Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center
By Kieran Mangla
The Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center is a Gelugpa tradition Buddhist center in Middletown, Connecticut. The name Chenrezig comes from the Tibetan name for Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. Not only is it a place for the Buddhist community of Connecticut to come together and worship, but it is also a great example of how Buddhist communities in the United States demonstrate educational egalitarianism in order to educate non-Buddhists on Buddhist practices, philosophies, and teachings.
The Gelugpa Tradition
The Gelugpa tradition of Buddhism is one of the newest yet largest schools of thought in Buddhism. The head figure of the Gelugpa tradition is the Dalai Lama (but, see Ganden Tripa). This school of thought harbors the idea that leadership of the sect is derived from “authority [determined] through reincarnation, in which the Dalai Lama institution is based, by finding a child, proclaimed by them as the reincarnation of a previous Dalai Lama (1).” Gelugpa practices revolve around the idea of Lamrim, derived from the teachings of Atisha, which focuses on the journey to enlightenment as taught by Buddha. The main idea of this sect is that concentration and subsequently enlightenment can be achieved by meditation and awakening the bodhisattva within.
The Founders of the Chenrezig Center
The Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center is home to the Venerable Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tenzin, also known as just “Rinpoche” for short. Rinpoche is a part of the Gelugpa tradition of Buddhism and is the founder of the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center. At age ten, Rinpoche entered the Ba Zingon Monastery. His 8 years of studying included “memorizing sadhanas, initiation rites and other related scriptures of Guhyasamaja and Yamantaka, and invocations of the five principal protector deities in the Gelugpa tradition (2).”
In 1959, Rinpoche had to flee Chinese-occupied Tibet to seek safety in India. This was around the same time as the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet to India. As a refugee in India, in 1960 he continued his studies at Buxa in eastern India, where a temporary monastery was created at which refugee monks could continue their studies. In 1970, Rinpoche moved to southern India where he completed an additional 2 years of studies at Drepung Monastic University. In 1977, Rinpoche took his final Geshe degree, the highest scholastic degree. This earned him the title of “Geshe Lharampa”, the highest honor degree of monastics. Rinpoche was invited to teach at Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca, New York where he served as a senior teacher for 14 years teaching both sutra and tantra. In 1991, the Dalai Lama appointed him Abbot of the Namgyal Monastery. He served as Abbot until 1994 until he was appointed senior resident teacher at Namgyal Monastery. After 4 years, Rinpoche retired from the Namgyal Monastery in 1998 and came to the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center in Middletown, Connecticut.
Another important figure at the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center is Jeffrey Allen, the man who translates Rinpoche’s teachings into English at the center and often accompanies Rinpoche in his teachings throughout the United States. Jeff began studying various traditions of Tibetan Buddhism in 1995 and began studying under Rinpoche in 1998 when Rinpoche came to Middletown. In 2001, Jeffrey moved to South India to attend Drepung Loseling Monastic University. Here he became a student of Geshe Lobsang Gonpo and learned how to debate Buddhist Philosophy as presented in the Five Great Philosophical Texts. The Five Great Philosophical Texts that Jeffrey studied are “pramana (logic and epistemology), prajnaparamita (metaphysics), madhyamaka (middle way philosophy), vinaya (discipline), and abhidharma (cosmology) (3).”
Relationships with Western and Asian Buddhist Communities
The Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center not only aims to provide a space of worship for Buddhists, but it also devotes a lot of time and resources towards educating Americans on Buddhism through electronic mediums. Chenrezig has a YouTube channel in which they post hundreds of videos. These videos range in topic from mantra readings, to videos explaining the idea of the Middle Path, to teachings and sutras such as the Heart Sutra. There are also more complex topics covered in the videos, such as a whole playlist devoted to “In Praise of Dependent Origination” and “The Lamp for the Path of Enlightenment”. These videos, in which the conversation in the video is directed by Jeffrey, highlight how Jeffrey was trained to debate philosophy and is able to repackage complex ideas into understandable thought. In the Chenrezig Center, Jeffrey serves as the bridge between the monastics such as Rinpoche and English-speaking Americans who are curious about learning more about Buddhism. In their videos, Rinpoche often delivers the teachings, sutras, mantras, or initiations that are in Tibetan and Jeffrey spends much time explaining the significance, translation, and practical application of the Tibetan text that Rinpoche has just read. Having studied Buddhist teachings under Rinpoche, Jeffrey is able to convey complex messages in very intuitive and understandable ways so that even those who are not as familiar with the technical terms can follow along and gather information. In the playlists of videos about teachings, it is very common to see other Buddhist masters and professors of Buddhism from around the country and around the world coming on their podcast to present different views and interpretations of Buddhist teachings. These guests highlight the sense of community that the Buddhist religion at large has with one another and how universal many of the ideas of Buddhism are that they can transcend races, borders, and languages.
The Constituency and Makeup of the Chenrezig Center
The Chenrezig Center is composed of both Asian American people as well as other non-Asian Americans. One of the most prominent of these coexistences is between Khensur Rinpoche, an Asian man, and Jeffery Allen, a White American man. These two men both represent different races, but they both work together to convey Buddhist teachings to the public. In many of the videos on their YouTube, it is apparent that both Rinpoche and Jeffrey take on big and equal roles. Rinpoche acts as a structuralist teacher reading from the text and interjecting when necessary, but Jeffrey acts mostly as his attendant in providing translation, clarification, and any other assistance that Rinpoche needs. The Chenrezig Center features traditional Tibetan practices and meditation with an American influence in them. In order to see this, we have to look no farther than Rinpoche himself. Although Rinpoche was forced to flee Tibet when the Chinese occupied Tibet, Rinpoche celebrates both his Tibetan heritage along with his American identity. In March of 2008, the Center posted a video of Rinpoche officially becoming an American citizen while dressed in his monastic robes. In fact, he even gives the woman issuing his citizenship a white garland as a symbol of respect and gratitude.
From the pictures provided on their website, it is apparent that the members of the community are also a very diverse group and that all are welcome at services. There is also a large contingency of members who show up to teaching sessions as is evident from the photos on the website. At community meetings in which Rinpoche is leading a teaching, there are people of all different races in attendance. The Center also is very welcoming to newcomers and people who are interested in learning more about Buddhism. One comment that was left on the Google Reviews by a man who visited the Center talked about how “everyone was very kind and helpful to get him accumulated [sic] to what the customs were.” What stands out on the website’s “Media” page is videos of “house parties” that were thrown by the Chenrezig Center. In these videos, people of all walks of life gather together in the Center to make friends, eat traditional Tibetan food, dance, and enjoy being together with others. Not only is the Center a place of learning and worship, but it also doubles as a hub of social engagement and a sense of community for the residents of Middletown.
The community is funded by contributions and donations made to the center by people. At the bottom of the website, members and non-members alike can contribute money in the form of donations to the center. Because monastics are forbidden from keeping corporate property, all of the money that is donated is reinvested into the Center in some way. Some donations go towards providing food for others, fixing and renovating items in the shrine room, and financial upkeep of the center.
Continuity and Change over Time
The Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 changed how the Chenrezig Center operated. Before 2020, there were still videos being posted to the YouTube account that included teachings and initiations. However, the coronavirus prevented large groups of people from meeting together, forcing all services online. To adapt to a virtual format, Rinpoche and Jeff decided to host a series of podcasts every Sunday as a way for the public to still stay connected with the teachings even if they could all not be in the same room together. Even nowadays where these sorts of gatherings are allowed again, Rinpoche and Jeffrey still choose to use a digital format of producing podcasts rather than in-person instruction for their typically larger sessions. This sort of shift is an example of how the coronavirus has altered the way we gather and worship with one another and highlights the increasing easiness of digitizing real-life things.
All in all, the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center showcases how Buddhism can flourish in a modern context in the United States. The welcoming nature of the Chenrezig Center coupled with its functioning as a hub of Buddhist teaching from learned experts such as Venerable Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tenzin and Jeffrey Allen creates a strong sense of community among Buddhists living in the Middletown area and also allows for Buddhist education and worship to include all those who wish to learn.
1. Aguilar, Mario I. “Densa Sum, Sendregasum, and the Three Seats: The Role of Gelugpa Monasteries in Tibet (1409-1959).” The Tibet Journal 40, no. 1 (2015): 23–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/tibetjournal.40.1.23.
2. Shambala Productions, “Biography of Khensur Rinpoche”, https://www.shambhala.com/snowlion_articles/biography-ofkhensur-rinpoche/