Thubten Jigme Norbu

Norbu died at the age of 86 on September 5, 2008, at his home in Indiana in the United States having been ill for several years. His body was cremated in a traditional Buddhist ceremony. His youngest son, Jigme, died at the age of 45 on February 14, 2011, while carrying on his father’s work. He was hit by a car in Florida during a walk to promote Tibetan independence and raise awareness of Tibet.

Norbu lived at the Tibetan-Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center with his wife Kunyang. They have three sons, Lhundrup, Kunga and Jigme Norbu, all born in New York. In late 2002, Norbu suffered a series of strokes and became an invalid.

In 1995, Norbu cofounded the International Tibet Independence Movement (ITIM). He led three walks for Tibet’s independence, starting in 1995 with a week-long walk 80 miles from Bloomington, Indiana to Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1996 he led a 300-mile, 45-day walk from the PRC embassy in Washington, DC to the Headquarters of the United Nations, surrounded by New York City. The following year, joined by Dadon with her 3-year-old son, he led a 600-mile walk from Toronto to New York City, beginning on March 10 (Tibetan Uprising Day) and ending June 14 (Flag Day).

Thubten Jigme Norbu (Tibetan: .mw-parser-output .uchen{font-family:”Jomolhari”,”Uchen”,”Noto Serif Tibetan Medium”,”Noto Serif Tibetan”,”BabelStone Tibetan Slim”,”Yagpo Tibetan Uni”,”Noto Sans Tibetan”,”Microsoft Himalaya”,”Kailash”,”DDC Uchen”,”TCRC Youtso Unicode”,”Tibetan Machine Uni”,”Qomolangma-Uchen Sarchen”,”Qomolangma-Uchen Sarchung”,”Qomolangma-Uchen Suring”,”Qomolangma-Uchen Sutung”,”Qomolangma-Title”,”Qomolangma-Subtitle”,”DDC Rinzin”,”Qomolangma-Woodblock”,”Qomolangma-Dunhuang”}.mw-parser-output .ume{font-family:”Qomolangma-Betsu”,”Qomolangma-Chuyig”,”Qomolangma-Drutsa”,”Qomolangma-Edict”,”Qomolangma-Tsumachu”,”Qomolangma-Tsuring”,”Qomolangma-Tsutong”,”TibetanSambhotaYigchung”,”TibetanTsugRing”,”TibetanYigchung”}ཐུབ་བསྟན་འཇིགས་མེད་ནོར་བུ་, Wylie: Thub-stan ‘Jigs-med Nor-bu) (August 16, 1922 – September 5, 2008), recognised as the Taktser Rinpoche, was a Tibetan lama, writer, civil rights activist and professor of Tibetan studies and was the eldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. He was one of the first high-profile Tibetans to go into exile and was the first to settle in the United States.

Thubten Jigme Norbu was born in 1922 in the small, mountain village of Taktser in the Amdo County of Eastern Tibet.