Venerable Dagpo Rinpoche, also known as Bamchoe Rinpoche, was born in 1932 in the region of Kongpo, in southeastern Tibet. At the age of two, he was recognised by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of Dagpo Lama Jampel Lhundrup.

At six, Rinpoche entered Bamchoe Monastery to study the basics of sutra and tantra, and by the age of 13, he entered Dagpo Shedrup Ling (or Dagpo Dratsang), a monastic college founded by Je Tsongkhapa's sixth successor, Jey Lodroe Tenpa. Its standard of education was very high in all fields, and speciai attention was given to Lamrim or the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment.

Dagpo Rinpoche has followed 34 Buddhist masters and holds a large number of transmissions of the Buddha's teachings. Among the many illustrious teachers he has studied under are the two tutors of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, His Holiness himself and the Mongolian master Geshe Ngawang Nyima. Dagpo Rinpoche was educated in the purest and strictest monastic tradition. Under their guidance, Rinpoche studied the Five Great Texts, tantra (Rinpoche received many initiations and performed many retreats) and astrology, grammar, poetry and history.

The lineage of Dagpo Rinpoche's previous incarnations goes far back into the past. It includes masters such as the famous Taktunu who, in the previous Buddha's time, sold a piece of his own flesh to make offerings to his spiritual master. It also includes the Indian yogi Virupa, the scholar Gunaprabha and Atisha's main spiritual guide: the great Suvarnadvipa Dharmakirti (Serlingpa).

Suvarnadvipa gave Atisha the transmission of the teaching on Bodhicitta whose lineage issues from Maitreya called "The Seven Point Instruction for the Generation of Bodhicitta" as well as one from Manjushri known as "Exchanging Self and Other". The two masters found themselves together again in the same master-disciple relationship in more recent times when Atisha was born as Pabongka Rinpoche and received teachings on Bodhicitta from Dagpo Jamphel Lhundrup, Dagpo Rinpoche's predecessor.

In Tibet, other better known masters in the lineage of Dagpo Rinpoche's previous incarnations include the great 5th-Century translator Marpa Lotsawa, who founded the Kagyu school of Buddhism and Longdeul Lama Rinpoche Ngawang Losang (1719-1805), the Seventh Dalai Lama's disciple. He is famous as the teacher who guided Jetsun Milarepa to Enlightenment by very severe training. In more recent times, we count several abbots of Dagpo Shedrup Ling Monastery among Dagpo Rinpoche's previous incarnations.

His most famous disciple, Pabongka Rinpoche authored the definitive text, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

Rinpoche remained in Gomang Dratsang until the communist invasion in 1959 when he followed His Holiness the Dalai Lama into exile in India. Less than a year later, he was invited to France to assist French tibetologists in their scientific research. From 1961 until his retirement in 1993, Rinpoche taught Tibetan language and civilisation and Buddhism at the School of Oriental Studies, (I.Na.L.C.O.) a part of the Sorbonne. He has co-authored a number of books on Tibet and on Buddhism.

In 1978, he founded his main Buddhist Dharma center, Guepele Tchantchoup Ling, in Paris where he has given extensive teachings since. Dagpo Rinpoche is often invited to teach in Dharma centres in Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, France, England, Canada, U.S.A., India, Indonesia and Malaysia. His main centre in Europe,Ganden Ling Institute, is located near Paris, at Veneux-les-Sablons.

Now retired, he continues his personal research, practice and studies. In 1978, Rinpoche founded a Dharma center in France, which received Buddhist congregation status from the French state and became Ganden Ling Institute in 1995. In 2005, a new temple was opened in Veneux-les-Sablons, where study weekends and retreats under the guidance of Dagpo Rinpoche are organized regularly.

Since the late '70s, Rinpoche has shared his vast knowledge of Buddhism with a wide public. On their request, he teaches in various European countries, in Asia and in the United States. He has founded Dharma centers in France, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. He travels to India yearly to maintain contact with his teachers and monasteries.

In 2005, Dagpo Rinpoche completed a long term project, the reconstruction and transfer of the Dagpo Shedrub Ling Monastery to the Kullu valley in northwest India.

Sources

1. Le groupe d'tude Lho Gyu Shertchine Ling
2. The Dagpo Education Fund
3. Institut Ganden Ling & Institut Guepele