His personal name was Gelek; kyabje and rimpoche are titles meaning "teacher" (lit., "lord of refuge") and "precious," respectively; he is known to Tibetans as Nyakre Khentrul Rinpoche.

[4] He was educated alongside the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso who said "he completed his traditional Buddhist training as a monk in Tibet prior to the Chinese Takeover.

Tired, hungry and cold, they sought advice from an incarnate lama who had joined their exodus – nineteen-year-old Nawang Gehlek Rinpoche.

“I sat there and looked at the situation, I don’t know if it was a coincidence or the effects of a flu shot or common sense, but I saw that the range had four peaks and I thought we should zigzag across to the farthest one on the right.

"[8]He then settled at a temporary camp with other lamas and monks in Buxa, India, where his education continued, although "there were no books, and classes had to be taught from memory only.

[8] Rimpoche moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1987 to teach Buddhism at the request of two local women, Aura Glaser and Sandra Finkel, who met him on a trip to India during the mid-1980s.

He helped a Case Western Reserve professor write a book on Tibetan history for two years in Cleveland, then moved to Ann Arbor.

In 1988, with Glaser and Finkel, he founded and was president of Jewel Heart, a nonprofit "spiritual, cultural, and humanitarian organization that translates the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism into contemporary life," in Ann Arbor, which has expanded to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Chicago, Cleveland, Nebraska, New York, Malaysia, and The Netherlands.

[32][33] In 2021 Tibet House US in New York City, partnered with the Allen Ginsberg estate, and Jewel Heart International, on Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends, a gallery show, video, and eventually online exhibition, of photos and drawings by Allen Ginsberg with whom Rimpoche had an “indissoluble bond," exemplifying the "transformational nature of this time in US history.

[41] Free of charge, the archive contains more than five hundred teachings and more informal talks comprising over 1800 video and 2900 audio files, often accompanied by searchable verbatim and compiled transcripts.