Relations With The Government
During the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion he made the crucial decision to remain in China rather than flee to India. Between 1960 and 1980 he returned to a nomadic lifestyle in order to avoid the Cultural Revolution.
In 1980 Jigme Phuntsok founded the Serthar Buddhist Institute (also called the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute, near the town of Sêrtar (Chinese Seda). The Institute's popularity grew until there were 8500 students at the site, including about 1000 ethnic Chinese as well as students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia.
In 1987 Jigme Phuntsok met and befriended the Ninth Panchen Lama. In 1989 he also met the 14th Dalai Lama, whom he refused to denounce for the Lama's separatist activities. After this the Chinese government refused him permission to travel for any reason.
Around 1999 the Sichuan United Work Front pressed him on the issue of his support for the Dalai Lama, and demanded that he reduce the number of students at the Institute (either to 150 or to 1400, depending on reports). Jigme Phuntsok refused. In summer of 2001 several thousand members of the People's Armed Police and the Public Security Bureau descended on the site, razing its structures and dispersed its students.
Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok died of heart failure in 2004, at the age of 70 in Tibet.
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