The Journey West

Rinpoche (in circle, wearing glasses) at the Young Lamas' Home School:

Freda Bedi , later to become the famous Sister Palmo (pictured here already a nun, top row, centre) and who was instrumental in the founding of the Young Lamas Home School, became a mother-figure for the Trungpa and Akong tulkus. It was through her and her blue-stocking contacts in Oxford that the idea of the two going to England, to improve their English, emerged and was then made a reality. The Akong and Trungpa rinpoches  each had an audience with the Karmapa before leaving. Trungpa Rinpoché was told to mainly teach dharma and Akong Rinpoché was advised to teach mainly Tibetan traditional medicine. The Karmapa signed a certificate making Akong Rinpoché a fully-qualified teacher of Tibetan medicine and sealed [1] it with a large seal . Ato Rinpoché was chosen to take subsequent charge of the tulku school and the two rinpochés sailed to the UK in 1963. Of the two, only Trungpa Rinpoché had a bursary and a place to study in an Oxford College.

[1]  I have seen this document and remember a square seal but do not know if it was the Karma Pakshi seal.

......continue to the next part of the story: the Oxford Years