Lama Chokyi Gyaltsen (Lama Mark Webber)
Lama Mark Webber (Lama Yongdu Chokyi Gyaltsen) has been studying and teaching Buddha Dharma through the traditions of Buddhism for over forty years. Born in Toronto in 1956, he started practicing and studying Dharma and meditation at 16 years of age. He met his root teacher Namgyal Rinpoche in 1974 and immediately became his attendant. It was Namgyal Rinpoche himself, who urged him to not only become a Yogin and a Dharma Teacher, but also to complete his studies at the University of Toronto, and never to abandon his interests in science. His master’s thesis (1980) in biological anthropology concerns the interdependence of ritual, meditation, neurophysiology, and cognition.
His relation to Lho Ontul Rinpoche, starting in 2002, has grown to ever deeper importance in Lama Gyaltsen’s life, study, meditation, and teaching activities. It also led to the founding of the Namgyal Yangzab Buddhist Community of Canada.
The first meditation teachers of Lama Chokyi Gyaltsen were Mrs. Beatrice Raff (Ven. Chorphel Dolma) and Karma Thrinely Rinpoche. At the University of Toronto, he studied Abhidhamma, Madhyamaka, Yogacara, and Hua Yen Buddhism with Prof. Leonard Priestley and Dr. A. K, Warder. Besides his scientific studies at the University of Toronto, he did bench work in chemistry and molecular biology, which he is continuing to do to the present day.
From Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche he received many essential empowerments, personal instructions, and teachings over three decades. Further empowerments and transmissions he received from other eminent teachers such as H.H. the Gyalwa 16th Karmapa, H.H. the Dalai Lama, H.E. Lho Ontul Rinpoche, H.E. Kalu Rinpoche, H.E. Chogye Trichen Rinpoche, Lama Wangdor Rinpoche, and H.E. Lho Ratna Rinpoche.
Lama Gyaltsen attended Namgyal Rinpoche’s first three-year teacher’s training course (1976-1978), The Academy at the Dharma Centre of Canada (mid-1980s), and Namgyal Rinpoche’s final Teachers Training Program (2003). He has completed extensive solo retreats as well as guided retreats with Namgyal Rinpoche. By the direction of Namgyal Rinpoche, he began teaching Abhidhamma in 1976 and guiding beings in Vajrayana practices in 1977.
In 2000 he was given the title Lama (Lama Karma Tenpa Lekshe Yongdu) by H.E. Chogye Trichen Rinpoche, and the following year he was given the authorization to bestow empowerments by Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche. His universalist approach, transmitted by Namgyal Rinpoche, is classically founded in Buddhism and numerous meditative traditions. At the same time, it is completely integrated with contemporary life, natural history, and the richness of modern Western culture.
In 2002 Lama Gyaltsen met Lho Ontul Rinpoche and first began receiving empowerments and teachings from him in 2011. It was Ontul Rinpoche who gave him the refuge name Lama Chokyi Gyaltsen.
Lama Gyaltsen is a resident teacher and spiritual director of several retreat Centres around the world, such as Crystal Mountain Society in B.C., the Queenstown Dharma House in New Zealand, and a Core Teacher of the Dharma Centre of Canada. In 2019, with a number of students, he founded the NYBCC. He is a co-founder and a Board of Director of IMERSS (Institute for Multidisciplinary Ecological Research in the Salish Sea). The Lama is also engaged in different scientific collaborations, mostly working in the field of marine biology. He has published numerous Dharma books, study guides for Dharma practitioners, and scientific papers.