About the author
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche was born in eastern Tibet in 1930, son of Delog Dawa Drolma, one of Tibet’s most renowned female lamas. At age three, he was recognized as abbot of Chagdud Gonpa, a centuries-old monastery and one of the few that would survive destruction by the Chinese Communists. He received extensive training from many great lamas and belonged to the last generation of teachers to have inherited the vast wealth of Buddhist teachings while still living in Tibet. His stories of his childhood capture the last sunlit moments, the 1930s and ‘40s, when the full array of the Buddhist teachings, and particularly the Tibetan Vajrayana path, could be practiced freely in a rich culture that revered its spiritual adepts.
In 1959, Rinpoche went into exile and, during the two decades that followed served the Tibetan community in India and Nepal as lama and physician. At the request of H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche, he established a refugee camp in Orissa, India, which the Indian government considered to be a model of economic self-sufficiency. He was widely known for his ability to heal, and he trained many people in the technique of p’howa, the transference of consciousness at the moment of death.
In 1979, at the invitation of several American students, he came to the United States, first establishing his seat in Cottage Grove, Oregon, and later at Rigdzin Ling, in Junction City, California. He founded centers for the study and practice of Vajrayana Buddhism throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Europe, and Brazil.
From 1996 until his passing in 2002, Chagdud Rinpoche resided at his South American seat called Khadro Ling, in Três Coroas, southern Brazil. In his twenty-three years in the West, Rinpoche taught thousands of people all over the world. Several became highly accomplished spiritual practitioners and teachers while many others integrated his guidance into daily life practice. One of his accomplishments, perhaps the greatest, was his ability—through teaching and example—to instill purer motivation and a deeper compassion in the hearts of those who were fortunate enough to hear and encounter this exemplary being.
Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche's memoir of his life in Tibet and the West, Lord of the Dance, is also available from Padma Publishing.