Ngari Rinpoche

Life and career

Ngari Rinpoche was born in Lhasa in March 1946. An older brother had died of smallpox at age two, and Rinpoche was considered that child's reincarnation. Three days after his birth, his parents held a celebration attended by Heinrich Harrer. He was recognized as the 16th Ngari Rinpoche and entered Drepung Monastery at age seven.

In 1954 he accompanied his brother and other family members to China, where he learned Mandarin. Two years later he traveled to India for ceremonies marking the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha's death. During the Tibetan uprising on 10 March 1959, he was driven from Drepung Monastery in a Soviet car to a military camp where a performance was to honor the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama canceled his attendance because of unusual demands that he come without ministers or bodyguards.

Rinpoche observed that all Chinese and pro-Chinese Tibetans were armed and that General Tan Guansan was furious at the Dalai Lama's absence. His mother sent a servant to fetch him after the performance, asking him to join her on the pretext that she was unwell. The next day they both joined the Dalai Lama at Norbulingka. He and the Dalai Lama fled from Tibet to India.

Rinpoche studied at St. Joseph's School in Darjeeling, India, and later in the United States. Without renouncing Tibetan Buddhism, he became an adherent of Hinayana and attended the same school as Tenzin Geyche Tethong. After returning to India, he met Rinchen Khandro Choegyal at Loreto Convent, where she had entered in 1967. In 1971 he joined the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government-in-exile, remaining until 1986.

He worked at the Tibetan Youth Congress alongside Rinchen Khandro Choegyal, whom he married in 1972, and became a teacher at the Tibetan Children's Villages. He served in the Special Frontier Force for two years, monitoring the Chinese border for the Indian government. In 1974 he moved to the Kashmir Cottage at his mother's request; after her death in 1982 he converted it into a guesthouse. In 1991 he was elected to the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration, representing Amdo.

He served as a spiritual leader of Karsha Monastery, the most important in Zanskar, and of several monasteries in Ngari. He was an honorary member of the Mind & Life Institute until his death.