By LUIS ANDRES HENAO
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — At a monastery within the Himalayan foothills, a teenage Buddhist lama blesses hundreds. One after the other, he faucets bowed heads with a ritual vase and a peacock feather, sprinkling holy water for cover, purification, knowledge. He stops to smile at youngsters who eye him with curiosity, reverence and awe. He tries to maintain tempo with others who, like him, are among the many few chosen to offer the ultimate blessing.
Simply six months earlier, hundreds of miles away, this identical younger man was pulling all-nighters to play Madden NFL on his Xbox at his dwelling close to Minneapolis. Typically he’d pause to snack on pizza rolls and Food plan Coke, or test his texts for the following hangout at TopGolf or Buffalo Wild Wings.
Two separate worlds. Both are home to Jalue Dorje.
A typical American teen, he grew up loving rap music, video video games and soccer. He’s additionally an aspiring religious chief who, from an early age, was acknowledged by the Dalai Lama and different Tibetan Buddhist leaders as a reincarnated lama.
Now he’s 19. He graduated from highschool final yr and moved to northern India to affix the Mindrolling Monastery, about 7,200 miles from his dwelling in Columbia Heights. Just lately, he got here to Nepal to satisfy his mother and father, who flew from Minneapolis, and attended sacred rituals and teachings carried out by the abbot of Shechen Monastery.
Maroon and golden monastic robes had changed his common hoodies and sweatpants. However he nonetheless quoted from Drake (the rapper) and Shantideva (the Eighth-century Indian monastic). And beneath his robes, he wore white Crocs adorned with Jibbitz charms of “The Simpsons.” He wore them typically at Shechen Monastery, close to the 1,500-year-old Boudhanath stupa, certainly one of Tibetan Buddhism’s most sacred websites.
Every morning, he’d awake at daybreak. After prayers, he walked from his lodge by way of crowded Kathmandu streets lined with fruits, incense and spices, dodging mopeds close to the hovering white dome and spire of Boudhanath with its colourful Tibetan prayer flags and the painted, ever-watching eyes of the Buddha.
On a latest day, he strode to the monastery and took off his Crocs earlier than coming into a prayer corridor reserved for monks with doctorates and lamas like himself. Incense wafted. The sound of historic devices — cymbals, bells and drums — punctuated the monastic chants.
Standing earlier than three big gold statues of the Buddha, Dorje bowed to Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, the monastery’s religious head, and introduced him with a golden plate that symbolizes the complete universe, and a “khata” — a white Tibetan ceremonial scarf.
It was the primary mandala, or providing, Dorje had made since his lengthy journey to comply with his predestined religious path. It was a second, he says, when he realized how far he’d come.
“That is the true one, ? We’re right here and that is actually occurring,” he says. “I’m doing what the prophecy fulfilled.”
-
U.S.-born Buddhist lama Jalue Dorje places on his monastic robes at his lodge room to start out his day earlier than attending a collection of rituals and prayers at Shechen Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photograph/Luis Andres Henao)
1 of 8
U.S.-born Buddhist lama Jalue Dorje places on his monastic robes at his lodge room to start out his day earlier than attending a collection of rituals and prayers at Shechen Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Saturday, April 11, 2026. (AP Photograph/Luis Andres Henao)
A reincarnation cycle relationship to 1655
Because the Dalai Lama acknowledged him at age 2, Dorje had spent a lot of his life coaching to turn out to be a monk, memorizing sacred scriptures, training calligraphy, studying the Buddha’s teachings.
The method of figuring out a lama is predicated on religious indicators and visions. Dorje was 4 months outdated when he was recognized by Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, a honored grasp of Tibetan Buddhism. He was later confirmed by a number of lamas because the eighth Terchen Taksham Rinpoche — the primary was born in 1655.
Jalue Dorje’s mother and father took him to satisfy the Dalai Lama in 2010 when Tibetan Buddhism’s religious chief visited Wisconsin. The Dalai Lama reduce a lock of Dorje’s hair in a ceremony. He suggested the mother and father to let their son keep within the U.S. to excellent his English after which ship him to a monastery.
“From my mother and father’ finish, educating me was a very huge one,” Dorje says. “They adopted the phrases of his holiness; he laid the muse, they usually took that gamble.”
As a baby, he typically puzzled why he couldn’t sleep afterward weekends and watch cartoons like different youngsters. Someday, it might repay, his dad would inform him, “like planting a seed that at some point would sprout.”
He remembered the early mornings of recitation and memorization. He recalled individuals who posted messages on-line doubting that he was a reincarnated lama, and the way that troubled his mother and father. And the way they each labored exhausting cleansing lodge rooms and doing laundry at hospitals whereas elevating him.
“It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns day-after-day,” Dorje says. “We overcame lots.”
Fluent in English and Tibetan, Dorje excelled in public college. Though he was formally enthroned as a lama in a 2019 ceremony in India, his mother and father let him keep within the U.S. till commencement.
Rising up, he saved a photograph of the Dalai Lama in his room above DVD collections of “The Simpsons,” “South Park,” and “Household Man,” subsequent to the manga graphic novel collection ″Buddha.”
On his bedside desk, he saved a journal the place he diagramed performs he’d prefer to attempt as a left guard along with his college soccer crew. On a wall in his lounge he hung a poster along with his senior yr picture carrying sun shades and his soccer uniform, touching thumb tricks to index fingers in a meditation gesture.
He had a take care of his father, who would give him Pokémon playing cards in return for memorizing Buddhist scriptures. He collected a whole lot, typically sneaking them in his robes at ceremonies. “I bear in mind,” he says, “after I first discovered my Tibetan ABCs, after I was capable of recite all of it by reminiscence, my dad was so glad.”
A love of sports activities
The times had been lengthy. Each morning he awoke to recite sacred texts. Then college, adopted by soccer follow. He returned dwelling for tutoring on Tibetan historical past and Buddhism. At evening, he practiced calligraphy or listened to rappers. When he acquired his license, he drove round listening to Taylor Swift.
What would he have been if not a religious chief? “Sports activities journalist would have been cool,” he says. He loves to put in writing. An avid fan, he roots for the Atlanta Hawks in basketball, Real Madrid in soccer, and the Atlanta Falcons in soccer.
His favourite athlete is U.S. determine skater Alysa Liu: “She brings a lot swagger, nevertheless it doesn’t overshadow the sports activities.” In highschool, he wrote an award-winning story about Tibet for the coed newspaper.
On the soccer discipline, his teammates praised his positivity; he reminded them to have enjoyable and maintain losses in perspective. However within the closing sport of his senior season, he shed tears, realizing it might seemingly be his final sport ever.
He typically helped with occasions representing the native Tibetan group. For his 18th birthday, greater than 1,000 individuals gathered on the Tibetan American Basis of Minnesota for the last party earlier than becoming a member of the monastery in India.
Discovering his groove
On the lengthy airplane trip, his thoughts wandered.
“I used to be like, ‘Dang! I’m lacking the primary week of NFL!’” He packed gentle: headphones, laptop computer, a fantasy soccer journal and a e-book on Guru Rinpoche, the Indian Buddhist grasp who introduced Tantric Buddhism to Tibet.
His mother and father flew with him to New Delhi after which drove north to Dehradun, close to the Himalayan foothills, within the equal of a school dropoff. They purchased him a bigger mattress. They painted his monastic room and erected a shrine the place he may pray at daybreak and nightfall.
He’s an solely little one, and his mother and father cried when saying goodbye. The farthest and longest that he’d gone from dwelling on his personal beforehand was a three-day tenting journey in northern Minnesota.
“Every part main up up to now within the historical past of all of your lifetimes — the billions and billions of lifetimes you collected — results in your loved ones,” Dorje says. “To have such nice mother and father is a results of an excellent previous life’s advantage. However not solely previous life advantage, however the connection of karma — and love.”
Early on, his mom, Dechen Wangmo, apprehensive about her then-toddler son throughout lengthy prayer periods.
“Would he be hungry? What if he fell asleep?” she recalled considering. She saved worrying about him as a young person: “He’s a tulku,” she says, utilizing the Tibetan time period for a reincarnated lama, “however he’s my son.”
To her aid, he thrived. Whereas his buddies attended historical past, science and literature courses in U.S. schools, he took classes on Buddhist philosophy, and practiced his calligraphy and chanting in India.
“He’s form of discovered his groove on the monastery,” says Kate Thomas, certainly one of his tutors in Minneapolis.
Turning into a ‘chief of peace’
Regardless of the 10-hour time distinction, he saved involved with buddies again dwelling by way of texts and WhatsApp. On break day, he constructed Legos, walked to an arcade to play the FIFA soccer online game and watched Marvel superhero movies and NBA and NFL video games on his laptop computer. He was particularly psyched concerning the halftime Tremendous Bowl present: “That was an unimaginable efficiency by Bad Bunny — I can ’t lie!”
It was his first time experiencing a lifetime of asceticism, consuming a every day ration of rice and lentils and washing his personal garments by hand. However he adjusted, getting together with monks from throughout Asia, discussing spirituality, in style tradition and sports activities.
“Dudes are dudes!” he says.
It was the primary time that he was hanging out with different “tulkus’ — reincarnated religious masters round his personal age. Amongst them was Trulshik Yangsi Rinpoche, 13. He’s believed to be the reincarnation of Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche — the Tibetan Buddhist grasp who first acknowledged Dorje as a tulku at 4 months outdated.
On the monastery, they bonded over their love of Tintin comics. Dorje turned his English instructor.
“I consider him as my religious instructor,” Dorje stated after sharing a meal with the youthful lama. “I’m profoundly grateful that I get to repay my debt to the one who discovered me and bettering his English.”
Yangsi Rinpoche smiled, then mirrored: “He’s my greatest pal.”
Simply hours after Dorje blessed hundreds — together with his mother and father — on the final day of the 12-day rituals, the household awoke earlier than daybreak to go to the traditional Maratika or Halesi Mahadev Caves, 100 miles southwest of Mount Everest. They drove for eight hours on filth roads, crossing mountains and valleys, for a pilgrimage to caves sacred to each Hindus and Buddhists.
After exploring the caves in awe, Dorje sat cross-legged on the rocky floor subsequent to his father, Dorje Tsegyal. They prayed collectively, as they’d carried out virtually every day since his childhood.
Following a number of years of contemplation and asceticism, Dorje hopes to return to the US to show in Minnesota’s Buddhist group on the Nyingmapa Taksham Buddhist Center. His purpose: turn out to be “a pacesetter of peace,” following the instance of the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.
It’s an extended path that started quickly after his start. He feels prepared. “This,” he says, “is just the start.”
Related Press faith protection receives assist by way of the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely answerable for this content material.
