Geshe Tashi is a native of far West Tibet and his family comes from the ancient kingdom of Purang and the Purang valley itself. The family name Sutse or ‘first greet’ comes from the time oflama Atisha in the 11th century CE when the family was one of the first to greet the famous Indian Bengali Pandita Sri Atisha Dipamkara on his arrival in the royal kingdoms of far West Tibet.

Born in 1958 Geshe Tashi fled his homeland with his parents at the onset of the Han Chinese Communist Party’s systematic destruction of the ancient Buddhist culture of Tibet. Eventually after much hardship his family were some the first refugee Tibetans settled in the uncultivated lands around Bylakuppe in Karnataka.

When in the 1970s the refugee monks of Sera Mey monastery were finally able to refound their monastery in the South too, Geshe Tashi was the very first young person to enter the monastery since 1959.

Geshe Tashi went through the whole monastic curriculum studying for a geshe, or doctor of divinity, degree which he finally gained with highest honours, gaining a first in the Geshe Lharampa degree. He then went on to the Gyu Toed Tantric monastery where he studied the major Geluk tantras for one year.