Khenpo Ngawang Dorjee, often seen drinking tea in Alderman Cafe or riding his scooter around Grounds, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has been creating a stir in both the local Tibetan and broader Charlottesville communities since he arrived here in 2006.
One of Dorjee’s accomplishments has been founding the Tashi Choeling Buddhist Center in May 2007, providing the Tibetan community — and all others who are interested — a common place to congregate.
“Charlottesville also serves as a relocation center for many Tibetans, so the center is a great place for them to come together and worship in addition to just giving them somewhere to be social and interact with other Tibetans,” said Joe Montoya, treasurer of the Tashi Choeling Buddhist Center.
Dorjee is originally from eastern Tibet and has been an ordained monk since he was 12. At age 17, he joined a Tibetan monastery, where he spent 13 years learning the principles of Buddhism. In 1996, with the full support of his teachers, reincarnated lamas and monks of the Lungkya monastery, Dorjee achieved the rank of Donak Rabjampa — equivalent to a doctorate of exoteric and esoteric Buddhist studies — and was given the title of “abbot,” which in the Tibetan language is “khenpo.”
“An abbot is essentially a religious leader,” Dorjee said through translator Jann Ronis. “I think of it as like a teacher.”
Dorjee’s position as an abbot and active educator of the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama led to his imprisonment by Chinese authorities.
“I was in jail for several months,” Dorjee said. “They tied me up and kicked me around, which is common in Chinese jails. I admitted to teaching people about Tibetan independence but refused to confirm that I had founded a group devoted to language and cultural preservation and political independence.”
A friend of Dorjee in the Chinese government arranged for his release for a couple of days, during which he fled to safety.
“It took me over two months to make the journey across the plateau and over the high mountains to Nepal,” Dorjee said. “Once I was safe in Nepal, I was able to take a bus to India, where I worked for two years for the Department of Culture in the Tibetan government in exile, which is His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”
He made his way to Charlottesville from India and was invited to work in the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library on the second floor of Alderman Library as an editor for the collected Tibetan writings.
In addition to his library work, Dorjee also teaches courses at the Tashi Choeling Buddhist Center, which was named after the monastery he attended in Tibet. Since its opening, Dorjee has taught numerous courses, such as Introduction to Buddhism, Mind Training and Subtle Body Channeling. Dorjee also taught a Tibetan language course at the University in 2007.
Fourth-year College student Kirby Moore has attended Tibetan yoga classes at the center.
“I study body work, which is essentially massage, and so the meditation teaching and mindfulness that I learned really helped to augment my body work practices,” Moore said.
Dorjee said he currently teaches a course on the Four Noble Truths, which encompasses “the essence of Buddhism.”
The goal of the center, according to Montoya, is not to try to convert anyone but instead to encourage cultural curiosity.
“It is important to [Dorjee] to have these programs because otherwise long-term cultural progress suffers,” Montoya said.
Moore added that the opportunity to take classes with someone well-versed in Tibetan Buddhism is invaluable.
“Due to the long teaching lineage, it is important to develop a relationship with a mentor who is a part of the tradition Buddhist knowledge,” Moore said. “Without a mentorship with a qualified teacher, one can only get information as opposed to the essence.”
Trekking to the Tashi Choeling Buddhism Center isn’t the only way to interact with Dorjee. Graduate Arts & Sciences student David DiValerio teaches a class on the subject at the University, and he invites Dorjee to speak to his class once a semester. The best part of his visit is the question-and-answer period, DiValerio noted.
“It’s always amusing to see how well [students] respond to him,” DiValerio said. “He has a great sense of humor that the students are usually surprised by.”
His sense of humor isn’t the only thing that surprises some people when they meet Dorjee for the first time.
“We call him the modern monk,” Montoya said, referring to Dorjee’s work space, which almost mirrors that of a college student: a laptop opened to his e-mail screen, his cell phone and digital camera sitting on a stand near his desk and books filled with pages of folded notes.
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