The back door to enlightenment

One day, Za Choeje Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, was approached by Ashley Nebelsieck, a col­lege grad; she knew noth­ing about Buddhism but wanted to know what the word “Bodhisattva” meant, because it was the name of a char­ac­ter in the film Point Break and it intrigued her. Thus began a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the col­lege grad and the Tibetan Lama; she learn­ing about Buddhism, and he learn­ing how to present in a way that would be more acces­si­ble and cul­mi­nated in a book they co-​​authored, The Backdoor to Enlightenment. Wrapped around a story of con­tem­po­rary intrigue, they attempt in their book to “bypass” the schol­arly den­sity most Buddhist prac­ti­tion­ers are used to. And what feels press­ing is the need to help peo­ple under­stand what “enlight­en­ment” means. For our Open Mind series, pro­ducer Julie Adler asked Za Rinpoche to elab­o­rate not only on the term itself but on why he’s decided to coax us into tak­ing the back door rather than the front door to enlightenment.

Za Rinpoche is a Tibetan monk who was born in Nepal and who grew up in Southern India and stud­ied at Drepung Loseling monastery, receiv­ing his Geshe degree there. While still in high school, at age six­teen, he was rec­og­nized by the Dalai Lama as the sixth rein­car­na­tion of Za Choeje Rinpoche. His pre­de­ces­sor, the fifth Za Choeje Rinpoche, had died in a Chinese prison after the Communist takeover of Tibet. In 1998, he led the Mystical Arts of Tibet Cultural Tour to sixty cities across the United States, and lec­tured at thirty uni­ver­si­ties. Thereafter he set­tled in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the founder of the Emaho Foundation, a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to shar­ing Tibetan cul­ture with the West, sup­port­ing human­i­tar­ian projects, and assist­ing with per­sonal spir­i­tual devel­op­ment. Za Rinpoche teaches through­out the world, while main­tain­ing his oblig­a­tions as the spir­i­tual leader to many monks.