Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

Chagdud Tulku (Tibetan: ལྕགས་མདུད་, Wylie: lcags mdud, 1930–2002) was a Tibetan teacher of the Nyingma school of Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhism. He was known and respected in the West for his teachings, his melodic chanting voice, his artistry as a sculptor and painter, and his skill as a physician. He acted as a spiritual guide for thousands of students worldwide. He was the sixteenth tülku of the Chagdud line.

Chagdud Gonpa centers practice Tibetan Buddhism, primarily in the Nyingma tradition of Padmasambhava.

Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche was born Padma Gargyi Wangchuk in the Tromtar region of Kham eastern Tibet in 1930. His father was Sera Khato Tulku, a lama in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. His mother was Dawa Drolma, who was widely considered to be an emanation of Tara and was from a Sakya family, and had a profound influence on her son's spiritual life.

By the time he was three years old, he was recognized as the incarnation of the previous Chagdud Tulku, and soon thereafter traveled to Temp'hel Gonpa, a monastery about two or three days by horseback from Tromtar. As he recounts in his autobiography, The Lord Of The Dance:

For the next seven years, until I went into three year retreat at the age of eleven, my life would alternate between periods of strict discipline in which my every move would be under the surveillance of my tutors and interludes in which my suppressed energies would explode. Throughout, I had many visions, many clairvoyant experiences, many extraordinary dreams, and within these, I sometimes had glimpses of absolute open awareness.

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