TalkingAlternative

Lama Ahbay Tulku Jigme Thupten Tendar Rinpoche was born in Darjeeling, India in 1973. In the Tibetan calendar the day of his birth is known as “The Auspicious Day with Ten Good Omens.” In 1979, Khabche Zong Rinpoche visited the hill station of Darjeeling and saw that it time for him to enter the monastery. In the same year the abbot of Gaden Jangtse Monastery in South India gave him the name Jigme Phuntsok, and he received the robes of a monk. When he was nine years old he was fully initiated into monkhood and the tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Khabche Ling Rinpoche gave him the name Thupten Tendar. When he was twelve, His Holiness the Dalai Lama identified him as the reincarnation of the hermit Lama Lobsang Tenzin. One year later he was enthroned as Tulku in Gaden Jangtse Monastery. From the age of twenty-five on he studied the Abidharma (Treasure of Knowledge) for three years followed by the Vinaya (Disciplines). These four major Buddhist texts, together with another text called Namdrel (Valid cog