A Brief Biography of the Venerable Rahor Chodrak
An updated dynamic rendering from the Tibetan original by Rigdzin Karma
Homage and Preliminaries
Namo Guru.
He who sounded the absolute depths and charted the furthest shores of both Sutra and Tantra, navigating the great river of study and reflection with consummate mastery, and from that crossing unearthed the wish-fulfilling jewel of direct realization; to the Glorious Rahor Chodrak, I bow.
Having first scattered these flowers of devotion, what follows is merely a scattering of dust mutes, a fraction of a glimpse into the life of this sublime master.
Birth and Early Training
The melodic resonance of his name, Palden Rahor Thubten Chokyi Drakpa, fell upon the ears of the world like the enchanting song of a celestial maiden. Yet, even as he moved freely through the mundane world, seemingly partaking in its appearances, his mind remained completely unmoved, resting in the pristine state of a hidden yogin.
This great master, who perfectly unified peerless erudition with authentic realization, was born on the auspicious dawn of Friday, the 30th day of the 12th Tibetan lunar month in the Fire Mouse year, corresponding to February 15, 1877, of the Gregorian calendar. His birthplace was Rahor, a small village nestled between the nomadic expanses of Domang and Sago, in the borderlands of Luhuo and Dzamthang within the Degé region of Kham.
(Note: Although Nyushul Khenpo’s Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems records his birth year as 1876, precise chronological correlation of the lunar data with the Western calendar reveals it to be February 15, 1877, a Thursday night breaking into Friday morning. If 1876 were used as the base, the elements would misalign.)
From early childhood, he crossed the threshold of the Dharma, entering Rahor Monastery to begin his foundational training. Later, he sought out the great Khenchen Zhenphen Chokyi Nangwa (Zhenga Rinpoche), taking his place among a constellation of disciples so vast they resembled the night sky. Among this assembly, two brilliant stars emerged as supreme lineage holders: the master of exposition, debate, and composition, Rahor Chodrak; and the sovereign of learning, discipline, and nobility, Serkha Chodrak. Our master is the former, the first Chodrak. He became a non-sectarian messenger dedicated to rekindling the lamp of textual study and meditative practice, a sublime being who embodied the fierce, uncompromising asceticism of the Bodhisattva Sadaprarudita in this degenerate age.
Renunciation and the Oath of Asceticism
By the age of twenty, having mastered the foundational curriculum of the Dzogchen lineage and entered the path of the preliminary practices (ngöndro), the protective deities Ma-Mgon Lcam-Dral manifested to him directly, executing his enlightened activities as clearly as one human conversing with another. From that moment on, a fierce, burning determination took root within him to make his life span and his spiritual practice identical.
Presenting himself before the Khenpo of Rahor Monastery, he swore a solemn vow to completely sever his ties with all worldly concerns of this life, casting them aside to dedicate himself entirely to solitary retreat. As the great omniscient master Jigme Lingpa wrote:
"Seeing the hollow fortresses of worldly fortune
As nothing more than an autumn mirage,
Within the clear crystal of a mind stripped of grasping,
The Essence, Nature, and Compassion shine unhindered."
True to these words, Rahor Chodrak severed every remaining tie to his homeland, his parents, and his siblings, resolving never to let even their names pass his lips again. He threw his mind entirely into the Dharma, and trusted his life entirely to the beggar’s lot. Moving purely between mountain hermitages and remote monastic centers, he left no trace of his whereabouts. He made the radical choice to uproot the eight worldly concerns entirely, swearing a sacred oath to the protectors that he would never perform a single ritual or offer a single prayer for the sake of food, wealth, reputation, or safety in this life.
With all craving for fame and material comfort discarded like dust in the wind, he soared into the unhindered sky of the Three Kayas. For us, the fortunate disciples of later generations, he became the ultimate spiritual guide, fulfilling the prophetic praise written by his direct student, Lungtok Chokyi Nangwa:
"Let his reputation for scholarship and realization scale the peaks,
Or let him dwell in the lowest depths of a hidden madman’s guise;
To me, my refuge lord, Chodrak, is the one,
Whom I boldly declare to be the equal of Noble Nagarjuna."
The Halls of Sri Singha and the Peerless Realizer
Interrupting a period of strict solitary retreat to deepen his textual understanding, he made the unshakeable decision to return to formal study. In 1896, he entered the renowned Sri Singha Monastic College at Dzogchen. Placing the feet of Khenchen Zhenphen Chonang upon his crown, he allowed the nectar of the scriptures, commentaries, and pith instructions to saturate the fertile soil of his wisdom.
Here, he plowed the fields of study, debate, and meditation simultaneously. His intellectual rigor bloomed into exquisite writing, and the natural fruits of erudition, discipline, and genuine goodness ripened within him. He became a wish-fulfilling tree destined to grant the desires of future disciples. For years, day and night without a moment's distraction, he traversed the paths and stages of the nine vehicles. When his reputation as a consummate scholar-yogi finally burst forth, a saying echoed through the halls of Sri Singha: "If there is a single individual here who has fully unified the theoretical mastery of Sutra and Tantra with pristine meditative realization, it is none other than Rahor Chodrak." As the master himself later noted:
"When the yeast of the primordial ground’s natural state
Was infused into the small vase of this human vessel,
The pure essence of the definitive secret teachings
Burst forth organically, unhindered and raw."
During his years of intense study at Sri Singha, he lived the life of a radical renunciant. Often, he lacked even the basic saffron robes of a monk, yet he never allowed poverty to distract his mind from his studies for a single second. Recognizing his extraordinary nature, Khenchen Zhenphen Chokyi Nangwa would secretly send him food and clothing, frequently remarking to the assembly with immense joy: "If you want to see a true practitioner, look at Rahor Chodrak. He has no rival."
In 1913, leaving Sri Singha behind, he traveled to Rahor Tashi Lungrik Chime Gatsal Monastery to assume the responsibilities of a Khenpo. For three years, he spun the wheel of the Dharma, satisfying an ocean of fortunate disciples who gathered from Mongolia and all corners of Tibet. During this period, he authored a major commentary on the Pramanavarttika (Dharmakirti’s treatise on valid cognition), though out of a specific purpose, he chose to keep it hidden rather than printing it for public distribution. From his tenure at that college, a lineage of deeply learned scholars emerged. Looking back on those years, he composed these lines of realization:
Ka: Resting in the vast, primordial space of original purity,
Kha: The bitter fogs of dogmatic philosophical systems naturally vanished.
Ga: As the darkness of karma and afflictions was slowly dispelled by wisdom,
Nga: My altruistic activities for others expanded without boundaries.
Historical Interlude: The Legacy of Rahor Monastery
Rahor Monastery itself was originally an ancient Bönpo establishment dating back to antiquity. Around the year 1240, during the sweeping campaigns of the Mongol armies, the monastery was seized and subsequently offered to the glorious Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen. On the upper lintel of the main entrance, Sakya Pandita famously inscribed his own verse of triumph:
"A master of grammar am I, a fierce logician, a destroyer of wrong views without equal.
In composition I am flawless, in poetry sublime, unmatched in explaining ancient synonmys.
I hold the keys to the cosmic cycles; in inner and outer sciences, my intellect stands alone.
Such am I: the Sakyapa. Before me, other scholars are merely an occasion for laughter."
Under the Sakya lineage, the monastery flourished as a sacred seat of learning for roughly a century. However, in 1354, during the civil unrest between the Drigung and Sakya factions, the monastery was razed to the ground.
Decades later, practitioners of the Nyingma Nyingthig tradition painstakingly rebuilt the ruins, gradually re-establishing a community of study and practice. Replacing the old inscription on the lintel, they carved a new verse reflecting the Dzogchen view:
"Relying on meaning over words, we transcend mere logic; we are the sovereigns of speech who crush distorted tenets.
We borrow nothing from worldly composition, poetic artifice, or mundane cosmology.
Touching the absolute truth of the twelve solar shifts, we view dependent origination as a mere conventional play.
Through the four great tenets of the Middle Way, we grind the eternalist and nihilist views to dust.
Like a mountain of lamps, the Sugata Drime Ozer (Longchenpa) blazes with a thousand spotless rays;
Standing before this Lord of the Universe, all other stars are merely an occasion for laughter."
To this day, the monastery remains a source for numerous realized masters of the Early Translation school.
Devotion and the Path of the Shadow
In 1915, Rahor Chodrak returned to Sri Singha. Approaching Khenchen Zhenga with a mind that saw the master as a living Buddha, free from pride and completely single-minded in his pursuit of truth, he perfectly embodied the qualities of an ideal disciple. As the scriptures state: "An open, intelligent, and yearning mind constitutes the perfect vessel for the teachings." And from the Rigpa Rangshar Tantra: "Listening with unwavering attention, one becomes a vessel for the pith instructions."
For a full decade, Rahor Chodrak followed Khenchen Zhenga like a shadow. He surrendered his body, speech, and mind entirely to his guru, replicating the legendary devotion of Naropa serving Tilopa. He served with such immaculate integrity that he refused to use so much as a single needle or thread from the master’s storehouse for his personal comfort. He left an unexampled template for future generations on how to correctly rely on a spiritual guide. He was frequently heard telling others: "Stealing a single needle from the guru’s storehouse carries a heavier karmic weight than spending an entire lifetime working as a bandit or a thief."
The Final Instructions and the Journey West
In 1925, while Khenchen Zhenga and Rahor Chodrak were staying together at the remote hermitage of Gyabo Phu, near Mandal Monastery in Kham, a prominent government official from Central Tibet, the Tibetan General Khyungrampa Dorje Gyalpo (also known as Snamkhyung Tse Rampa), arrived to implore Khenchen Zhenga to return with him to Lhasa as his root priest.
Khenchen Zhenga declined, citing his own lack of time and advanced age, but remarked: "I cannot go, but I will send a representative who is my equal." Turning to Rahor Chodrak, Khenchen Zhenga presented him with a full set of formal monastic robes and a monastic hat, saying:
"Put on these saffron robes, journey to Central Tibet, and take Khyungrampa under your care. In the future, his influence will shield and serve your lineage. Afterward, proceed to Meldro Gungkar; in that valley, a prophecy dictates that you will meet many highly destined and famous disciples. From this moment on, you and I shall not meet again in this life. You must ensure that your life span and your meditation practice remain one, and you must hoist the victory banner of study and realization. To me, there is no greater service you could ever perform, even if you were to sit at my side for a hundred years."
Torn by the agonizing pain of a separation that felt like ripping a fingernail from the flesh, Rahor Chodrak wept bitterly, yet out of absolute obedience, he packed his meager belongings and departed.
He traveled incognito through Degé, Chamdo, and Lhorong, extending his journey into the hidden valleys of Bhutan, visiting Bumthang and Paro, under the guise of a wandering pilgrim enjoying the open air. Along the way, he quietly bestowed empowerments, transmissions, and pith instructions upon a few fortunate individuals who crossed his path. Eventually looping back through Phari and Shigatse, he arrived in Lhasa in 1926.
There, he accepted Khyungrampa and his entire household as his disciples. For two years, he served as their court prelate, guiding them through the stages of empowerment and transmission. However, noticing that his elaborate monastic robes drew excessive wealth from lay patrons and sparked jealousy among the clerics of other institutional schools, he decided to strip them away. He returned the robes to Khyungrampa and his wife, saying: "These were a gift from my master, Zhenga. Keep them as an object of devotion."
Dressing himself in a coarse, hand-spun yak-hair cloak (chu-bak) obtained from Khyungrampa, he blended in completely with ordinary laypeople. In this humble disguise, he spent his days circumambulating and making pilgrimages to Lhasa, Samye, and Shigatse, entirely hidden from public view.
The Setting of the Sun at Nyima Changra
In 1928, Rahor Chodrak departed Lhasa for Meldro Gungkar County, measuring the frozen expanses of the northern plains with his strides. He pitched his camp near the ancient Zha Lhakang Temple. In his sheer endurance and disregard for personal comfort, he was indistinguishable from the great cotton-clad yogin Milarepa. He ensured that anyone who saw, heard, remembered, or touched him would have the gates to the lower realms permanently closed, embodying his life-long prayer:
"May whoever sees me, hears my voice,
Remembers my form, touches my body, or speaks my name;
May they, upon hearing these sublime teachings,
Swiftly achieve the state of the sovereign Buddhas."
As he raised the victory banner of meditation on the snowy peaks of Central Tibet, the deities of the Vajrakilaya mandala manifested to him in direct vision. The entire universe arose as a pure land of deities, and he met the Sambhogakaya guru face-to-face within the center of his heart. Meditative equipoise and post-meditative perception merged into a single flavor. As Jigme Lingpa wrote:
"To the yogin whose dualistic delusions have shattered,
The Buddhas of the three times are seen as a single display.
Realizing the ultimate guru as the nature of unification,
The delusions of birth and death dissolve into a magical illusion."
While he remained absorbed in this state, disciples and patrons began to gather around him completely unbidden, like a swarm of bees descending upon a summer garden. Recognizing that the time foretold by his guru had arrived, he temporarily stepped out of absolute isolation to begin his public teaching career.
In 1930, he founded the Nyima Changra Monastic College at his campsite. Students flooded in from the surrounding mountain hermitages, Drigung Thil, Katsal Monastery, Zongtse, Bemu, and Kheldil, as well as from Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia. For over thirty years, he spun the wheel of Dharma continuously.
He taught the foundational textual explanations penned by Khenchen Zhenphen Chosnang and Mipham Rinpoche, alongside his own definitive commentary on the Pramanavarttika. He taught the Guhyagarbha Tantra through Longchenpa's Dispelling Darkness in the Ten Directions, the Manjushri-namasangiti, the Sakya Nangsum (Three Appearances), and gave direct, experiential instructions (mar-khrid) on the Dzogchen Yeshe Lama, focusing on the crucial distinction between ordinary mind and primordial wisdom (sem-nyam yeshe shan-byed). He transmitted the Seven Treasuries of Longchenpa, the Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease, and the Words of My Perfect Teacher. Through this relentless output, he forged hundreds of realized lineage-holders. The great scholar Gedün Rinchen later praised him, writing:
"My supreme guide, Chodrak,
Bestowed the gift of Dharma upon all who beheld his face.
He captured the minds of the entire assembly,
Leaving nothing behind, stealing their hearts all at once."
The Rule of the Wilderness Academy
As the community grew, his primary patron, Khyungrampa, who had since risen to the high government post of Lhamo Sung or Taiji, celebrated his promotion in 1934 by providing the funds to construct a proper monastic infrastructure. Combined with the voluntary labor of students from Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, and Tibet, they built a sixteen-column main assembly hall, complete with sacred images, libraries, and living quarters.
A permanent community of over forty fully ordained monks who lived entirely on alms was established. The academic discipline was legendary: after hearing formal discourses from the master in the main hall, the students would gather in the review hall to go over the material line-by-line under a review master (kyor-pön). Afterward, they broke into small groups on the sunny meadows to debate the finer points, returning to the master himself to resolve their deepest doubts.
At night, the disciplinarian (gekui) and his assistants patrolled the grounds with running sticks to prevent socializing. No open fires or stoves were permitted within individual rooms; all cooking was centralized in the kitchen, where two designated chefs prepared butter tea. Monks had to fetch their hot water and embers in specialized clay pots. In the pre-dawn freezing hours, they lit their oil lamps and memorized texts until the sun cleared the horizon. Five years of this training marked the graduation requirement for Nyima Changra College.
The Hidden Master of the Yak-Hair Cloak
Yet, despite constructing a physical monastery and being surrounded by brilliant students and wealthy patrons, Rahor Chodrak’s inner life never shifted from that of a radical, hidden yogin. He continued to wear his simple, coarse yak-hair cloak. His writing desk was a raw, uncarved stone boulder, and his meals consisted of the poorest scraps of food. He lived exactly like Tilopa or Naropa, completely indifferent to luxury. He lived the truth of his own song:
"As the blessings of the pure mind-to-mind lineage descended into my heart,
I beheld the raw, unarisen nature of awareness and emptiness.
How delightful this display, where thoughts are purified upon their own arising!
How joyful this yogin, who has transcended the dualism of hope and fear!"
Whether facing great wealth or the political storms of the era, not a single hair on his body trembled. Completely free from religious hypocrisy, he maintained a spacious, joyful mind. By day, he gave three rigorous textual discourses without fail. By night, he dissolved sleep into the Clear Light, meeting the ultimate Dharmakaya guru within his own self-awareness, resting in the unmanufactured, non-conceptual vajra state.
In 1954, the Bhutanese scholar Gedün Rinchen arrived at his feet. Rahor Chodrak was overjoyed. At the conclusion of each textual transmission, he would urge him: "You must write new commentaries and annotations on these treatises!" Yet, regarding his own life, Rahor Chodrak refused to allow anyone to write a biography, and would not even permit a single line of a long-life prayer to be penned in his honor.
Treating Gedün Rinchen as his heart-son, he bestowed upon him the name Lungtok Chokyi Nangwa. He also began accepting the monetary offerings from lay patrons that he had rejected his entire life, only to immediately hand them over to Gedün Rinchen, saying: "This is the food money for my son Lungtok's studies." When Gedün Rinchen concluded his studies in 1957 to return to Bhutan, Rahor Chodrak poured out the ultimate, unexcelled pith instructions of the Nyingthig lineage like one vase filling another.
Gedun Rinchen returned to Bhutan, founded the monastery of Drowolung in the medicine valleys, established thriving centers of study and meditation, and eventually ascended to the golden throne of the Je Khenpo, the spiritual head of the Kingdom of Bhutan. In strict accordance with Rahor Chodrak’s command, he authored over nine massive volumes of literature, including masterworks on the Madhyamakavatara, the Three Vows, the Uttaratantra, the Hevajra Tantra, the Nine Yanas, and a word-by-word commentary on the Pramanavarttika, while guiding countless disciples toward realization.
The Primordial Circle
During his final years in Meldro Gungkar, when he turned the wheel of Dharma for the assembly, there were no beautiful temples or warm rooms. The students lived in subterranean dirt caves (sa-phug) they dug out of the earth with their own hands. Yet within those cold dirt holes, the flawless realization of the five definitive certainties blazed brightly. Cloaked in the ornaments of the four immeasurables, using the skillful means of purifying the two obscurities and the wisdom of non-conceptual threefold emptiness, they realized the singular, ultimate nature of reality.
If patrons brought material offerings, Rahor Chodrak permitted the community of monks to accept them solely to allow the donors to accumulate merit; he never kept a single coin for himself. Remembering how his own root guru described these events, the author cannot help but think: Compared to those masters, we modern practitioners, who eat fine food, wear warm clothes, sleep on soft mattresses, and wallow in material wealth, are unfit to compete with even the tiniest insect that happened to be crushed beneath the feet of Rahor Chodrak.
Without ever wavering from the ultimate Dharmakaya for his own benefit, his altruistic activity for others flowed unhindered. He produced one disciple who was like the sun (Je Gedün Rinchen), seven who were like the moon, dozens who were like the stars, hundreds of faithful patrons, and thousands of lineage descendants. While tracing all their names is unnecessary here, three contemporary connections stand out:
Je Gedün Rinchen (Lungtok Chokyi Nangwa): The supreme scholar-yogi who ultimately dissolved his physical form into the rainbow body of the Dharmakaya.
Tsangkha Norbu Wangchuk: The pioneer who opened the gates to textual study, grammar, and astrology in 19th-century Bhutan.
Mkhyen Chog Namkar Dönkun Drupa: A radical renunciant living in the southern valleys of Bhutan, standing out like a solitary star in the bright daylight.
The Final Dissolution
As Jigme Lingpa wrote:
"From the center of the court of unshifting Great Bliss,
The faces of the deities and gurus are seen without meditation.
Through the luminous vehicle of the Dakinis' Heart-Essence,
Lies the supreme siddhi of achieving the Rainbow Body."
Having fulfilled every prophecy detailed by his master Zhenga, and seeing the dark political clouds gathering over Tibet, Rahor Chodrak chose to withdraw his unhindered enlightened activities. To demonstrate the final conquest of reality, he prepared to depart for other pure realms.
At the dawn of the 19th day of the 1st Tibetan lunar month in the Iron Ox year, March 5, 1961, at the age of eighty-four, he dissolved his mind into the primordial expanse of the Dharmakaya. During his cremation, miraculous relics (ring-sel) were recovered from the ashes. These objects of devotion were collected by his closest remaining disciples, led by Lama Tenzin Ozer, and carried to monasteries across the globe to plant the seed of liberation in all who encounter them.
Concluding Verses
Though dull-witted, my determination to record this profound meaning never faltered; Though poor in training, the labor of stringing these poetic ornaments brought no fatigue. How could the confidence of setting oral history down on paper ever be inferior? It is with the absolute certainty of Sarasvatī having entered my heart that I write. Whoever sees, hears, or reads these words; Whatever trust, doubt, or criticism may arise; May the seed of liberation be planted in their stream as they travel this path, And may they meet the ultimate guru of self-awareness at the center of their own heart. May I too, in the state of self-liberating conceptual marks, Have all that appears arise nakedly as the Dharmakāya without meditation, transparent and open. If this comes to pass, may the small awakening beyond mind where Dharma is exhausted grow vast. If it does not, may I seize the permanent ground of the Youthful Vase Body.
This condensed biography, since not even a brief written account of this master’s life appeared to exist anywhere, was painstakingly compiled from the oral histories recounted by the author's own root guru, the Nyingma Dzogchen Chöjung, the Gyelrab Deuter Karpo, the Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems composed by Nyushul Khenpo, the autobiography of the great scholar Gedün Rinchen (Gse-ru'i Gtam), and the poetic anthology Dbyangs-can Rgyud-mang.
What the author could gather through his own dim understanding, he set down on the Day of Playful Affection (Valentine's Day) of the year 2022, amidst the concrete canyons of Manhattan, at Ar-dam Drak-rong Trö, the Luminous Cloud Garden of Self-Appearing Clear Light, by the hand of the disciple-of-disciples, the Vidyādhara Gyukar Wangpo (Rigdzin Karma).
May the virtue of this work plant the seed of liberation in the streams of all who see, hear, remember, or come into contact with it.