“When the Chinese overran Tibet in 1959, both my parents, who came from different parts of Tibet, fled through Nepal to India, where they met and married. My father was a Nyingmapa "Dunglu Lama" (of a lineage that is transmitted through family) and his name was Shampa Tentar. My mother's name was Yeshe Lhamo; she was a Bonpo and came from an important family in the Bon area of Hor. I am their only son and was born in Amritsar in northwest west India. I spent my early years in the Tibetan Treling Kasang kindergarten in Simla in north India. When it closed, all the children dren were sent to different schools, and I went to a Christian school, which I attended until I was ten years old.
After my father died, my mother remarried and my stepfather was a Bon Lama. He and my mother decided I should not stay on in the Christian school. First I received some education from the Kagyupas, from whom I received the name Jigme Dorje; then my parents sent me to Dolanji in north India, where there is a Tibetan Bon village. Coming to live in a Tibetan community was a completely new experience for me.
After one week I became a novice monk in the monastery. Because my stepfather was an influential Lama, I had two personal tutors. One, Lungkhar Gelong, taught me reading and writing and basic education, while the other taught me "worldly knowledge." He also took care of my clothes, cooked my food, and so forth. He was one of the respected elder monks and his name was Gen Singtruk.
I spent a couple of years with them living in the same house, and at that time I started to read the ritual texts, to write different Tibetan scripts, and to learn the prayers and invocations of the monastic practices. In those days my teacher Lungkhar Gelong used to study logic and philosophy together with a small group of people under Geshe Yungdrung Langyel. He was a "Geshe Lharampa" rampa" (the highest level of Geshe) in both the Bon and Gelugpa orders. Later Geshe Yungdrung Langyel was my main master in philosophy when I studied for my geshe degree.
The years with these two teachers were some of the hardest periods in my education, because I never had time to play with friends of my own age. All my time was spent in intensive study, and I was even happy when I could cook and clean the house because it was a break from studying. I saw that other young boys studied in a group, and my situation seemed much harder. Receiving the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud Teachings.
One of the elder monks at Dolanji asked the master Lopon Sangye Tenzin Rinpoche to give the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud teachings of Bon Dzogchen, and, when he agreed, my stepfather went to ask him if I could also receive these teachings. He gave his consent, saying that at the same time I should also start doing the ngondro (preliminary practices), powa, and zhine meditation...”
~ Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Wonders of the Natural Mind. Tenzin Rinpoche was raised like a son by his root teacher Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche, today revered as the most senior teacher of the Bon tradition. An accomplished scholar in the Bon Buddhist textual traditions of philosophy, exegesis and debate, in 1986 Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche completed an 11-year course of traditional studies at the Bon Dialectic School of Menri Monastery, where he received his geshe degree, equivalent to a doctorate in philosophy from Western universities. Upon graduating Tenzin Rinpoche was employed at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives at Dharamsala, India. That same year His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama appointed Rinpoche to be the Bon tradition's representative to the Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies of the Tibetan-Government-in-Exile.
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