The Legacy of Gene Smith
A tribute to E. Gene Smith, a respected scholar who worked tirelessly throughout his life to preserve and disseminate the Tibetan Buddhist canon. He was responsible for saving thousands of rare and important texts and making them accessible worldwide.
I met the most kind, good-hearted Gene Smith in a Darjeeling hotel in the very, very early times [1967], when Lama Yeshe and I stayed in that area for nine months with our first Western student, whose name was Princess Zina Rachevsky. Her family was originally from Russia. Largely because of her, we now have the FPMT organization, which has over 157 centers, projects and services all over the world.
Gene Smith collected Tibetan texts for so many years, from India and other countries. As he gave permission to many universities to check and study the texts he collected, he offered so much wisdom to the world. And by giving texts to high lamas, monasteries and others he knew, he helped many people open the eye of wisdom—Dharma wisdom, not worldly wisdom. Furthermore, his nature was very kind, good-hearted, and I wish he could have lived forever.
Thank you very much.