Merging Hearts Holistic Center

Gankar Tulku Rinpoche is a celebrated Tibetan spiritual leader and head of the Dzindu Monastery in Tibet. At the age of four he was formally recognized as the third incarnation of Gankar Tulku, the great master of the Dzindu Monastery, whose second incarnation was killed in the atrocities committed by the Chinese after they invaded Tibet in 1950.

At five, Gankar Tulku Rinpoche was ordained a novice monk, and his care and education were entrusted to a great Buddhist master, Tara Tulku Rinpoche. At ten, he entered Drepung Loseling, the largest Buddhist monastery in the world, where many of the greatest Buddhist scholars have been trained.

When he was twenty-one, he was ordained by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. In 1996 he was awarded the Geshe Lharampa degree, the highest academic honor attainable in the Buddhist world. He has completed his advanced studies at the Gyuto Tantric University, graduating with the highest honors, and now continues studying directly under His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

Rinpoche is presently based in India at the Drepung Loseling University but travels yearly. He leads tours with groups of monks, some of whom are scholars, musicians, and artisans, and participates in many public events, forums, and conferences. He is the founder and director of Khacholing Center in Minnesota and Tardo Ling Center in San Francisco, and continues to work for the rebuilding of the Dzindu Monastery in Tibet.

Spreading messages of peace, harmony, and fellowship wherever he travels, Rinpoche is sought after for his spiritual teachings and is a world ambassador for Buddhism.

Buddhist Concepts Explained

Mandalas: Mandalas are created whenever a need for a healing of the environment and living beings is felt.

Tara: The female deity Tara is regarded as the embodiment of the enlightened activity of all of the Buddhas. Tara is evoked for the elimination of all forms of fear, and to accomplish one's positive activities.

Empowerment: The transference of a Buddha's power or grace that inspires a sacred peace of mind and a strengthening of the life force that restores balance and health.

White Tara: Goddess Tara in the form of White Tara is known for granting health, longevity, and wisdom.

Medicine Buddha: A powerful practice to heal external physical sickness, and the internal sickness of anger, desire, ignorance, and jealousy. Thus, engaging in Medicine Buddha has the benefit of leading to both inner and outer healing. The practice also increases one's healing power, so that one can help others more effectively.

Puja: A blessing performed on a home or office and the persons within.

The Four Noble Truths

1. Life means suffering. To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment. The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable. Suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering. There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism); and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth.

The Noble Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths, it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.


1. Right View. To see and to understand things as they really are.
2. Right Intention. Commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement.
3. Right Speech. To tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome
    actions lead to sound states of mind.
5. Right Livelihood. One should earn one's living in a righteous way.
6. Right Effort. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved.
7. Right Mindfulness. The mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness.
8. Right Concentration. Concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions.

 A tulku  is an enlightened Tibetan Buddhist lama who has, through phowa and siddhi, consciously determined to take birth, often many times, in order to continue his or her Bodhisattva vow. The most famous example is the lineage of Dalai Lamas; the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is held to be the fourteenth mindstreamGendun Drup (1391–1474). It is held in the Vajrayana tradition that the oldest lineage of tulkus is that of the Karmapas (spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu lineage), which began with Düsum Khyenpa (1110-1193). People generally address reincarnate lamas with the honorific title Rinpoche  (rin-po-che), which means Precious One.