Dilgo khyentse rinpoche biography for kids

In , The Treasury of Lives was visited by over 10, users each month. If only a fraction of our users donated, we would ensure our long-term sustainibility as an open access resource. We're asking you, our valued reader, to pitch in whatever you can to help us keep this site freely available. In remote hermitages and caves deep in the steep, wild, forested hills of Denchok, he meditated continuously, cultivating love, compassion, and the desire to lead all beings to freedom and enlightenment.

After concluding his retreat, at the age of 28, Khyentse Rinpoche spent many years with Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro, himself an incarnation of the first Khyentse. Khyentse Rinpoche considered Chokyi Lodro his second principal teacher and regarded him with the utmost reverence. After receiving a six-month Terma transmission from Chokyi Lodro, Khyentse Rinpoche told him that he wished to spend the rest of his life in solitary meditation.

He was adamant in his decision. From that time on, Khyentse Rinpoche worked tirelessly for the benefit of all beings, with an energy that became synonymous with the Khyentse lineage. When China invaded Tibet in the late fifties, his wife sent him a secret message not to return home when Chinese officials arrived in Denchok inquiring about his whereabouts.

She implored him to leave Khampagar, where he was giving a visit, and go straight to Lhasa. She managed to evade the soldiers and join him on the way. They set out for Lhasa, leaving behind everything, including Rinpoche's precious books and much of his own writings. Together they made a pilgrimage around Central Tibet. Rinpoche then performed a hundred-thousand mandala offering before the Jokhang, Lhasa's principal Buddha statue, for six months.

He was one of the last great masters to have completed his entire training in Tibet. He entered Shechen Monastery in Kham, east Tibet, at the age of eleven and there his principal master, Shechen Gyaltsap Gyurme Pema Namgyal , formally enthroned him as an incarnation of the wisdom mind of the first Khyentse Rinpoche, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo In Shechen, Khyentse Rinpoche spent many years studying and meditating in a hermitage above the monastery.

He received teachings and transmissions from over fifty teachers from all four lineage traditions. From the ages of fifteen to twenty-eight, he lived in silent retreat, in remote hermitages and caves, actualizing all the teachings he had previously received. When he left Tibet and went into exile, he travelled all over the Himalayas, India, southeast Asia, Europe and North America, transmitting and explaining the teachings to his many disciples.

He married Khandro Lhamo , a traditional Tibetan medicine doctor Amchi from a modest Kham family [ 5 ] [ 6 ] while both Khyentse Chokyi Lodro and the 10th Zurmang Trungpa, Karma Chokyi Nyingche, had urged him to pursue terma treasure revelations. Dilgo Khyentse then spent the next 21 years as an active Terton , while also traveling and teaching.

Additional sections were revealed the following year. At the age of 34, Dilgo Khyentse spent two years with Dzongzar Khyentse Chokyi Lodro, receiving teachings and revealing terma. He was a close student, and specifically received Jamgon Kongtrul's Rinchen Terdzod , a collection of Revealed Terma Treasures , and his Treasury of Knowledge shes bya kun khyab.

In , Dilgo Khyentse travelled in Kham and strengthened his connections to the lineage of another Terton, Chokgyur Lingpa when he discovered and decoded a sheet of paper which became the treasure cycle of the Kabgye bka' brgyad. He continued his revelations as a Terton while travelling and teaching at Derge, Nangchen, Rebkong, Amye Machen, and other places in Do Kham during the early years of China's invasion.

Later on, the 14th Dalai Lama regarded Dilgo Khyentse as both his principal teacher of the Nyingma school lineage, and his Dzogpa chenpo teacher. After his passing, many of Chogyam Trungpa's students became Dilgo Khyentse's students.

Dilgo khyentse rinpoche biography for kids

In the mids, when widespread rebellions broke out in Kham and the Chinese Communists began bombing monasteries and massacring people and livestock, [ 10 ] [ 11 ] the Chinese forces were also specifically hunting certain tulkus, among them Dilgo Khyentse. Shechen Monastery in Kham was destroyed by the Chinese forces. Then, during the Tibetan uprising , the 14th Dalai Lama escaped from Lhasa , and Dilgo Khyentse together with his family and a few students also escaped from Tibet, including his brother, the 9th Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche and Tenga Rinpoche.

From to , he taught in Bhutan in response to an invitation, and later he was again invited to Bhutan by Nyimalung Monastery in after which Bhutan became his primary home. He made frequent visits to India to give teachings to the 14th Dalai Lama at Dharamasala , and he dedicated himself to preserving the Nyingma school lineage by travelling extensively in India, Nepal, and Bhutan.

His first journey to the West was in , and he established a three-year retreat center in the Dordogne , France. He also engaged in scholarship and composed numerous poems, meditation texts and commentaries. He was a Terton , a discoverer of spiritual treasures, and is credited with discovering numerous termas. He was one of the foremost masters of Dzogchen , the Great Perfection , for which he bestowed pith instructions, and is one of the principal holders of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage.

In , he reconstructed Shechen Monastery in Nepal , when he founded the Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Boudhanath , Kathmandu , which was the earliest of the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in Boudhanath to be built. He travelled to Tibet three times, in , , and , during which he funded and advised rebuilding projects, including the consecration of a statue of Padmasambhava at the Jokhang , the re-consecration of Samye Monastery , the re-consecration of the Derge printing house, and he visited several rebuilt Nyingma school monasteries including Dzogchen, Palyul, Katok, and Shechen Monastery where he was able to stay and bestow public teachings.

In between his travels to Tibet, he gave many teachings over the years to hundreds of other monks, nuns, lamas , Khenpos and Khenmos, Rinpoches, disciples, laypeople, and to numerous international students. His senior student is Trulshik Rinpoche , whom he named as a spiritual heir. During this same period and until his paranirvana on 27 September in Bhutan, Dilgo Khyentse was also involved in publishing as many Tibetan Buddhist teachings as possible, counting more than volumes altogether.

He was one of the few great Tibetan Rinpoches accorded the honorific title Kyabje , or "His Holiness". Following the death of Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche in , he became the head of the Nyingma School, and remained so until his death in Bhutan on 27 September In November , the ritual cremation ceremony for Dilgo Khyentse was consecrated for three-days near Paro in Bhutan, and was attended by over lamas and ordained monks and nuns, the Royal Family and ministers of Bhutan, western disciples and 50, devotees and lay people.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche has been described as a perfect example of an impartial preserver of Tibetan Buddhist lineages, and a Rime master, since in exile he was instrumental in safeguarding all of the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism without partiality. He received and gave empowerments, and wrote volumes of texts that revitalized and interpreted important transmissions and teachings from all four Tibetan Buddhist schools.

Gyatrul Rinpoche b. Alan Wallace elaborates:. With respect to oral transmissions, even if the lineage is impure, it is not a problem. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche often sought out and received any oral transmission he thought was on the verge of disappearing.