His Holiness 33rd Menri Trizin Lungtok Tenpai Nyima

[steve]

The spiritual head of the Bön tradition, His Holiness 33rd Menri Trizin Lungtok Tenpai Nyima, left the body on September 14th at 625pm New Delhi time. He was instrumental in bringing the Bön teachings out of Tibet shortly after the Chinese invasion and is responsible for helping to spread the teachings to the West. I had the good fortune of meeting him last year when he presented teachings on the A-Khrid lineage of Dzogchen in New Jersey. He was very warm, knowledgable, and generous. His teaching style was strongly rooted in tradition yet flexible, full of good humor, and love for the Dharma. He will be sorely missed and unanimously celebrated within the Bönpo community. 

 

Here is a link to a biography of His Holiness for anyone interested.

 

ཨཱོཾ་མ་ཏྲི་མུ་ཡེ་སལེ་འདུ།

 

 

 

 

 

 

[thelerner]

Thank you.   Sorry for the loss.  An inspiring life.

 

I particularly liked learning how Western resources helped keep Bon texts alive-

In fleeing on foot from Tibet, the Bön lamas had no choice but to leave behind them many precious texts critical to the study and practice of Bön. Many of these texts were later destroyed by the Chinese. Thus, it became critical to the preservation of the Bön tradition to seek out the few remaining texts for republication; these often could be found only in remote areas of the country. His Holiness eventually returned to Samling  Monastery to borrow texts for this purpose. There he met David L. Snellgrove,  Ph.D., a researcher of Oriental and African studies from London University who was engaged in research at Samling. On Dr. Snellgrove's advice His Holiness and the abbot of Yungdrung Ling traveled to New Delhi to have the monastery's texts reprinted; there His Holiness worked on the project with Samten Gyaltson Karmay and Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche.

In 1962 Dr. Snellgrove invited the three men to join him in England under a grant from of the Rockefeller Foundation. As Dr. Snellgrove's assistants they taught Tibetan culture and religion. Geshe Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong remained in England for three years during which time he also visited and studied at Benedictine, Cistercian and other Christian monasteries.

[cold]

Sorry for the loss.

[Miroku]

Sorry for the loss. It is a tragedy to lose such a great master. 

[C T]

Sorry to hear, Steve. 

 

One who is free when living shall remain free in dying.