Biography

Sogyal Rinpoche was born 1947 by Mayum Tsering Wangmo in the region of Kham in Eastern Tibet and was early recognized as the incarnation of the great master and visionary Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa (1856-1926), a teacher to the 13th Dalai Lama. He received the traditional training of a Tibetan Lama under supervision of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, who raised him like his own son. He studied with many great masters, of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, especially Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche and Kyabjé Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

In 1955 Khyentse Rinpoche left Kham with his disciple for Central Lhasa, where Sogyal met Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, for the first time. They then continued to India on pilgrimage, and finally settled in Gangtok at the invitation of Chögyal, the king of Sikkim. Rinpoche attended Catholic School in Kalimpong, and then university in Delhi before coming to the West.

In 1971, Sogyal Rinpoche was granted a place to study comparative Religion at Trinity College in Cambridge, England. First as a translator and aide to his masters, and then teaching Buddhism on his own. In 1973 he assisted in organizing His Holiness the Dalai Lamas first visit to the West in Rome, including a visit to the Pope Paul VI, Switzerland & the United Kingdom. Observing the reality of people's lives, and searching how to translate the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism for the modern western societies.

His unique clear and humorous way of simplifying deep Buddhist teachings for a modern western audience, who is in search for orientation in a new world is very well known. In 1991 he founded a Retreat Center in the South of France and in 1992 his bestselling book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" got published, from which more than two million copies got printed in 56 countries and 31 languages.

Rinpoche is also the founder and spiritual director of RIGPA (which means: "The innermost, essential Nature of Mind"), an international Network of over one 130 Buddhist centers and groups in forty countries around the world. He has been teaching for over thirty years and continues to travel widely in Europe, America, Australia and Asia.
- IMDb mini biography by: Andy Svensson