Mindroling Monastery

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Mindroling Monastery is one of the six major monasteries of the Nyingma school in Tibet. It was founded by Rigzin Terdak Lingpa in 1676. Tendrak Lingpa's lineage is known as the Nyo lineage. Mindroling in Tibetan means "Place of Perfect Freedom". It is near Lhasa on the south side of the Tsangpo river.

Mindroling was damaged in 1718 by the Dzungar Mongols from East Turkistan. It was built again during the life of the Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelzang Gyatso (1708-1757).

Mindroling Monastery has a university. Nyingma scholars and yogis from all over Tibet studied there. The students studied Buddhist scriptures, astronomy, Tibetan lunar calendar, calligraphy, rhetoric, and Traditional Tibetan medicine. Monks studied thirteen major sutra and tantra texts of the Nyingma. They also learned from found teachings called terma. The head of the school was very important in Tibet.

At the time of the 1959 revolt against Chinese Communist rule in Central Tibet, there were around 300 monks at Mindroling. In the years after 1959, the monastery again was damaged, but not as badly as other monasteries such as Ganden. Now, the monastery is still being rebuilt .

In 1965, His Eminence Khochhen Rinpoche and a small group of monks started a new Mindroling monastery located near the hill town of Dehra Dun in Uttarakhand state, India. It now contains Ngagyur Nyingma College, one of the largest Buddhist institutes in India.

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