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Geshe Chongtul Rinpoche
BIOGRAPHY
GESHE CHONGTUL RINPOCHE was born in 1967 in Oachghat, Himachal Pradesh, India. He is the second son of six children. At the age of two, the Abbot of Yungdrung Ling explained to the Abbot of Menri Monastery, His Holiness Menri Trizin 33rd, that this boy was a reincarnated lama who was closely associated with both abbots during a previous lifetime, and would be very important in the preservation of Bon transmissions. The Abbot of Yungdrung Ling requested that the Abbot of Menri look after and raise this child. At the age of seven Chongtul was placed in the Monastery under the care of His Holiness, the 33rd Menri Trizin. He studied the reading and writing of Bon texts and attended an English school. When he was only 10, His Holiness appointed him Caretaker of the Protectors’ House. For the next two years, he performed the traditional invocations in the morning and evening to the Bon Guardians.
At fourteen, Chongtul entered the Bon Dialectic School at Menri Monastery. There he studied Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen, poetry, astrology, and astronomy. He also learned basic Tibetan medicine, and methods for constructing mandalas and stupas. When he was fifteen, he was appointed to the high position of Prayer Leader, a position he served for six years. During his student years at the Bon Dialectic School, Chongtul received all the Bon initiations, transmissions, and teachings from His Holiness Menri Trizin 33rd Lungtok Tenpai Nyima and from Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche.
When Chongtul was thirteen, His Holiness the Menri Trizin revealed to him that he was the reincarnation of Tog Den Won Po Sherab Tenpai Gyaltsen one of His Holiness’ teachers from Tibet.
At age twenty-three, Chongtul was awarded the Geshe degree, the highest academic degree in Tibetan Monastery education, the approximate equivalent of a Th.D. in western terms. He then began a decade and a half of serving at Menri Monastery both in administration and as a teacher. He particularly served as an assistant to H.H. in his travels accompanying him on an extended trip to Tibet in 1996 when they visited twenty-three monasteries including Kyong Tsang Monastery, his home monastery in Amdo Sherpa Tibet, where he now serves as Abbot, as well as numerous trips in the west.
In 2005, he turned over his responsibilities at Menri Monastery to others who were permanently residing there in order to teach in other parts of the world. He has founded centers in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia, New York, Warsaw, Munich, and Delhi. For the past decade, Chongtul Rinpoche has taught in the west, primarily through Bon Shen Ling: Tibetan Bon Education Fund, which he founded in New Jersey, USA.
(This biography is based on a number of sources including private conversations.) Significant sources include the Bon Shen Ling web site. For those interested in knowing more about Chongtul, please click on the below web sites.
or Olmo Ling .
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Updated on 9/26/2011