Penor Rinpoche
Buddhist lama (1932–2009)
Kyabjé 3rd Drubwang Padma Norbu, Lekshe Chokyi Drayang, widely known as Penor Rinpoche (Tibetan: པདྨ་ནོར་བུ་, Wylie: pad ma nor bu, 30 January 1933 – 27 March 2009), was the 11th throneholder of the Palyul Lineage of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, and the 3rd Drubwang Padma Norbu. He is recognized as the incarnation of Vimalamitra, an 8th century Buddhist Monk. By the age of 17, he had received the corpus of Payul lineage teachings including Dzogchen teachings, and became a renowned Dzogchen master. He began his escape from Tibet in 1959 with 300 people, and only 30 arrived in India. While working alongside laborers, he rebuilt Palyul Monastery in Karnataka, India, where more than 5,000 Nyingma school monks and nuns study.
He was one of a very few teachers left from his generation who received all his traditional training in Tibet under the guidance of fully enlightened masters. His rebuilding of the Palyul tradition in exile has grown to include monasteries, nunneries, and retreat centers in Tibet, India, and Nepal with numerous western projects such as the Palyul Retreat Center in New York state.
Biography
Life in Tibet
The Third Drubwang Padma Norbu Rinpoche, Thubten Legshed Chokyi Drayang (Tibetan: ཐུབ་བསྟན་ལེགས་ལེགས་ཤད་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྒྲ་དབྱངས།, Wylie: thub bstan legs shad chos kyi sgra dbyangs), also known as Do-ngag Shedrub Tenzin Chog-lei Namgyal (Tibetan: ཐུབ་བསྟན་ལེགས་ལེགས་ཤད་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྒྲ་དབྱངས།, Wylie: mdo sngags shad sgrub bstan 'zin mchog las rnam rgyal) was born in 1932, the year of the Water Monkey, in the twelfth month, in the Powo region of Kham, East Tibet. He was recognized in 1936 by the Fifth Dzogchen Rinpoche (Thubten Chokyi Dorje) and Khenpo Ngawang Palzang (also known as Khenchen Ngagi Wangchuk, Ngawang Palzangpo, or Khenpo Ngagchung). Padma Norbu was formally enthroned by his root teacher, Thubten Chökyi Dawa (1894–1959) the second Chogtrul Rinpoche, and Karma Thegchog Nyingpo (1908–1958) the Fourth Karma Kuchen.
“Penor Rinpoche” enters the record as buddhist lama (1932–2009). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Penor, Rinpoche and Buddhist can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1088605. VIAF identifies the subject as 106766505. The Library of Congress control number is n2010000497. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1933, 2009, 1959 and 1932.
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