
Akong Rinpoche (25 December 1939-8 October 2013) was a tulku of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the founders of the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland. He was murdered in 2013 in Chengdu, China.
Biography[]
Akong Rinpoche was born on 25 December 1939 in Dharak Village, Riwoche, Kham, in eastern Tibet. He was certified as a teacher of Tibetan medicine, but in 1959 he fled to India at the age of 20 and in 1963 he was given money from a sponsor to attend Oxford University in England. Akong learned English and introduced Westerners to Tibetan culture and religion, and in 1967 he founded the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland; Akong became a major figure in Tibetan Buddhism. In 1992, he was allowed to visit Tibet as a part of China's open door policy and visited Lhasa on many occasions. On 8 October 2013, he was killed in Chengdu by a former student of his, Tudeng Gusha, in a dispute over money; his family asked for clemency due to their religious beliefs. On 1 February 2016, however, Gusha and another man were sentenced to death for Akong's murder.