Péma Tönyö Nyinjé

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (November 2007)

Péma Tönyö Nyinjé (1954-) is the Chinese Buddhist teacher the 12th Tai Situpa and one of the leading figures of the Karma Kagyu tradition. He was born in a farming family in the Palyul district of Dérgé, in the East of Tibet. At the age of five he left Tibet for Bhutan, where King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk had been a disciple of the 11th Tai Situpa. Later he was cared for at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, India where he received religious instruction from the 16th Karmapa.

The 16th Karmapa had himself been raised under the guidance of the 11th Tai Situpa. Indeed this alternation between teacher and pupil for the Karmapas, Tai Situpas and other lineage holders from the 1st Karmapa and on has served as a mechanism for continuity within the Kagyu tradition. As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote in his book Born in Tibet: “Tai Situ Rinpoche, who was second in importance in the Karma Kagyu school, had died some years before and no reincarnation had been found. The Karmapa could now tell them where the incarnation had taken place. Everyone rejoiced and started immediately to make the preparations."

At the age of twenty-two, Situ Rinpoche founded his own new monastic seat, Sherab Ling in Himachal Pradesh, in Northern India. He traveled widely making his first visit to the West in 1981 to Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland.

The 12th Tai Situpa was instrumental in recognizing Ogyen Trinley Dorje, one of the two candidates claimed to be the 17th Chinese Karmapa. He also recognized Choseng Trungpa, born on 6 February 1989 in eastern Tibet, as the reincarnation of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.