Jigme Phuntsok - Biography

Biography

Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was born in 1933, the third day of the first month of the year of the Water Bird, in Golog, Amdo of Tibet, or the rugged washul Sertar region of the Tibetan cultural region of Kham, a vast expanse of high-plateau grasslands. He adopted Manjusri as his personal deity and he is said to have had visions of him several times, including once in 1987 when he visited Mount Wutai, the holy mountain abode of Majushri in China. At the age of five, Khenpo was recognized as the reincarnate of Terton Sogyal, guru to the 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatsho, and became a monk at Nubzur Gonpa, a branch of the Palyul monastery in Sertar. He received formal religious training under Thubga Rinpoche at Changma Rithro in Dzachukha and was selected to become abbot of Nubzur at the age of twenty-four. From the rise of the People's Republic of China, Khenpo’s religious career was greatly curtailed, to the point in 1959 he withdrew into the remote mountains, herding a small flock of goats and sheep. There he engaged in meditation and teaching to small numbers of people and was able to continue his religious practice. In 1987, Khenpo led hundreds of his disciples from Serthar Institute on a pilgrimage to the sacred mountains of Mount Wutai in China's Shaanxi Province. En route in Beijing, he met the 10th Panchen Lama and gave teachings on the 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas to a congregation of over 5,000 people, including Tibetan Chinese, Han Chinese, Mongol Chinese, and other Buddhist practitioners. At Mount Wutai, the congregation for his teachings swelled to10,000 on occasions. He also undertook retreats at sacred locations and caves.

Khenpo made extensive travels across Tibet and the rest of China teaching Nyingma traditional Buddhism and rediscovering hidden treasures. In 1990, at the invitation of Penor Rinpoche, he visited India, where he taught at various monasteries, including the Nyingma Institute in Mysore. At Dharamsala, the 14th Dalai Lama received teachings from Khenpo for two weeks. In 1993, Khenpo was invited to tour and teach at Buddhist centers in Europe and North America. There, he became disillusioned with the commercialization of Buddhist teachings in the West. In 1993, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok expanded his following during teaching tours of the United States, Canada, Germany, England, France, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Financial offerings made to him during this tour funded a major building program at the institute. On December 29, 2003, at age 70, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was admitted to the Military Hospital 363 in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province, with heart problems, and died there on January 7, 2004.