Biography of
His Holiness Lungtok Tenpai Nyima
Thirty-Third Abbot of sMen-ri Monastery

His Holiness the 33rd sMen-ri Trizin Lungtok Tenpai Nyima is the worldwide
spiritual leader of the Bön culture. Bön is the native culture of Tibet and one of Tibet's five religious schools. Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong, as he was then called, was born in 1927 at Kyangthang, Amdo, a region on the eastern border of Tibet. At the age of eight he became a monk at Kyong Tsang monastery, which is located near the place where he was born.

When he was sixteen, His Holiness entered the Dialectic School at the Kyong Tsang Monastery. After eight years of study he received his geshe degree, specializing in Tibetan medicine, astronomy, and astrology.

At age twenty-six Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong traveled to Trochen Gyalpo, one of the eighteen kingdoms of Gyalrong in eastern Tibet. Using wooden blocks kept by the king of Trochen Gyalpo, he printed the Kangyur, a set of Bönpo scriptures, which contains over one hundred books. He brought this published Kangyur back to Kyong Tsang Monastery. He also traveled to Tsang province in the west region of Tibet to pursue further studies at the Bön monasteries of Yung Drung Ling, sMen-ri, and Khana. He stayed for five years at Drepung Monastery in Lhasa doing research and practice until the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1959.

At the time of the Chinese invasion he fled on foot from Tibet to Mustang, which is on the border of Tibet and Nepal. From there he went to Pokhara, Nepal, and then continued on to India. While in India Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong received word that the Abbot of Yung Drung Ling Monastery and many other Bönpo lamas had been able to reach Samling, a very old and important Bönpo monastery in the Dolpo region of Nepal. He returned to join these other refugee lamas. After some time they all traveled together down the mountains to the valleys of Nepal.

The books of the Bönpo are very important to their practice and study. When the lamas fled Tibet during the Cultural Revolution, they could not carry the books. The Chinese destroyed all the texts that were left behind in Tibet. It was important to make new copies of these sacred texts. The remaining Bön texts were often available only in very remote areas. Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong went back to Samling Monastery in the high mountains of Nepal to borrow texts so that copies could be made. While at Samling he met Dr. David Snellgrove, a researcher of Oriental and African studies from London University, who advised him on the best place to have copies printed of these sacred texts. Based on this advice, Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong and the Abbot of Yung Drung Ling Monastery took the books to Delhi, India, where they worked with Samten Gyaltson Karmay and Lopon Tenzin Namdak on the project of copying Bön texts.

Dr. Snellgrove invited Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong, the Abbot of Yung Drung Ling Monastery, Lopon Tenzin Namdak, and Samten Gyaltson Karmay to come to England under the sponsorship of the Rockefeller Foundation. There they studied the ways of the west while teaching Tibetan culture and religion in the Oriental and African Studies in London. Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong stayed in England for three years. During this time he also lived and studied with Benedictine, Cistercian, and other Christian monastic orders. In July 1964 he traveled to Rome where he had a private audience with Pope Paul VI.

In 1964 His Holiness the Dalai Lama asked Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong to return to India for the purpose of starting a school for Tibetan refugees in Massori, India. This project was funded by sponsors from England and staffed by teachers from the west who had volunteered to help the refugees. Later this school moved to the south of India after the first permanent Tibetan settlement was established there.

Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong was the head of the school in Massori for three years. During this time he taught Tibetan grammar and history. Each month he sent his entire salary of three hundred rupees to the Bönpo lamas, who now lived in Manali, India. This money made it possible for the lamas to buy food. He also helped create a meditation center in Manali for the lamas and monks. In 1965 Lopon Tenzin Namdak returned from England to look for a place where the Bönpos could settle in India. Catholic Relief Services helped the Bön people find land in Dolanji, Himachal Pradesh, India. The Bönpos were able, with much difficulty, to raise enough money to purchase this land.

In 1966, Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong went to Norway at the invitation of Per Kvaerne, who was at that time the assistant to Professor Simonsen at the University of Oslo. He taught Tibetan history and religion at the University of Oslo for two years.

When the Abbott of sMen-ri suddenly died in 1968, the Abbot of Yungdrung Ling, the second most important monastery in Tibet, became the temporary spiritual head of the Bonpo community in India. He arranged a ceremony in Dolanji to elect the successor of the deceased Abbot of sMen-ri. The Abbot of Yung Drung Ling, Lopon Sangye Tenzin, Lopon Tenzin Namdak, and approximately ten Bönpo geshes prayed in the Drup Khang, the Protector's temple, for fourteen days. The name of each Bönpo geshe was written on a piece of paper and enclosed in a small ball of ceremonial dough made from barley flour and holy medicine. These balls were placed in a vase. After all the prayers and rituals had been done, the Abbot of Yung Drung Ling shook the vase and three balls came out, one by one, onto a special Mandala. All of the other balls were removed from the vase and the first three were put back in. Then the process began again.

This time two balls were shaken out, one after the other. The second ball held the name of the geshe who would hold a very important position with the Bönpo as a lama and teacher. The first ball, which held the name of the geshe who was to be the new Abbott, was used during a special initiation ceremony. After the rituals were over the first ball was opened in front of all of the Bön people, who had promised to honor the person named as the one true Abbot. When the paper was opened, it revealed that the guardians of the Bön religion had selected Geshe Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong to be Abbot of sMen-ri, the worldwide spiritual leader of the Bön.

On the night of March 14 while he was still in Norway, Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong dreamed that he and another geshe were standing on the top of a temple. Each geshe was holding a conch shell used in the monastery to make music at special times. The wind began blowing very hard. The second man was unable to hold his conch shell. It blew out of his hand and broke on the ground below. This geshe?s name was, he later learned, the second one to emerge from the vase at sMen-ri Monastery. In the dream Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong was able to keep his conch shell in his hand and to play it despite the storm. The next morning on March 15, 1968, Sangye Tenzin Jong Dong received a telegram from Dolanji, India informing him that the Protectors of the Bön had selected him to be the 33rd Men-ri Trizin, Abbott of sMen-ri Monastery, and the spiritual leader of the Bön.

His Holiness the 33rd sMen-ri Trizin returned to India, and assumed his duties in Dolanji. Many lamas came from all over the world to give His Holiness initiations and teachings. For over one year he intensively trained and practiced for his role as the Abbott who would guide the Bön in the present and for the future.

This was an important time in the long history of the Bön. Their world had been destroyed, and life was beginning all over again for them not only as individuals but also as a community. They needed a strong and compassionate man to help them rebuild their culture and religion in strange and new surroundings. His task would be to hold the teachings and to keep the Bön people together.

Despite the great difficulties facing him, His Holiness the 33rd sMen-ri Trizin was able to build a new sMen-ri Monastery in Dolanji.Today this monastery has a population of one hundred monks. The Bön Dialectic School, which he established to educate the monks, awards geshe degrees with a certification recognized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His Holiness the 33rd sMen-ri Trizin created the Bön Children?s Welfare Center, an orphanage at sMen-ri Monastery, which cares for 110 orphans and semi-orphans. The Bon Children's Home in Dolanji provides living quarters for 115 children from the Himalaya area so that they can receive an education consistent with their culture. The Central School for Tibetans at Dolanji educates the children of Dolanji, as well as those in the Bön Children?s Welfare Center, and the Bon Children's Home. The town of Dolanji has a current population of over four hundred Bönpos and is now a center of Tibetan Bön culture and
religion.