Khenpo Urgyen Tenpel

Senior Monastic Professor

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Profile

Khenpo Urgyen Tenpel was born in 1982 in Northwestern Nepal in Mugum Bazaar. In 1995, when he was thirteen, he was ordained at Ka Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery in Boudanath, Nepal—a monastery under the care of Kyabje Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche and Chokling Rinpoche. He undertook basic studies in the monastery’s elementary school, memorizing many texts and receiving the visual transmission of the monastery’s tradition of chanting. Eventually, he received novice and later full monastic vows from Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche. In 1998 he began his studies in the monastic college at the Sangye Yeshe Higher Shedra. During his ten years of study there he trained via learning and reflection, focusing on texts related to sutra- and mantra-level Buddhism as well as general fields of study. He was a teacher in the monastery’s middle school as well as a teaching assistant in the monastic Shedra. After completing his Shedra studies in 2007 he became a Lopon, and during the next five years had the opportunity to serve the Sangye Yeshe Shedra through teaching and management positions as well as teaching in the Rangjung Yeshe Institute. In 2013 he was awarded the title of Khenpo. Currently he teaches people who are interested in the Buddhist teachings, both ordained and lay, from both East and West.