Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche The fourth son of the Dilgo family Date of Birth: 12.04.1910 Country: Dive

1. Birth and Lineage
2. Recognition as an Incarnation
3. Teachers and Training
4. Years of Retreat and Study
5. Work and Fleeing Tibet
6. Exile in Bhutan and India
7. Final Years and Passing
8. Discovery and Recognition of the New Incarnation

Birth and Lineage

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was born in the Denchok Valley of Kham, Tibet, into the Dilgo family, which traces its lineage to the great Tibetan king Trisong Detsen. His grandfather, Tashi Tsering, and later his father, were ministers to the King of Derge, the largest and most influential of Kham's numerous small principalities.

Recognition as an Incarnation

To the northeast of Derge lay Shechen, one of the six major Nyingma monasteries. It was there that Khyentse Wangpo's close disciple, Shechen Gyaltsap Rinpoche (1871-1926), formally recognized and enthroned the young Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, aged twelve, as one of the five incarnations of his own unsurpassed lama.

Teachers and Training

His first teacher was Shechen Gyaltsap Rinpoche and Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro (1893-1959). Shechen Gyaltsap imparted profound knowledge and understanding of the true nature to the young Khyentse Rinpoche. Khyentse Rinpoche vowed to his beloved teacher that he would in turn show infinite generosity to all who came to him for guidance.

To prepare himself fully, he spent the next thirteen years in solitary retreat. 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.

Years of Retreat and Study

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. "Your mind and my mind are one," Khyentse Rinpoche said. "It is time for you to teach and transmit to others the countless precious teachings that you have received."

Work and Fleeing Tibet

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. An epidemic broke out in the city during this time, so he also performed many rituals and prayers for the sick and the dead, disregarding the fears of his entourage that he would contract the disease himself. Rinpoche's mother and elder brother Shedrup both succumbed to the epidemic. News also arrived that the Chinese had confiscated his family lands and all his property.

Exile in Bhutan and India

At the invitation of the Bhutanese royal family, Khyentse Rinpoche went to live in Bhutan. He became a school teacher near the capital, Thimphu. After he fled Tibet, Khyentse Rinpoche became one of the main tutors to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Final Years and Passing

While visiting Bodhgaya for a teaching in early 1991, he fell ill. Nonetheless, he fulfilled his scheduled program and then went to Dharamsala, where for a month he effortlessly transmitted important teachings and initiations that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had requested for many years. In late spring, he returned to Nepal, where he was now quite sick. He had lost weight and required more and more rest. He had to cancel a planned fourth journey to Tibet, where he had intended to revisit Shechen.

Instead, he spent three and a half months in retreat at Paro Taktsang in Bhutan, one of the most sacred sites blessed by Padmasambhava. After his retreat, his health seemed to improve somewhat. He visited several of his students who were in retreat, giving them instructions on the Teacher Beyond Birth, Death, and Physical Manifestation.

Soon after, however, his illness returned with renewed force, and for twelve days he hardly ate or drank at all. On September 27, 1991, as darkness fell, he asked his attendant to help him sit up in meditation posture and slipped into a peaceful sleep. At dawn the next day, his breathing stopped. At the request of his disciples, his body was preserved for a year. For several months, it was moved from Bhutan to Shechen in Nepal so that many more could participate in the posthumous rituals. Every Friday, his day of death, offerings of a hundred thousand lamps were made at the Bodhnath Stupa for the first seven weeks.

In November 1992, his relics were cremated near Paro, Bhutan. The three-day ceremony was attended by around a hundred important lamas, the Bhutanese royal family and ministers, and some fifty thousand other people - an unprecedented gathering in Bhutanese history.

Discovery and Recognition of the New Incarnation

Following Khyentse Rinpoche's death in 1991, his closest disciples naturally looked to Trulshik Rinpoche, as his closest and most realized follower, to find his incarnation. Trulshik Rinpoche had had several dreams and visions, including a four-line verse, clearly indicating the new incarnation. However, he kept the details secret until April 1995, when he sent a message to Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche. The decoded verse indicated that the father was Chokling Rinpoche Mingyur Dechen Dorje (son of Urgyen Tulku Rinpoche, Khyentse Rinpoche's closest spiritual friend) and the mother Dorje Paldron. Their son, born on Guru Padmasambhava's birthday, the 10th day of the 5th month of the Bird year (June 30, 1993), was, the verse said, the undoubted incarnation of Paljor (one of Khyentse Rinpoche's names). The enthronement ceremony was performed by Trulshik Rinpoche in the Maratika cave in Eastern Nepal on December 28, 1995.