Losang Samten

Losang Samten (Tibetan: བློ་བཟང་བསམ་གཏན།, Wylie: blo-bzang bsam-gtan) is an American Tibetan scholar, sand mandala artist, former Buddhist monk, and Spiritual Director of the Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia. He is one of only an estimated 30 people, worldwide, qualified to teach the traditional art of Tibetan sandpainting. He has written two books and helped to create the first Tibetan sand mandala ever shown publicly in the West in 1988. In 2002, he was made a National Heritage Fellow. In 2004, he was granted a Pew Fellowship in Folk and Traditional Arts.
Early life
Born into a Buddhist family in Chung Ribuce (Ü-Tsang, Tibet) in 1953, Samten spent two months crossing the Himalayas with his family to Nepal in 1959. After arriving in Dharamsala, India in 1964 or 1965, Samten entered Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, taking the vows of a novice monk there in 1967. He probably took full ordination at Namgyal in 1969.
While enrolled at...