Lodi G. Gyari

Lodi Gyari Rinpoche died on 29 October 2018 in San Francisco at the age of 69 from liver cancer. His body was to be transported to the monastery of Mindrolling Monastery in India for funeral services. Gyari left wife, Dawa Chokyi, their six children, Tenzing Dechen, Tenzing Choyang, Norbu Wangmo, Tashi Chodon, Tulku Penam and Tenzing Tsering, five grandchildren, his mother, and four brothers and three sisters.

After retiring from politics in 2014, Gyari became a research fellow in the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown University and a non-resident principal investigator for the Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Program. Gyari dedicates the end of his life to the writing of his memoirs.

On June 4, 2012, Gyari and Gyaltsen resigned as representatives of The Dalai Lama for discussions with the Chinese government, citing their "frustration" with the lack of a positive response from the Chinese authorities and the way in which China manages the region where Tibetan self-immolations occur.

The 7th meeting was held on 4 May 2008 in Shenzhen, China, ten months after the previous visit, and for the first time since the 2008 Tibetan unrest in March.

Gari was one of the envoys, along with Kelsang Gyaltsen sent by Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, to engage in a series of dialogues with China aimed at initiating negotiations on the future status of Tibet. Gyari was the lead envoy in nine rounds of negotiations with China. From 29 June 2007 to 5 July 2007, Gyari and Gyaltsen traveled to China for their sixth visit to Tibet, the first of which was held in 2002. Lodi Gyari had been interviewed a few months before.

In 1991, Lodi Gyari moved to the United States as a special envoy of The Dalai Lama. In 1999, he became a US citizen.

In 1988, he became Minister of the Department of Information and International Relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tibetan Government in Exile. At the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, The Dalai Lama asked Gyari to write a statement supporting students in the name of democracy and human rights, thereby calling into question Gyari's diplomatic efforts to renew the dialogue with the Chinese authorities. He later learned that Deng Xiaoping took it personally and never forgave The Dalai Lama for this statement.

As President of the Tibetan Assembly, Gyari went to China in 1982 (from April 24 to June 8 with Phuntsok Tashi Takla and Juchen Thupten Namgyal) and in 1984 (from October 19 to December 10 with the same delegation) as one of the three members of a series of investigative missions to Tibet [fr] .

In the 1980s and 1990s, Gyari led a Tibetan initiative at the United Nations. He and his team help reintroduce the Tibet issue into the United Nations after 25 years of silence when the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights adopted UN Resolution 1991/10 on the Status of Tibet [fr] .

In 1979, Gyari was elected to the Tibetan Parliament in Exile. At the age of 30, he was the youngest elected president of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile in the Tibetan legislative election of 1979.

In 1973, Gyari went to Switzerland when The Dalai Lama was on his first trip to Europe, and attended his public lectures where he spoke of universal responsibility, compassion and kindness. Lodi Gyari sought him out to ask him to talk about Tibet. The Dalai Lama explained that the people they are addressing had other problems in mind, and he did not want to add to their burden.

In 1970, Gyari was one of the founding members of the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) and was elected president in 1975.

Understanding the importance of making the Tibetan struggle known to the world, he became editor-in-chief of the Tibetan language weekly, Tibetan Freedom Press and one of the founding members of the English language monthly Tibetan Review which was first ever publication in English on Tibet, started in 1967 from Darjeeling and he edited April-May1967 issue.

While still a child, Gyari went into exile in 1959 in India.

Lodi G. Gyari was born in 1949 in Nyarong, Tibet, China as Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari,.