Dudjom Rinpoche

Living in India since 1958, Dudjom Rinpoche (1903-1987) was elected the spiritual head of the Nyingmapas in exile in 1959 and became one of the key figures of the renaissance of buddhism and of Tibetan culture.
Born into a noble family in the province of Pemako, in Kongpo, he was recognized at the age of three years old as the incarnation of Dudjom Lingpa. Instructed by numerous masters at the Mindroling monastery and disciple of Jetrung Champa Joungne, he was graced by visions where Guru Rinpoche, Yeshe Tsogyal and Manjushri granted him their blessings and their empowerments, and he acuired from a very young age, a great spiritual realization and a brilliant erudition. At fourteen, he gave for the first time the complete transmission of the Rinchen Terdzo and, at seventeen, composed his first work on Dzogchen.
Considered the greatest terton of his time, he wrote in the course of his life, twenty-two volumes, of which the Nyingma Chadjung, “The History of the Nyingmapas”, where shone an encyclopedic knowledge matched with a great poetic style. Living representative of Padmasambhava, he understood, after having fled Tibet in 1958, the importance of diffusing his teachings in the world. He had numerous disciples in Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal and Ladakh, in Hong Kong, then in the West, notably in the United States and in France, where he lived out his last years. Dudjom Rinpoche passed away in Dordogne, in fact, near Montignac, where he resided for seven years.
Extract from the book “Padmasambhava” by Philippe Cornu.