Lopön Tenzin Namdak

Lopön Tenzin Rinpoche Namdak (Tib. སློབ་དཔོན་བསྟན་འཛིན་རྣམ་དག་; Wylie: . Slob dpon Bstan -'dzin rnam -dag; born 1926 ) is a Bon master, since 1961 Visiting Professor of Bon religion in various European universities and book author.

Life

Tenzin Namdak was born in 1926 in Kyungpo Karu ( province Chamdo, Tibet) and comes from a family of Thanka painters. With seven he entered the local monastery, was sent for further training at the age of twelve in the Bon monastery Yungdrung Ling and was then aged 19 hermit for five years under training and supervision by the famous Bon master Tsultrim Gyaltsen. In 1950 he joined the monastery Menri, graduated in 1953 and was Geshe Lopön the monastery Menri ( ie head of the training of monks ), from which position he retired after four years to a meditation.

In 1960 he was arrested on Tibet after the Chinese invasion and escaped only after ten months of Nepal. In 1961 he was invited as a guest lecturer at the Universities of London and Cambridge. He remained there for three years and has written in collaboration with Professor David Snellgrove the standard work on the Bon religion in English: " The Nine Ways of Bon". In 1964 he returned to India, where he worked as a Tibet expert and Bon texts published. From there he went as a guest lecturer to Munich and worked on the publication of the German - Tibetan dictionary.

From 1967 he worked on plans for the re-establishment of a Bon monastery in the tradition of the monastery Menri, which finally in 1969 in Dolanji, near the town of Solon (Himachal Pradesh ) was founded in India ( again ) and since the formation of Bon monks to the Geshe degree (roughly equivalent to a Dr. theol. ) allows. In 1986, he was the first time for three months to visit his native Tibet and the remains of the destroyed monastery Menri.

After his return from Tibet, he began with the establishment of the Bön monastery Triten Norbutse near the Swayambhunath Stupa (Nepal), which has since been his residence. Since 2005, he spends a large part of the year in Shenten Dhargye Ling, the new Bonpo center at Blou in the Loire Valley in France.

Many overseas tours have taken him since in the West - including to Germany, England, France, Italy, Netherlands, Austria and the USA. In the West, he also gives teachings on Dzogchen, the essence of teaching all the higher teachings of Bön.

Works

• David Snellgrove, Lopön Tenzin Rinpoche Namdak: The Nine Ways of Bon: Excerpts from gZi brjid. U.P. Oxford, 1964, ISBN 9789745241114
• Tashi Gyaltsen Shardza ​​, Lopön Tenzin Rinpoche Namdak ( translator's ): Heart Drops of Dharmakaya .. Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca 1993, ISBN 9781559390125
• Lopon Tenzin Namdak: Bonpo Dzogchen Teachings. Vajra Bookshop, 2007, ISBN 9789994672059