Jonang Foundation – Sustaining & Enlivening the Jonang Buddhist Tradition Masters Timeline (original) (raw)

Jonang Foundation is a non-profit support organization, international network, and online educational resource for the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. We advance research and scholarship on the Jonang, and host educational and cultural preservation initiatives that sustain and enliven this distinct tradition within contemporary contexts.

Working with the living tradition inside Tibet as well as within the international community, the purpose of Jonang Foundation is to uphold and promote understanding of the intellectual, creative, and spiritual heritage of the Jonang. Our vision is for there to be greater preservation, education, translation, documentation, and revivification for the Jonangpa, and our work is to provide these services.

Thought to be extinct, and only recently appearing to the world beyond Tibet, the Jonang comprises its own unique tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Isolated for centuries in the remote valleys of far eastern Tibet, the Jonangpa are the primary lineage-holders of the Kalachakra six-fold vajrayoga and zhentong meditative view.

As the legend is told, the local female protector deity Jomo Ngak Gyalmo visited Kunpangpa and invited him to live in her valley of Jomonang. In 1294, Kunpangpa arrived at Jomonang and settled in the Bliss-Infused Enjoyment of Space meditation cave. Since Kunpangpa settled in the valley, those who followed in the transmission lineages associated with the place of Jomonang are known as "Jonangpa," and the tradition itself as, "Jonang."