Nyima Gyaltsen

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About Nyima Gyaltsen

Ven. Nyima Gyaltsen was born in Dhargyey, which is part of Kham in eastern Tibet. He lived at home with his parents until he was fourteen, and then entered the school belonging to Dhargyey Monastery as a boarder. He studied logic and received teaching on the stages of the path to enlightenment. At eighteen he received permission from his parents to travel to India in order to become a monk in Sera Monastery. With no travel permit, he risked imprisonment if he was caught. Together with twenty-five others he made his way to Lhasa by truck. They then traveled on another truck until they reached a place called Lhatse, from where they had to cross the Himalayas on foot with the help of two guides they had hired. They reached Nepal safely and in November 1991 Nyima entered the Trehor Regional College, a part of Sera Je at Sera Monastery in South India. From 1991 until 1997 he followed the curriculum of monastic studies there. In 1997 he went to Dharamsala, the seat- in-exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to take care of the Ven. Geshe Sonam Rinchen. In the same year he began his studies to become a thangka painter. The course of studies that Nyima Gyaltsen followed lasted for six years. Since qualifying Nyima has completed more than thirty thangkas, including some very large ones. These are now in various collections around the world. In 2004 he accompanied Geshe Sonam Rinchen on a tour of Australia and New Zealand. During this time he taught several workshops on thangka painting and also demonstrated the art of thangka painting in the Auckland Museum. He made three further visits to New Zealand following that. After the passing of Geshe Sonam Rinchen, Nyima requested to come to New Zealand and has been with us at the centre, teaching and painting Thangka since 2015