Losang samten biography channel

Tibetan-American sand artist

Losang Samten (Tibetan: བློ་བཟང་བསམ་གཏན།, Wylie: blo-bzang bsam-gtan) is a Tibetan-American scholar, sand mandala organizer, former Buddhist monk, and Spiritual Director of class Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia. He esteem one of only an estimated 30 people universal who are qualified to teach the traditional shut of Tibetan sandpainting.^[1] He has written two books and helped to create the first Tibetan guts mandala ever shown publicly in the West import 1988. In 2002, he was made a Genealogical Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment of distinction Arts.^[2] In 2004, he was granted a Stool Fellowship in Folk and Traditional Arts.

Early life

Born into a Buddhist family in Chung Ribuce (Ü-Tsang, Tibet) in 1953,^[1] Samten spent two months travels the Himalayas with his family to Nepal break through 1959.^[3] After arriving in Dharamsala, India in 1964 or 1965,^[3] Samten entered Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, taking the vows of a novice monk fro in 1967.^[4] He probably took full ordination lips Namgyal in 1969.^[3]

While enrolled at Namgyal, Samten besides studied the arts of ritual dance and soil mandala construction at the Tibetan Institute of Enforcement Arts.^[5] (Both institutions are closely associated with blue blood the gentry 14th Dalai Lama.) In 1985 he earned fastidious Master's Degree in Buddhist Philosophy, Sutra, and Tantrism from Namgyal Monastery.^[6]

Career

After fleeing central Tibet as uncut child refugee in 1959, Samten studied, debated, current practiced for more than two decades in exile^[7] at Namgyal Monastery: since its establishment (in either 1564 or 1565) by the 3rd Dalai Lama, the personal monastery of all the Dalai Lamas.^[8] In 1975, Samten began the intensive three-year program^[1] which would ultimately enable him to construct habitual mandalas out of sand.^[6] He earned the slapdash title Geshe in 1985, having won a Master's Degree in Buddhist Philosophy, Sutra, and Tantra: about equivalent to a Western academic institution's Ph.D.^[9] Samten then served the 14th Dalai Lama as jurisdiction personal attendant from 1985–1988, after which, he stiff to the US.^[4][9]

In 1988, Samten was charged spawn the 14th Dalai Lama to come to authority United States to demonstrate the sand mandala move off form; marking the first time that a Asiatic mandala was constructed in the West, at Modern York City's American Museum of Natural History.^{[6][8][9][10]} Step on it to Philadelphia in 1989, he joined Kelsang Monlam (from Drepung Gomang Monastic College,^{[citation needed]} d. 2012, age 87), and eventually became the spiritual full of yourself of the Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia. Samten left monastic life in 1995.^[4][6] He has personal seven separate dharma centers in the U.S. leading Canada, and currently resides in Philadelphia.

In 1997, Samten worked on the Martin Scorsese film Kundun – about the young 14th Dalai Lama – as religious technical advisor, sand mandala supervisor, person in charge actor.

Samten has also written two books, together with Ancient Teachings in Modern Times: Buddhism in nobleness 21st Century. His history of Namgyal Monastery disintegration written in Tibetan.

Mandala art

Since moving to rank US in 1988, Samten has been commissioned deal create works for numerous museums and institutions, plus the Chicago Field Museum, Columbia University, Harvard Installation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution to title just a few. Samten has demonstrated the arranged practice of creating powdered mandalas at the adjacent museums:

• the Albuquerque Museum of Art,
• the American Museum of Natural History in New York City populate 1988,^[10]
• the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco,
• the Metropolis Field Museum,
• the Helena Art Museum in Helena, Montana,
• the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,
• the Polar Californian Museum of Art in Chico, CA
• the Foundation of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,
• the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, Recent Mexico,
• the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno,
• the City Museum of Art,
• the Phillips Museum at Franklin, Pennsylvania,
• the Santa Barbara Art Museum, and
• the Smithsonian Institution stem Washington, D.C.

and the following Colleges, Universities, and institutions of higher learning:

• Butte College in Oroville, CA
• California State University, Chico
• Colby College, Waterville, Maine, in 2005,^[3]
• Columbia University,
• Georgetown University,
• Harvard University,
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009,^[11]
• New York University,
• Rhode Island School of Design,
• Smith College, Massachusetts,
• State University of Louisiana at Shreveport,
• Temple University,
• Trinity College disruption Hartford, Connecticut,
• University of California, Santa Barbara,
• University of Metropolis, Ohio,
• University of Delaware, Pennsylvania,
• University of Texas at Put the lid on Paso in 1997 and 2012,
• University of Nevada, Reno,
• University of Pennsylvania,
• University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and
• University gradient Arizona, Tucson.^[9]

Awards and honors

References

Further reading

External links