The Magical Journey

An extraordinary life-story of a Tibetan monk and his spiritual path of Yungdrung Bön: Nagru Gelek Jinpa made a life-changing decision at the age of nineteen to leave behind his life as a shepherd in eastern Tibet and to become a monk. Five years later, after having met a great Bönpo master, Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche, Gelek escaped from his homeland to receive teachings on Bön philosophy and its highest system of meditation, dzogchen, from this great master in Kathmandu, Nepal. He tells, with deep insight and humour, of his early years as an uneducated boy herding cows, pigs and yaks; of his studies in various monasteries in Tibet and India and finally in Nepal with his beloved master Yongdzin Rinpoche. He also makes a pilgrimage to Tibet in search of the ancient kingdom of Zhang Zhung and explores age-old holy sites in Nepal. Later on he starts to teach in the West, write books on his adventurous journeys and study filmmaking in Mexico. This thought-provoking and remarkable story of a Tibetan monk and scholar, teacher, author and documentary filmmaker, gives witness to his extraordinary life and spiritual path linked to Tibet's original cultural and spiritual tradition.

Nagru Geshe Gelek Jinpa was born in 1967 in a nomad family in Khyungpo. In 1986 he took the general vows of monkhood from His Eminence Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche and in 1992 he became a fully ordained monk in the Yungdrung Bön lineage. In the same year he moved to Kathmandu, Nepal, to study Bön philosophy with Yongdzing Rinpoche at Triten Norbutse Monastery. In 2001 he graduated as a geshe, which is the highest degree in Bön philosophy and dialectics. In 2005 he moved to Shenten Dargye Ling, France, and in 2013 he was appointed as an abbot of this first Bön monastery in the West. Apart from teaching philosophy and dzogchen meditation he has published books in English on his pilgrimages and travels in Tibet and Nepal, and directed documentary films.