Akong Rinpoche

Chöje Akong Tulku Rinpoche (, 25 December 1939 – 8 October 2013) was a tulku in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and co-founder of the Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland, Tara Rokpa Therapy & ROKPA International Charity.

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

At the age of two he was discovered by a search party seeking the reincarnation of the 1st Akong, Abbot of Dolma Lhakang Monastery near Chamdo.

The monastery had previously not followed the tradition of having a reincarnate lama at its helm, but was ordered to find the 2nd Akong tulku by the second Kongtrul, Karse Rinpoche, the lineage master whose life he had saved when it had looked as though death was imminent.

In 1959, in the aftermath of that year's Tibetan Rebellion, he fled to India at the age of twenty, notably with the 11th Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and his younger brother, who later became known as Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche.

Of the 300 in the party, only 13 arrived successfully in India.

The harrowing journey was forced into a major detour, due to the widespread presence of Chinese soldiers, who were trying to prevent the escape of refugees.

The journey took so long that they ran out of food whilst still far from their destination.

Starving and having unanimously decided not to kill animals to support themselves, they eventually had to boil leather shoes and bags to make soup to survive.

Nevertheless, against all odds, they did make it.

After spending time in refugee camps Akong and Trungpa Rinpoches were befriended by Freda Bedi.

who would become Sister Palmo, almost certainly the first close student of European ancestry of the Karmapa lineage.

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

In 1963, a friend of Freda Bedi's sponsored the two to go to Oxford where Trungpa would study comparative religion at the university.

As only Trungpa had a bursary, Akong worked as a hospital orderly in the Radcliffe Infirmary in order to support himself, Trungpa and Lama Chime Tulku Rinpoche (who had joined them at Oxford).

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

In 1967 he co-founded Samye Ling in Scotland with Trungpa Rinpoche.

Since it was the first Buddhist monastery in the West it was named after Samye in Tibet, established by Guru Rinpoche in the eighth century.

It remains one of Europe's largest Buddhist monasteries.

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

Faced with a situation in which people with serious mental health issues were arriving at Samye Ling, for whom normal spiritual training was beyond reach, in 1989 Akong developed a community-based therapeutic home for such people, known as Lothlorien.

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

One of the few overseas lamas to be able to return repeatedly to his homeland from 1992 onwards, he managed to rebuild and support his monastery there, as well as to foster the resurgence of monasteries and teaching colleges of all lineages He built huge statues of Guru Rinpoche stupas, and sponsored the rebuilding of the mani wall at Simdzi, Sichuan.

He also 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.

In 1992, he was tasked with finding the latest Karmapa incarnation Urgyen Drodul Trinley Dorje relying upon the prediction letter that had been discovered by Kentin Tai Situ Rinpoche.

Two months later Karse Kongtrul had recovered, and, about to leave for Palpung with the 10th Trungpa Rinpoche, he looked back over his shoulder and commented, "If I can sit on the fearless lion-throne and live on to benefit the teachings and beings for a long time, it will be due to the kindness of this lama."

A group of lamas from Dolma Lhakang, therefore, requested guidance from the 16th Karmapa as to how to locate the new tulku.

At the age of 4, the new incarnation was taken to Dolma Lhakang to receive an education that included the traditional training of a tulku as well as Tibetan medicine, since his predecessor, Karma Miyo, was considered an accomplished physician". When only a teenager he took complete control of the monastery, performing religious ceremonies and treating the ill in Tsawa Gang, a huge and remote nomadic area, in which Dolma Lhakang is the principal monastery. Along with other notable Kagyu lamas, such as Thrangu Rinpoche and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, he later went to the monastic university of Shechen Monastery where he received a transmission of the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages from Kongtrul Rinpoche of Shechen. Khenpo Gangshar was also teaching the 'crazy wisdom' path there, and they received the mind transmission from him.

After Shechen Kongtrul, Akong's main guru was the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, who encouraged and guided his activity as a teacher of Buddhism, and authorised him as a teacher of Tibetan medicine.

In this search Akong represented Tai Situpa and Sherab Tarchin represented Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche, two out of four of the Regents authorised by the 16th Karmapa to uphold the lineage until his return.

Having brought Karmapa to Tsurphu Monastery, Karmapa's principal seat in Tibet, it fell to Akong Rinpoche to organise his enthronement, with people travelling from all over the Tibetan region to attend.

This was the first occasion that the enthronement of a lama of such prominence was permitted by the authorities in modern times.

In common with the extensive activity to help Tibetans there, it would not have been possible without Akong's considerable networking skills.

As Karmapa Urgyen Trinley Dorje later wrote, "I believe he was uniquely capable of doing that work. He 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 (TTM) to the West, and also in developing a new form of psychotherapy or mind-training, known as Tara Rokpa Therapy.

Tara Rokpa Therapy was founded upon his spiritual and medical knowledge, in conjunction with the skills of a number of students, amongst whom were psychiatrists, psychotherapists, art therapists, and alternative therapists.

The ten-year training was authenticated by the UK Council for Psychotherapy and also meets the standards required by the Irish Council of Psychotherapy and the European Association for Psychotherapy.

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.

The book aims to help those seeking to understand the source of their suffering and to heal that through relaxation, meditation, and self-knowledge.