Akong – A Remarkable Life – at Arran High School
Akong – A Remarkable Life is a documentary film that tells the story of Akong Tulku Rinpoche, and was shown at the High School on the 1st June to a large and appreciative audience.
Born in Kham, eastern Tibet in 1940, Akong Tulku Rinpoche was quickly recognized as a reincarnate Tulku and enthroned as the Abbot of Drolma Lhakhang Monastery at the age of four.
However his life would change dramatically when in 1959, tensions between China and Tibet reached breaking point. Forced to undertake a dangerous journey on foot across the Himalayas to reach India, at the age of only nineteen, Akong Rinpoche and other fourteen people were the only survivors out of a party of over two hundred Tibetans. This episode marked his life profoundly.
After reaching their destination, living conditions in Buxadaur refugee camp in Assam were extremely poor. The hot climate combined with the lack of food and medicine claimed the lives of many of the surviving refugees, including Akong’s elder brother, Jamyang Chogyal.
When in 1963, Akong Rinpoche arrived in the UK with Trungpa Rinpoche, life wasn’t easy either. In order to support themselves Akong worked as an orderly at a hospital in Oxford. His life started to change a few years later though, and in 1967 Akong founded the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the west – Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland.
monastery in Scotland reminded him of Tibet
