Life of Yuthok Yonten Gonpo

Born to Yuthok Khyungpo Dorje and his mother Pema Odenma in 1126, Yuthok Yonten Gonpo was auspiciously born to a family lineage of Traditional Tibetan Medicine physicians.

At age eight, he began to study—with his father and other teachers. He was also said to have received teachings from Manjushri covering a wide range of topics in medicine. He was also taught Buddhist philosophies with the arts and languages.

At age twelve, he began travelling through Central Tibet, where he met a Geshe called Roton Konchok Kyap responsible for transmitting the Four Tantras (gyud zhi): the Essence of Ambrosia Secret Instruction to Yuthok.

At age eighteen, he travelled to India for the first time, where he studied the Eight Branches of Healing, Somaradza with Paldan Phreng-wa.

When he was twenty-one, Yuthok returned to Tibet, where he set up a clinic and began teaching medicine to his students.

At thirty-one, he returned to India, where he received teaching that later became known as the Yuthok Nyingthig (The Innermost Essence of Yuthok). He travelled to India six times extending his travel visits to even wider boundaries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia. He was able to teach the collection of sutra teachings of the Buddha (Kanjur) and translated treatises (Tengyur) by heart. His heart disciple was Sumton Yeshe Zung, who received the Four Tantras and the Yuthok Nyingthig. He composed many treatises based on medicine such as Practical Theory in a Small Volume (Laglen Podchung) and the Nectar Essence (Duetsi Nyingpo). He was responsible for making additions to Instrution Tantra (Mengyud) and Later Tantras (Chhima Gyud). He has spent his whole life attending to patients’ needs. His disciples fill as vast as the sky and amongst them, Jangmen Lebsay, Belmen Nima Pel, Za Yeshi Zung were the foremost ones.

At age seventy-six, Yuthok gathered his students for final teaching before attaining the Rainbow Body and departing to Tanadug, the pure land of the Medicine Buddha.