Ringu Tulku Rinpoche

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche was born in 1952 in eastern Tibet and was recognised as the reincarnation of a former abbot of Rigul Monastery. After the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1959 his family fled to India, and he studied in India at the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in Gangtok and at Sampurnananda Sanskrit University in Varanasi.

His teachers include Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche, and he trained in all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He is a Kagyu lama. His doctoral thesis examined the ecumenical movement in Tibet, known as Rimé, which gathered the teachings of the different schools instead of setting one against another. He taught as a professor of Tibetology in Sikkim for seventeen years.

Since 1990 he has taught Buddhism and meditation at more than fifty universities, institutes and centres across Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, and has taken part in interfaith dialogue. In 1997 he founded Bodhicharya, a non-profit educational and cultural association. It collects, transcribes, translates and publishes Buddhist teachings, and supports education and healthcare projects. Its work is organised around three themes: healing, helping and harmony. Bodhicharya International is registered in Belgium. He also founded the Rigul Trust, which supports projects in his birthplace.

Several of his books are commentaries on classic texts. Confusion Arises as Wisdom (Shambhala, 2012) draws on his teaching on Gampopa’s heart advice on the path of mahamudra. Mind Training: The Essential Points is a guide to lojong, and Daring Steps Toward Fearlessness a commentary on mahamudra teachings.