H.E. Luding Khenchen Rinpoche

His Eminence Luding Khenchen Rinpoche is the 75th chief abbot of Ngor Monastery. He has held this post for over 40 years. His Eminence was born in 1931 in Tsang, Tibet, to an important religious family. He was ordained as a monk at the age of 10. As befitted a major lineage holder, he was given extensive training by the best teachers in the Sakya and other traditions. At the age of 24, he succeeded his teacher, the former Ngor abbot Jamyang Thupten Lungtog Gyaltsen, as abbot of the Ngor Monastery, and has served as abbot continuously since that time. For 500 years, Ngor Monastery has been the head of hundreds of other branch monasteries, and its school of ritual studies has been the citadel of training and practice of tantric ritual in the Sakya tradition.

His Eminence Luding Khenchen Rinpoche is the 75th chief abbot of Ngor Monastery. He has held this post for over 40 years. His Eminence was born in 1931 in Tsang, Tibet, to an important religious family. He was ordained as a monk at the age of 10. As befitted a major lineage holder, he was given extensive training by the best teachers in the Sakya and other traditions. At the age of 24, he succeeded his teacher, the former Ngor abbot Jamyang Thupten Lungtog Gyaltsen, as abbot of the Ngor Monastery, and has served as abbot continuously since that time. For 500 years, Ngor Monastery has been the head of hundreds of other branch monasteries, and its school of ritual studies has been the citadel of training and practice of tantric ritual in the Sakya tradition.

In 1960, due to political changes in Tibet, His Eminence Luding Khenchen Rinpoche relocated to Dehra Dun, in Uttar Pradesh state in eastern India, where he began the great work of re-establishing the Sakya lineage in the land of the Buddha's birth. His Eminence collected those monks who had come from Tibet, established a school of ritual studies, and built a monastery in Dehra Dun, India.

During the 1960s, His Eminence traveled widely in India, Sikkim, and Ladhakh, bestowing countless monastic ordinations and major teachings and initiations. In the 1970s, he continued to teach widely in India and neighboring countries, and also traveled throughout Southeast Asia, establishing many Sakya centres there. Since the late 1970s, when Tibet was reopened to teaching visits by high lamas, His Eminence has travelled to Tibet several times, where he spent time at over 80 Sakya monasteries, helping them to re-establish themselves spiritually, educationally, and financially.

To preserve the lineage of ordinations, His Eminence has ordained thousands of monks and nuns, which is a key responsibility of the Ngor abbot. To ensure the transmission of the precious lineage of initiation and ritual to the next generation, he sponsored the decade-long series of initiations in the Collection of All the Tantras, and trained a new generation of monks in the performance of the complex annual cycle of the six great monastic rituals. In addition to re-establishing the Ngor Monastery and retreat centre, His Eminence donated land for the Sakya nunnery and has ordained hundreds of Sakya nuns.

Extraordinarily learned, the embodiment of compassion, His Eminence's presence radiates peace and wisdom. Through his great efforts, the Ngor lineage has not only been re-established, it has been spread throughout the world.