Neten Chokling Rinpoche

Neten Chokling Rinpoche was born in 1973 in central Bhutan, into a farming family. The 16th Karmapa and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche recognised him as the reincarnation of the Third Neten Chokling, Pema Gyurme, who had died in a road accident on the road from Delhi. He is counted as the Fourth Neten Chokling.

The Neten Chokling line is one of the incarnation lines associated with Chokgyur Lingpa, the 19th-century treasure revealer whose revelations form the Chokling Tersar. Rigpa Wiki describes the Third Neten Chokling as the immediate rebirth of Neten Ngedön Drubpe Dorje, Chokgyur Lingpa’s tulku at Neten Monastery. Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche belongs to a separate line of Chokgyur Lingpa’s incarnations, so the two should not be confused.

As a child he was taken to Pema Ewam Chögar Gyurme Ling Monastery in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, which his predecessor had founded. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche enthroned him at Ngedön Gatsal Ling in Clement Town. The 16th Karmapa also enthroned him at Rumtek and gave him the name Rigdzin Gyurme Dorje. Donum’s biography calls Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche his spiritual root teacher. He received the Kangyur, the Nyingma Gyübum, the Nyingma Kama, the Rinchen Terdzö and the Chokling Tersar from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, among other transmissions.

Orgyen Topgyal Rinpoche, a son of the previous Neten Chokling, took part in his education and in 2004 passed full responsibility for the monastery to him.

He appeared in Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s films The Cup (1999) and Travellers and Magicians. In 2006 he directed his own first film, The Life of Milarepa, Part I. He has taught and led drupchen practices at Lerab Ling in France since 1996, with monks from his monastery.

He divides his time between Bir and travel for teaching programmes, and spends much of his time in retreat in the mountain valleys of Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal and India, according to Donum’s biography. In 2024 he published Ancient Wisdom Modern Path, a book of short quotations with watercolour illustrations by Tashi Gyari. The Donum page states that proceeds support his monastery in Bir.