Biography
Lama Ivo (Ngakpa Rigpa'i Dorje Tsal) is a practitioner and teacher in the yogic tradition of the Great Perfection (Dzogchen) lineage of the Nyingma school. His life has been dedicated to the direct practice of the teachings outside of monastic institutions.
Beginning his study and retreat practice while still in his teens, he spent many years in the Himalayas under the guidance of some of the great masters of the last generation. His principal teachers included H.H. Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, the late head of the Nyingma lineage; Gangteng Tulku Rinpoche, the throne holder of the Pema Lingpa tradition and Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. He also received significant transmissions from H.H. the Dalai Lama, H.H. Sakya Trizin, Shar Khentrul Rinpoche, Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, H.E. Chogye Trichen Rinpoche, and more than fifteen other holders of the old Tibetan lineages, as well as some yogic lineages from teachers in Tibet who cannot be named for political reasons.
Over more than three decades of study and practice, Lama Ivo holds the complete transmissions of a special close yogic lineage of the Longchen Nyingthik, as well as the Khandro Nyingthik, Pema Lingpa’s Kunsang Gongdü, the Northern Treasures (Byang-gter), and several other Dzogchen cycles. He has completed a four-year solitary retreat and many shorter retreats and periods of strict seclusion, maintaining a simple yogic discipline centred on meditation and the lived experience of the yogic Dzogchen terma lineages.
In accordance with the advice of one of his root teachers, Lama Ivo has remained independent of monastic institutions in order to be able to transmit the yogic line of the terma lineages pure and effective. He teaches only to those sincerely committed to practice, guiding them quietly and directly, with no public activity.
Lama Ivo presently guides the Sky Dharma Community, a small circle of retreat practitioners based in Europe devoted to the continuity of authentic Dzogchen training. His manner of teaching is plain and uncompromising—grounded in direct experience, free from display, and offered in the spirit of gratitude to the lineage rather than personal pretence.