Draft:Lama Yeshe Jinpa

Lama Yeshe Jinpa{{Cite news |last=Payne |first=Autumn |date=September 17, 2018 |title=These monks spent days making an ornate sand mandala. Learn why - and watch them destroy it. |url=https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article218523345.html |access-date=March 10, 2025 |work=The Sacramento Bee |pages=Online}} has been teaching in Sacramento at Lion’s Roar Dharma Center for 30 years and is connected with Sera Je Monastery in India. He met his first teacher, Chӧgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1971, while studying at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He attended the Buddhist Studies program at Naropa University in Boulder from 1975 to 1980.

Lama Jinpa has extensive training in Rinzai Zen with Denkyo Kyōzan Jōshū Sasaki, Rōshi (1907-2014), who founded the Rinzai-ji Zen Center in Los Angeles in 1968 and the Mount Baldy Zen Center in 1971. In 1978, Lama Jinpa and Joshu Sasaki founded the Boulder Zen Center.

In 1983, he moved to Northern California, where he met Geshe Losang Gyatso (1932-1998) in Nevada City. Geshe Gyatso, nicknamed Geshe Yadron, left Tibet in 1959{{Cite journal |last=Holmes |first=Devon |date=Winter 2000 |title=A Westerner's Glance Inside the Great Monastery of Sera Jey |url=https://www.shambhala.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/49.pdf |journal=Snow Lion Newsletter |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=3–4 |via=Shambhala Publications}} following the Tibetan demand for independence.{{Cite news |last=Friedrich |first=Keleigh |date=August 9, 2007 |title=Love and demons: A checkered past; a hopeful future? |url=https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content/love-and-demons/366921/ |access-date=March 1, 2025 |work=Sacramento News & Review |pages=Online}} He traveled and taught in the United States for 12 years and was particularly connected to the Kalachakra teachings.

Lama Jinpa is student of His Eminence Kyabje Jhado Tulku Rinpoche, retired Abbot of both Gyuto Tantric Monastery and Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India, and one of the most highly esteemed lamas in the Gelug lineage today.{{Cite web |title=Jhado Rinpoche's Visit |url=https://nalanda-monastery.eu/jhado-rinpoche-visit/ |access-date=March 5, 2025 |website=Nalanda Monastery}} Jhado Rinpoche serves as Lion’s Roar Dharma Center’s heart lineage teacher.{{Cite web |title=Heart Lineage Teacher |url=https://lionsroardharmacenter.org/heart-lineage-teacher/ |access-date=February 12, 2025 |website=Lion's Roar Dharma Center}}

Founded in 1992, Lion’s Roar Dharma Center is a community-based temple in East Sacramento and is associated with Sera Jey Monastery in Southern India. The dharma center is non-sectarian even though it operates within the Gelug framework.  

The dharma center’s teachers have studied or graduated from Sera Jey Monastic University. Sera Jey provides the Buddhist community with an academic institution granting degrees in Buddhist studies, a retreat center, a secondary school and a cultural center.

Lion’s Roar Dharma Center and Do Nga Dargey Temple serve the greater Sacramento community under the spiritual guidance of Lama Jinpa and resident teacher Geshe Damchoebaazar Gurjav. Venerable Damchoe is the first Mongolian to receive a Geshe degree,{{Cite web |title=Lion's Roar Administration |url=https://lionsroardharmacenter.org/administration/#:~:text=Venerable%20Damchoe%20completed%20his%20Geshe,in%20both%20Dharamsala%20and%20India. |access-date=February 12, 2025 |website=Lion's Roar Dharma Center}} the equivalent of a doctorate, from Sera Jey. He is also the Abbot of Zanabazar Dharma Center serving the Sacramento Valley’s Mongolian Buddhist population.

Modeled on the Nalanda Monastic University tradition of ancient India, Lion's Roar Dharma Center center offers regular Dharma teachings by Lama Jinpa and Geshe Damchoe,{{Cite news |last=Sherchand |first=Kishore |date=July 31, 2012 |title=Buddhism in the West |url=http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2012/07/buddhism-in-west.html |access-date=March 10, 2025 |work=Sri Lanka Guardian |pages=Online}} talks by senior students and practice leaders, meditation groups for participants of any level of experience and a weekly podcast called Talk Openly, exploring the human experience through a dharma lens.

The dharma center is supported by a core of committed teachers, Buddhist masters, who offer teachings, empowerments and oral transmissions, including Arjia Rinpoche, the late Choden Rinpoche (Losang Gyalten Jigdrel Wangchuk), Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Delek, Venerable Khenchen Rinpoche (Khanchen Rinpoche Tenzin Jamyang Phuntsok), Lharampa Geshe Tsewang Dorje, Khangser Rinpoche, Geshe Gendun Gyatso, Tenzin Chogkyi and Rev. Doralee Grindler Katonah, among many others.{{Cite web |title=Lineage Teachers |url=https://lionsroardharmacenter.org/lineage-teachers/ |access-date=February 12, 2025 |website=Lion's Roar Dharma Center}}

Lion’s Roar Dharma Center blends classical Buddhist scholarship and traditional practices with progressive programs and values, providing Western dharma students with an authentic lineage.  

Lion’s Roar has chaplains that include Ordained Monastics as well as Ordained Householders who have completed a four-year apprenticeship under the guidance of Lama Jinpa (who served for 10 years as chaplain at Folsom State Prison){{Cite journal |last=Buddhist Peace Fellowship |date=Fall 2003 |title=Prison Project Report |url=https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/bpf/turningwheel-fall2003.pdf |journal=Turning Wheel: The Journal of Socially Engaged Buddhism |pages=43 |via=University of Idaho Library Digital Collections}} and Geshe Damchoe. Beyond apprenticeship, chaplains have completed a two-year certificated program offered by The Foundation of Buddhist Thought (FBT) taught by Geshe Tashi Tsering of the Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London, UK.  Chaplains also serve as Dharma practice leaders for the temple and have a personal daily practice commitment. In 2019, Jhado Tulku Rinpoche ordained six sangha members who serve the greater community in a wide array of ways including hospital visits, teaching, feeding the homeless, working in low-income schools and leading recovery groups.  

The dharma center offers a Mindful Recovery program that incorporates the principles of recovery dharma and follows the traditional 12 step recovery format many people have encountered. Lama Jinpa developed the program’s Twelve Steps of Liberation that are based on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

The Buddhadharma Program is a six-year course of study designed to introduce serious students to the main points of Buddhism: view, meditation, action and conduct. The course is similar to the approach many in the monastic community follow. Original texts, translated into English, are used throughout the program. Students are introduced to a mix of scholarship and practice, blending wisdom and service, in order to become full bodhisattvas (awakened beings), those who have generated bodhicitta, a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Lama Jinpa was born in Scarsdale, New York, where he spent most of his younger years. A family tragedy started his spiritual questioning and reading. His grandmother’s library of Buddhist books, followed by a trip to Japan at the age of 15, and an influential high school teacher placed him on the Buddhist path at an early age in the mid-1960s.{{Cite news |last=Robertson |first=Blair Anthony |date=May 1, 2007 |title=Dual life disrupted when therapist dons monk's robes |url=https://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=9,4052,0,0,1,0 |access-date=February 17, 2025 |work=The Sacramento Bee}}{{Cite web |last=Light |first=Melanie Noel |date=July 7, 2010 |title=Buddhism & Psychotherapy: Conversing Candidly with Lama Jinpa |url=https://middlewayhealth.com/buddhism-psychotherapy-conversing-candidly-with-lama-jinpa/ |access-date=March 1, 2025 |website=Middleway Health}}

After high school, he attended Middlebury College (class of 1975){{Cite journal |date=2007 |title=Class Notes |url=https://archive.org/details/middleburyNewspapers_Newsletter_2007_V81N04/page/n69/mode/2up?q=%22Stephen+Walker%22+sacramento+buddhist |journal=Middlebury College Magazine |volume=81 |issue=4 |pages=69 |via=Internet Archive}} in Vermont and studied Religion and Philosophy. He then attended Naropa University, where he was taught by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, with whom he first took Refuge.

Lama Jinpa moved to Nevada City, California, in 1983. He served on the national board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship from 1985-1987, where he assisted with fundraising, producing the monthly newsletter, Turning Wheel, and event planning.{{Cite journal |title=Newsletter |url=https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/bpf/turningwheel-winter1985.pdf |journal=Buddhist Peace Fellowship |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=2, 12, 15 |via=University of Idaho Library Digital Collections}} During this time he met Geshe Losang Gyatso from Sera Jey Monastery in India. Geshe Gyatso became his main (heart) teacher and Lama Jinpa received Dharma Transmission from him in 1995 after 25 years of Dharma practice and study.

In 2005, Lama Jinpa moved to India to take his monastic vows at Sera Jey Monastery. Abbot emeritus Gyume Kensur Geshe Ogyen Tseten Rinpoche conferred the vows and gave him the name Yeshe (primordial wisdom or primordial awareness) Jinpa (generosity).

At Geshe Gyatso’s urging, Lama Jinpa graduated from the Professional School of Psychology in 1992 and became a licensed psychotherapist in 2000. He founded Middle Way Health in Sacramento – which he continues to run today – specializing in Buddhist psychotherapy.{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=Kimberly |date=August 23, 2007 |title=I don't do advice: These local spiritual leaders don't have all the answers - you do. |url=https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=407458 |access-date=February 28, 2025 |work=Sacramento News & Review}}{{Cite news |last=Friedrich |first=Keleigh |date=April 3, 2008 |title=Do I know you? Religious leaders discuss losing loved ones to dementia and Alzheimer's |url=https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=407458 |access-date=February 28, 2025 |work=Sacramento News & Review}} He blends traditional psychotherapy with alternative meditative traditions such as core mindfulness skills and meditation in daily life to emphasize non-judgmental awareness, energy and the cultivation of loving kindness. In 2013, Lama Jinpa established the Middleway Health Foundation, a nonprofit center providing free mental health services to the Sacramento community.

• Becoming a Buddha. May 2024. Kalachakra Press. Self published.
• Keehn, Tess. Alchemical Inheritance: Embracing What Is, Manifesting What Becomes. Foreword by Lama Yeshe Jinpa. ISBN: 1504343468
• Falling in Love with the World Again. December 2011. ISBN: 0985101504
• Something So Obvious. Middle Way Health Publications. Aug. 31, 2016. ISBN: 0985101512

{{reflist}}

• Goldman, Ed (Nov. 7, 2014). “Therapist - monk had to choose between family and monastery.” Sacramento Business Journal. Internet Archives/Wayback Machine. Accessed March 18, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20150721220928/http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento
• Payne, Autumn (March 2021). “[https://middlewayhealth.com/ladolcevita/interview-with-stephen-bryant-walker-lmft/ Interview with Stephen Bryant Walker, LMFT].” La Dolce Vita.
• Psychology Today. "[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/stephen-bryant-walker-sacramento-ca/54133 Stephen Bryant Walker.]" Online. Accessed March 14, 2025.
• Tieu, Van (May 25, 2021). “[https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/end-of-life-buddhist-rituals-pandemic/103-fd5a8460-3955-4da3-b152-8a8a64296bdf We’re All Connected: Though end-of-life Buddhist rituals shifted amid pandemic, it wasn’t disrupted.]” ABC10.com.  
• Welsh, Melinda (Aug. 28, 2014). “[https://www.newsreview.com/chico/content/the-science-of-being-happy/14648681/ The science of being happy. Experts share five ways to lead a better life.]” Chico News & Review.=

• [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv2QMHYKTvc7LsROHJ2RlkQ/videos Lion’s Roar Dharma Center YouTube video channel]