Religions (Apr 2013)

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu — The Master Who Revealed Dzogchen to the Western World

  • Paolo Roberti di Sarsina,
  • Alfredo Colitto,
  • Fabio Maria Risolo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/rel4020230
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 2
pp. 230 – 239

Abstract

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Chögyal Namkhai Norbu is one of the last great masters of Dzogchen to have been born and fully educated in Tibet, before the Chinese takeover. He was soon recognized as a great reincarnated lama. This short biography is divided in two parts: the first retraces his steps from his birth in the Tibetan region of Kham until his flight from Tibet to Sikkim, reporting also teachings and initiations he received from his Masters. The second part starts when he arrived in Italy in 1960, invited by Professor Giuseppe Tucci, the greatest Italian Orientalist of his time, to work at the IsMeO, now the Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient (IsIAO). In the 70s Chögyal Namkhai Norbu began to teach Dzogchen to his first students. Interest soon became widespread and having received invitations from all continents, he began to travel and teach throughout the world, founding the worldwide Dzogchen Community, whose main objective is to preserve and develop an understanding of Dzogchen, as well as preserving Tibet's extraordinary cultural patrimony.

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