​Sonam Thargye was born into a farming family in Chinese occupied East Tibet in the early sixties. By the time he was ordained as a novice monk at the age of 7, the cultural revolution in China was in full swing. Violent struggles, arbitrary imprisonment, torture and religious persecution were part of everyday life for the Tibetans. Monasteries were destroyed, monks and their teachers killed or forced to flee to neighbouring countries. For ordinary people it was a time of hunger, fear and suffering. Young Sonam Thargye was not allowed to live a monastic life, instead working on his family’s farm, an extremely intelligent young man but with no access to education.

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At the age of nineteen, he decided to leave Tibet and seek out a monastic education in India, where exiled teachers had re-established the main traditional monasteries of Tibet. This decision led to an arduous journey of 23 days across the Himalayas with no map, little food, in constant danger from the terrain and the weather and in fear of being detected by Chinese patrols.

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Arriving in Nepal, he then headed for India and the northern town of Dharamsala, where the Tibetan government in exile had set up its base. After a meeting with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, arrangements were made for him to enter Sera Je Monastic University in South India to commence the traditional study program for the Geshe degree. After almost 20 years of study, he completed his studies with the highest possible academic qualification in a Tibetan monastery, the degree of Lharumpa Geshe.

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Geshe Sonam went back to Tibet to teach for a short time but was unable to stay due to the political climate. In 1998, his long-time sponsor, Geelong resident Catherine Cheyne, invited him to visit Australia. During his visit, a group of local Buddhists invited him to take up residence in Australia and teach, an invitation he accepted. In 1999, the Drol Kar Buddhist Centre was established in Geelong, and Geshe Sonam set about the business of teaching, learning English and making the most of the opportunities in his new country.

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Drol Kar Buddhist Centre celebrates its twentieth year of operation this year. During these 20 years, Geshe Sonam, while not teaching at the Centre himself since the early 2000s, has continued to facilitate a strong teaching program originally in Geelong and, since 2005, at the property at Paraparap. His energies though have gone in different directions and have resulted in some major accomplishments.

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These include:

• permanent residency and citizenship in 2002, passing his driving licence test.

• setting up Nying-Jey Projects, a sponsorship program that for the past 17 years has financially supported over 300 monks in India, 600 students and 150 nuns in Tibet, and provided university scholarships for over 400 high school graduates in Tibet.

• fundraising for improvements to the Paraparap property such as building of the gompa, his original residence on the property and the new residence and Dr Kar reception centre completed in 2015.

• initiating and managing 3 visits to Victoria by His Holiness the Dalai Lama including twice teaching in Geelong and twice honouring Drol Kar with visits to the Centre in Geelong and Paraparap in 2007.

• organising eight tours by groups of specialist monks from India. During these tours, the monks demonstrated the creation of sacred mandalas and many other aspects of Tibetan culture. The tours also helped raise funds for, and create awareness of, his various projects and linked hundreds of Australian people with the NJP sponsorship program.

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Geshe Sonam continues to oversee the spiritual program at Drol Kar Buddhist Centre, the property at Paraparap, and the Nying-Jey Projects sponsorship program. He frequently attends His Holiness's teachings in India and other countries often to keep His Holiness abreast of his work. He considers himself privileged to have a close relationship with the Dalai Lama.