karmapas

The 17th Karmapa has spoken many times about his decision to stop eating murdered animals and how doing so is not consistent with the Buddha’s teachings on it for monastics and laypeople, but also not following the example of previous Karmapas who also advocated strict vegetarianism, even in high-altitude Tibet with little plant food. 

I recently compiled some of his most recent teachings on vegetarianism into this freely downloadable pdf here.  In these teachings, the 17th Karmapa goes into extensive detail about how and why Buddha Shakaymuni forbade the eating of murdered animals, in particular for monastics, and the very limited circumstances in which it was permissible to eat it (such as begging for food, starvation or the animal had died naturally). He has also spoken about other Tibetan masters such as Milarepa, Drugpa Kunleg, Jamgon Kongtrul and the previous Karmapas, such as the 7th and 8th, who were all strict vegetarians and insisted on the Great Karma Kagyu Encampment being strictly vegetarian too.

The links to transcripts of his teachings on vegetarianism are here.

Environmentalism – Khoryug and Guidelines for Karma Kagyu monasteries

Along with the 17th Karmapa’s interest in the welfare and compassion for animals, he has been very pr0-active in bringing about greater awareness of a meat diet’s impact on the environment and planet, as well as caring for and protecting the environment generally. For example, the 17th Karmapa founded Khor-yug in 2009 as an environmental association of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries all working towards environmental protection, sustainability and climate change resilience. 

The 17th Karmapa recently gave a talk at Stanford University, “Caring Connections: Compassion, Technology and the Environment”in 2015.

The Khoryug logo design depicts Mount Kailash in the center with rivers flowing down to Lake Mansarova. The 17th Karmapa explained that he created this design based on the significance of Mount Kailash in both Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies. Referred to as Mount Meru in ancient Indian and Tibetan texts, Mount Kailash features prominently in both Hinduism and Buddhism as the physical and metaphysical center of the universe. He noted that this logo illustrates the ties between India and Tibet and hopefully also illuminates the beneficial role Tibet and the Himalayas play for all of the surrounding lands and people.

Art – accomplished painter and artist of original works in Tibetan and Chinese styles

The 17th Karmapa (following in the footsteps of the 10th Karmapa’s artistic genius it seems) has shown his extraordinary ability as a painter in the Tibetan and Chinese styles in many examples. Such as this painting of Milarepa, and most recently he created his own version of Marichi (based on the original of the 10th Karmapa). 

The 17th Karmapa has also given extensive teachings on the history of art within the Karma Kagyu, such as this TIBETAN ART, PRE-GREAT ENCAMPMENT (KARMA GAR-RI) : Indian, Newar and ‘Three Great Tibetan Styles’ of Men-ri, Khyen-ri and Jeyu-ri (7th -15th Century) in 2021 about the pre-Great Encampment style art and three great Tibetan styles. And this one here MARVELLOUS MURALS AND MAHAKALA MELODIES: EARLY AND LATER KARMA GAR-DRI STYLE TIBETAN ART .

For more examples of the Karmapa’s artworks see here. For a short video of the 17th Karmapa being taught painting while he was in India, see here.

Theatre playwright  – Life of Milarepa and Life of Karma Pakshi plays composed and directed by the 17th Karmapa

Adding the title of playwright to a list of accomplishments that already seems impossibly diverse,  the 17th Karmapa has also written several plays. For example, in 2010, after three years of reading the biography of Milarepa to Kagyu Monlam attendees, two hours at a time, the 17th Karmapa transmitted the entire life of Milarepa in a single, magnificent evening. In what a world-class theatrical event, approximately 12,000 people turned out and many viewers were watching live online to view a play of Milarepa’s life created and composed by the 17th Karmapa and performed by actors from the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts (TIPA). The Karmapa also personally oversaw the stage design, rehearsed actors in his temporary residence in Gyuto and generally provided creative direction at all stages of the production. According to TIPA, this was the largest theatrical event in Tibetan history. For a review of the play, see here. For the video of the play (Tibetan only), see here: 

For a teaching the Karmapa gave on the Life of Milarepa in 2014, see here.

In addition,  in 2012,  the 17th Karmapa composed and directed another theatrical play about the life of 2nd Karma Pakshi, which I wrote about in this article here. The play can be watched on Youtube here: 

Poetry  – classical and contemporary poet

The 17th Karmapa has written beautiful poetry and praises on many occasions, for long-life prayers, supplications, praises and more, including his most recent compositions for the recent passing of the film director, Pema Tseden (see here) and for his teacher, 9th Thrangu Rinpoche (see here). The 14th Dalai Lama also remarked when the 17th Karmapa came into exile that he had an extraordinary talent for poetry (see Dance of 17 Lives book, by Mick Brown).

In terms of more contemporary Tibetan poetry, on a previous trip to the United States the Gyalwang Karmapa even attended a poetry jam at Princeton University to experience a day like a college student. In 2015, the Karmapa attended a poetry evening hosted by  Latse Library in New York, about the post-1959 practice of poetry in Tibetan. According to the Kagyu Office report:

“At the conclusion of the event, the hosts printed one of His Holiness the Karmapa’s poems and handed it to him with a sincere request that he read it. After commenting that although he hardly merited the name “poet,” (they had made it hard to deny that he had written something along the lines of poetry), His Holiness read one of his own poems, composed in free verse: Anniversary Poem, which he wrote in honor of the 900th anniversary of the birth of the first Karmapa, Dusum Khyenpa.”

In  September 2022, the 17th Karmapa released his artwork and praise to the 3rd Karmapa, which I translated into English here.

Wishing HH 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje a happy, healthy and auspicious birthday this year and may there be many more to come!