Lama Trulshik Rigdzin Lingpa

A Tertön himself, Trulshik Rigdzin Lingpa became a student of Shuksep Lochen Chonyi Zangmo (1865-1953) and spent time with her in Zangri Khangmar (aka Zangri Kharma), in Central Tibet. Through this connection, Trulshik Rigdzin Lingpa became a lineage holder for the Chö tradition of Machik Labdrön.

In 1952, based on prophecies he had received from dakinis announcing negative events throughout the Tibetan Plateau, Trulshik Rigdzin Lingpa fled Central Tibet with a group of thirty practitioners, journeyed south, and arrived in Western Bhutan. 

There, he was welcome by his disciple Tokden Tsewang Chöpel. Knowing his master would need a place to settle and to transmit the lineages he held, his close disciple Tokden Tsewang Chöpel pledged the third king of Bhutan Jigme Dorje Wangchuck (1928-1972) and the governor of his home district for permission to grant the Tibetans a portion of his family’s ancestral land in Bhutan to offer a piece of land.

This request was honored, and it is on this piece of land, located in Rawabi, that Druk Zangri Khangmar was founded. Through this adventure from Central Tibet to Rawawi in Bhutan, Trulshik Rigdzin Lingpa enabled the precious Chö tradition of Machik Labdrön to be safeguard from the destruction which were soon to happen throughout the whole of the Tibetan Plateau, and especially in Zangri Khangmar which was fully destroyed in the 1960’s.

After his passing in Bhutan, Trulshik Rigdzin Lingpa took rebirth as Tulku Rigdzin Longyang, a son of Tokden Tsewang Chöpel.