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Zongtrul Jetsun Losang Tsondu Thupten Gyaltsen, or Venerable Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, as popularly known to his innumerable ordained and lay disciples, was born in 1904 in Mangsang in the Kham province of Tibet. He entered Ganden Shartse Monastery at the age of 12.

The late Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, who was then 14 years old, helped the new incarnate Lama by going through with him his first lesson in elementary dialectics. He studied effortlessly and became renowned as a powerful and irrefutable debater. A learned Geshe at that time said, “That even if Shri Dharmakirti was present, he would not have been able to debate better than that.”

At 25, Zong Rinpoche entered the Geshe examinations of the famous Lhasa Monlam ceremonies. He was extremely successful. The Great 13th Dalai Lama, who had been present during one of these examinations, remarked, "Zong Lama has studied excellently. He deserves the first or second rank Geshe Lharampa of this year." This would be followed by an equally successful examination at Gyuto Tantric College. After these crowning achievements, which marked the completion of his studies, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche's name as an accomplished scholar became firmly established.

In 1937, Zong Rinpoche was appointed abbot of Ganden Shartse Monastery, the seat of which he held for nine years. His abbotship is still remembered for many remarkable achievements – among others, Ganden Shartse gained new heights of exemplary monastic discipline (which he held closest to his heart) and scholarship. Also noteworthy was the improvement in the administrative structure of the monastery. Stung early by the difficulties faced by the poorest members, he successfully introduced reforms that went a long way to improve the monks’ living standards.

After resigning from his abbotship, after serving the monastery for more than nine years, Rinpoche went on a long pilgrimage to Tsari, one of the places where Je Tsongkhapa went for retreats. Intermittently throughout this period, reports could be heard of how he removed difficulties from the lives of innumerable people through his humble though powerful demonstrations of tantric attainments. The well-known Geshe Rinpoche Tenzin Choephel, whose defects in eyes deprived him of his movement, invited Zong Rinpoche in the hopes of possible cure; after several ablutions by Rinpoche, it became possible for him to dispense with his cane and walk unaided.

At Ganden, its adjacent lower lands, Dechen, Maldo, Chheka, Zibuk and many other areas of Tibet, he quietly and successfully converted many powerful local spirits haunting livestock and people. His power to bring, and stop rain and hailstorms came to be recognized by everyone. At one time he made a frog model out of clay and filled it with mantra scrolls and consecrated it. When the hailstorms came, this clay frog moved, as if it was alive, and directed its face towards hailstorms thus stopping its destruction.

His name spread all over the country as being a powerful tantrician. He gave many empowerments and teachings on those subjects with a special emphasis on the Tantras of Heruka, Hayagriva, Yamantaka, Dorje Shugden, Guhyasamaja, Vajrayogini, White Tara and Vaishravana, among others. As a philosopher, he was a follower of the Middle-Way school and gave many teachings on Madhyamika and Abhidharma.

Rinpoche was known as a strong, detached and wrathful Lama. He had impeccable knowledge of all rituals, art and science, and never hesitated to give reasons for his actions or why a religious painting was wrong. He was renowned for his powerful magic, as a result of which the most marvelous, indescribable signs occurred.

Rinpoche spent the years after 1946 and until his exile in 1959 traveling to many monasteries, removing hindrances, doing rituals, and giving many initiations, transmissions, commentaries and instruction in the profound and extensive Dharma. There were many incidents where he showed different levels of spiritual powers (too many to recount in this short profile) thus revealing to his followers that the world we know is not just confined to what we can perceive with our five senses.

In the aftermath of the Chinese invasion in 1959 and complying with repeated requests from his disciples, Zong Rinpoche left Tibet and sought asylum in India along with numerous survivors of the Chinese invasion. There, amidst many hardships, he gave his disciples countless number of teachings, thus rekindling the flame of the Buddhist doctrine outside his country. He initially served as a teacher at Serme College, and then in 1965, took up the position as the principal of a college in Mussoorie. In 1967, he became the principal of the Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies and finally in 1970, he settled at Mundgod in South India where Ganden Monastery was reestablished. He was also known as a talented astrologer and artist. Since 1978, by the request of Lama Yeshe, he travelled with Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa on several world tours to give tantric teachings, empowerments and Sutra teachings.

Upon repeated invitations from many Western Dharma centers, he went on teaching visits abroad three times. These trips included visits to the U.K., Switzerland, West Germany, Italy, France, Spain, U.S.A. and Canada. Max Comfort, one of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche’s Western students said that Zong Rinpoche, “had tremendous presence and always commanded people’s respect”.

In the West, Zong Rinpoche was always fascinated by how things were made and how they worked. He was also known for being incredibly skillful with his hands and knew how to make many things. On a visit to the Tower of London, Max remembers, “he captivated a crowd of tourists with his detailed and accurate explanation of the workings of an ancient blunderbuss.” Zong Rinpoche's ripe wisdom and penetrating insights on everything he taught touched his listeners to the core of their very being. Most notably, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche would be remembered most prominently as the first Tibetan master to seriously bring his Western listeners face to face with the most profound aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.

Owing to his vast knowledge (he was sometimes called a walking dictionary of Buddhism) on Sutra and Tantra, his disciple includes most of the abbots and ex-abbots of Gelugpa monasteries, adepts and Tulkus. Some of his foremost disciples in his monastery were Kyabje Zemey Rinpoche, Kyabje Lati Rinpoche, Ven. Khensur Jampa Yeshi, the late Sharpa Choeje Lobsang Nyima, present Sharpa Choeje Lungrig Namgyel, Ven Khensur Achok Rinpoche as well as many other students who have become esteemed teachers in their own right.

To the profound grief of his Tibetan and Western students, Venerable Zong Rinpoche passed away on November 15, 1984, without manifesting any signs of illness. The most interesting thing is that Rinpoche had marked the date of his death and cremation in his personal dairy prior to his death. His disciples only noticed this after they had consulted the astrologer for the cremation date. This meant that he had already carefully planned his demise and subsequent rebirth.

On the morning of November 24, members of Zong Labrang, headed by Ven. Kyabje Zemey Rinpoche, opened the cremation hearth. Among his ashes they found his skull, unburned and completely intact. This was only the beginning however; between the two hollow pans placed back to the back in the lower side of the hearth (the outer rim of the upper pan cemented to the inner walls of the hearth while the lower pan was upturned to cover the sand mandala beneath) they found a large quantity of relic pills. Finally, when the lower pan was removed, everyone present, including some of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche's Western disciples, saw in the sand mandala two unmistaken thumb-sized footprints complete with toes and heels. The discovery of these extraordinary signs made everyone heave a sigh of relief. These definitive signs had reaffirmed their faith in Kyabje Zong Rinpoche and they were assured of his swift return.

True to the above signs, his new incarnation was born in the Kullu valley in Northern India. Soon after, he was recognized by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and enthroned at Ganden Shartse monastery in South India. Like his previous incarnation, he has shown many heart-moving signs which confirm that he is the real Zong Rinpoche, with only a change in his physical appearance. The present incarnation of Zong Rinpoche is currently fully engaged in the study of Sutra and Tantra at Ganden Shartse Monastic University under the care of illustrious teachers of Ganden, reliving the legacy of academic excellence and debate prowess of his predecessor.

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Zong Rinpoche Lobzang Tsondru, was born in Nangsang, Kham, in 1905. His father’s name was Jampa and his mother’s was Sonam Yangdzom. Lobzang Tsondru was born into a Nyingma family; both his father and grandfathers were ngakpas. Nevertheless, as a child he was recognized as the reincarnation of the Gelug master Zongtrul Tenpa Chopel (1836-1899).

Lobzang Tsondru was enrolled in the local monastery and already at a young age, his skill in the study and memorization of texts was impressive. In 1916, he travelled to U-Tsang and joined the Shartse College of Ganden Monastery, where he began his study of Pramāṇa, Mādhyamaka, Prajñāpāramitā, Vinaya and Abhidharma. It was at this time that Lobzang Tsondru met the young Third Trijang Rinpoche, Lobzang Yeshe Tendzin Gyatso (1901-1981), who would eventually become his root guru.

In 1928, Lobzang Tsondru debated in front of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Tubten Gyatso (1876-1933) in Lhasa and was subsequently awarded the Geshe Lharampa degree following the Monlam festival examinations. It was also from the Thirteenth Dalai Lama that Lobzang Tsondru received his full monastic ordination in the early years of his stay in Ganden. Following the award of his degree he entered Gyuto Monastery where he engaged in advanced tantric studies.

Following the completion of his studies, he was appointed the abbot of Ganden Shartse in 1937 by the regent Reting Rinpoche Tubten Jampel Yeshe Gyeltsen (1911-1947), and held this position for almost ten years. By this time, Lobzang Tsondru had a reputation for being extremely skillful in debate and in his knowledge of Mādhyamaka.

Following his abbotship, Lobzang Tsondru went on an extensive pilgrimage around Tibet, travelling to the holy mountain of Tsari and also returning to his homeland in Kham where he gave teachings and initiations to the local population. Lobzang Tsondru is still well known in the Gelug tradition for his vast knowledge of tantric practice. Particularly during his travels in the 1940s and 1950s, he is attributed with a number of miraculous events such as subduing local deities and spirits through wrathful rituals, curing physical ailments and the ability to control the weather.

Following the violent upheavals in Lhasa in 1959, Zong Rinpoche, like many Tibetans, followed the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tendzin Gyatso (b.1935) to India. In India he settled in Buxa, Assam, where the main Gelug monasteries had been re-established in an old British concentration camp. Although the tropical conditions were harsh and many monks died during this period in India, Lobzang Tsondru continued to give teachings to train a new generation of Gelug scholars and practitioners.

In 1965, at the request of the Dalai Lama, Lobzang Tsondru became the director of the Tibetan Schools Teachers Training Program in Mussoorie, and, in 1967, the Dalai Lama appointed him as the first principal of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Varanasi.

In 1971 Lobzang Tsondru moved to Ganden Shartse in the newly established Tibetan settlement in Mundgod, Karnataka and retired from his position in Varanasi. Although he spent his later years engaging in practice he also continued to teach. He made three journeys to the West, travelling around North America and Europe. The first of these journeys was made after repeated requests from Lama Tubten Yeshe (1935–1984) of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) in 1978, with the last being in 1983.

During his travels he gave teachings on both sutra and tantra, including teachings on the Chod of the Ganden Ear-Whispered Lineage, a practice he is well known for, as well as the life-entrustment of the controversial protector Dorje Shugden. Lobzang Tsondru also taught numerous western students in India and participated in giving teachings and empowerments during the FPMT’s First Dharma Celebration in Dharamsala in 1981, along with other high-ranking Gelug teachers such at the Dalai Lama, Ling Rinpoche Tubten Lungtok Tendzin Trinle (1903-1983), Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche Ngawang Lobzang Tubten Tobjor (1914-1983) as well as Lama Tubten Zopa (b.1946) and Lama Yeshe.

It was also in 1981 that Lobzang Tsondru’s root guru, Trijang Rinpoche, passed away in Mundgod. It was from Trijang Rinpoche that Lobzang Tsondru had received numerous important lineages such as those of Cittamaṇi Tārā, Vajrayogīni Naro Kechari, and Heruka Cakrasaṃvara. Lobzang Tsondru passed these lineages to his own students, many of whom were also Trijang Rinpoche’s students.

After a series of teachings and empowerments in Mundgod in 1983, which included Cittamaṇi Tārā and Hayagrīva, Zong Rinpoche fell ill. Following requests from his students and Dharma protector, communicating through a medium, Lobzang Tsondru became better. In the wake of his illness, Zong Rinpoche engaged in intensive practice and also was able to assist in the search for his root guru’s reincarnation.

However, in 1984, despite showing no signs of illness, Lobzang Tsondru suddenly passed away, much to the shock of everyone. Ceremonies such as gaṅacakra, and the self-entry initiations of Cittamaṇi Tārā, Vajrayogīni and Vajrabhairava were performed, along with other rituals. Following the cremation of his body after the end of his tukdam death-period meditation, a number of relics were found, some of which were enshrined in a stupa, completed in 1986, which stands today at Ganden Monastery in Lama Camp No.1 in Mundgod.

References:

Zasep Tulku. 1981. Kyabje Song Rinpoche: A Biography. Martin Willson, trans. London: Wisdom Publications.

Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. 2006. Chöd in the Ganden Tradition: The Oral Instructions of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche. David Molk, ed. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications.

Kyabje Song Rinpoche. 1979. “Birth, Death and Bardo” in Dreloma, Drepung Loseling Magazine. Lobsang Norbu Tsonawa, Michael Richards et al., trans.

Source : http://www.treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Zong%20Rinpoche%20
Lobzang%20Tsondru%20Tubten%20Gyeltsen/8612