Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche
[2][non-primary source needed] Born in Kham, Tibet, Palden Sherab escaped invading Chinese forces in 1960 to arrive in India and join other monastic leaders to collect and salvage Tibetan Buddhist teachings carried by the exile community.
Palden Sherab was born in the village of Joephu (Tibetan: རྒྱུས་ཕུ་, Wylie: rgyus phu) on 10 May 1938,[citation needed] in the year of the Earth Tiger.
His father was Lama Chimed Namgyal Rinpoche; his siblings included two sisters and a brother, and his grandparents were respected scholars and practitioners.
In accordance with local tradition, his family were seasonal nomads; Pema Lhadze (Palden Sherab's mother) introduced him to the monk Lama Ahtsok, who was on a solitary retreat in a nearby cave.
Palden Sherab began monastic studies at age six at the Nyingma Gochen Monastery (Tibetan: སྒོ་ཆེན་སྒོམ་, Wylie: sgo chen sgom), which was founded in the late 17th century by the treasure revealer and crazy wisdom terton Tsasum Lingpa.
Just before China's invasion of eastern Tibet, Palden Sherab completed the shedra's monastic education at Riwoche Monastery; this included philosophy, astrology, medicine, Sanskrit and the major Buddhist texts.
[citation needed] After their escape to India, Palden Sherab and his family arrived at a refugee camp in Kalimpong and lived with other Tibetans fleeing the Chinese forces; he taught the Prajnaparamita, from Mipham Rinpoche, and grammar in the Sumtak daily.
The family then moved to a camp in Darjeeling for six months, where Palden Sherab continued teaching from Mipham's commentaries, Shantideva's Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra (The Way of the Bodhisattva), and the Sumtak to the exile community.
In Mussoorie in 1965, Dudjom Rinpoche asked him to be the Nyingma representative at a year-long scholarly conference of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism convened by the 14th Dalai Lama.
Palden Sherab was responsible for salvaging thousands of texts and commentaries, and the complete Tibetan cycle of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist teachings was recovered.
When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the dharma will come to the land of the red man.Palden Sherab first traveled to the United States in 1980 with his brother, Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, at the behest of Rhoda P. Lecocq of California.
[9] In Vermont, connections were established between Dudjom Rinpoche, Palden Sherab and his brother, and Venerable Khandro Dhyani Ywahoo of the Cherokee Nation at the Sunray Meditation Society.
