In 1992, on a trip to Dharamsala, blase hents met His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and began practicing Tibetan Buddhism. Eight years later he was ordained losangmonlam, a monk of the Tibetan Buddhist monastic tradition by Choden Rinpoche in California; later taking full ordination with His Holiness Dalai Lama in a ceremony held at his temple in Dharamsala.

losangmonlam continued to practice. study and teach in the San Francisco Bay Area, under the guidance of Geshe Ngawang Dakpa. During this same period he also studied and practiced at Sera Jey Monastery, a University for Advanced Buddhist Studies and Practice, in Bylakuppe, South India.

In 1998, he started the Tsa Tsa Studio—Center for Tibetan Sacred Art in 1998 combining his work as an artist with his spiritual practice, creating walls of Buddha images and other commissioned installations.
Blase wasn't born to any of this.

The first years of his life was shared with his family of five brothers in a farming community on the edge of the Red River Valley in North Dakota.

Graduating high school in southeastern Minnesota he went on to receive his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. And, not until he was just shy of finishing his M.B.A Degree at Boston University, did he finally honor his inner quest to seek answers. His journey began by traveling the world to connect with a wide range of people from all walks of life and traditions.

Three years later, blase returned to the United States having discovered, among many other things, his considerable talent and joy at being an artist - a painter and sculptor. It was as an artist he presented himself to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on a later trip of exploration.

His art in the field of video installation included shows in the Bay Area in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He also contributed his visual skills as an artist in the area of graphic design at this time. When given the practice to undertake 400,000 Buddha images, he founded the Tsa Tsa Studio—Center for Tibetan Sacred Art where he taught workshops and was commissioned to undertake several "Buddha Wall Art Installations" in the Bay Area.

In January of 2010, he made the decision to resign his community life as a monk and return to offer service in the larger world community.

losangmonlam remains in the San Francisco bay area as an artist, painting and writing. His paintings and reflections draw upon the world's spiritual traditions allowing the integration of Buddhist principles into the cultural and spiritual experience of the individual practitioner, his students, friends, and colleagues. With over twenty years of practice and study both as a monastic and layperson, combined with travels around the world, he brings a unique and generous perspective to his art.