16 Facts About Akong Rinpoche

Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche was born in 1940, in the village of Dharak near Riwoche in Kham, Eastern Tibet.

Akong Rinpoche took them into her own home, then later arranged for them to help her run the Young Lamas Home School in Dalhousie, NW India.

Akong Rinpoche's activity was on an international scale and unusually diverse, but it can be summarised as Dharma, healing, and charity.

Akong Rinpoche himself was reluctant to teach, instead preferring to invite Tibetan Buddhism's greatest teachers and lineage masters to Samye Ling and its many satellite centres in Europe and Africa.

Akong Rinpoche became a key figure in the collection, preservation and printing of rare Buddhist and medical texts, many of which had been on the point of disappearing completely at the time of the Cultural Revolution.

Akong Rinpoche was given the title Choje, meaning Lord of Dharma, by the 16th Karmapa in 1974 in recognition of his special qualities.

Akong Rinpoche dealt in a direct way with the Chinese authorities, while maintaining his integrity; he was very courageous in this, and I think the Chinese respected him.

Akong Rinpoche was a pioneer in bringing Traditional Tibetan Medicine to the West, and in developing a new form of psychotherapy or mind-training, known as Tara Rokpa Therapy.

Akong Rinpoche produced a book with his students Clive Holmes and Edie Irwin entitled Taming the Tiger: Tibetan Teachings for Improving Daily Life, which describes many of the exercises practiced in Tara Rokpa Therapy.

Akong Rinpoche fostered the practice of Traditional Tibetan Medicine, both in Tibet and in Europe.

In 1994 Akong Rinpoche succeeded in bringing Tibet's most eminent traditional doctor, Khenpo Troru Tsenam, to teach the foundations of TTM on a four-year programme at the newly established Tara College of Traditional Tibetan Medicine at Samye Ling.

Akong Rinpoche further created a programme to preserve the herbs used in Tibetan medicine that new demand was driving close to extinction, even going so far as to bring three young doctors to the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh to study horticulture and biodynamics In 2009, Akong gave a presentation on Tibetan medical treatments using mantras and prayers at the Seventh International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine held in Bhutan.

Akong Rinpoche later commented that this was personally the most difficult thing he ever had to do.

Akong Rinpoche served as a consultant for the National Museum of Scotland.

Akong Rinpoche's family sought clemency over a death sentence, saying that the crime was intolerable but that Buddhism promoted non-violence.

The speakers were those students of Akong Rinpoche who had carried out his activities in different fields over many years.