Tenzin Phuljung

Name:

Profession: Online Video Creator

Location: Dharamshala

Tenzin Phuljung was born to a poor farming family on 28th July 1989, in the Purung region of Ngari Province, Western Tibet. He is the second of four children. At six-years-old Tenzin, Phuljung left his family behind and made the arduous and dangerous journey to India by walking at nights and sleeping during days with a group of escapees.

Phuljung was enrolled to Tibetan Children’s Village Gopalpur after his arrival in India in 1995. During his eighth standard, he was recognized as a Tulku (a reincarnate in a lineage of high lamas) by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is considered as the reincarnation of the Late monk Yeshi Chophel, who is well known for his practice of Lamrim; the great treatise on the stages of the path to enlightenment in the Western Tibet. Late monk Yeshi Chophel had studied at the Drepung Monastery in Tibet. He devoted his life for the preservation and promotion of Tibetan Buddhism in the Western Tibet. He passed away on his way to India near the border of Tibet and Nepal in the late 1960s whilst escaping to India from Chinese repression.

As a reincarnated Tulku, Phuljung became a monk and moved to Drepung Loseling Monastery in South India. There he studied Tibetan Buddhist philosophy for almost six years before disrobing in 2010 and relocating to Dharamsala. He holds Bachelors and Masters in Perfection of Wisdom and Middle-way of Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy, respectively from Institute of Buddhist Dialectics based in Dharamsala.

However, Phuljung’s ultimate desire and interest lies in capturing moments on camera be it in the form of music videos or films. Beginning from his award-winning first film, ‘Can you hear me’ which scored him appreciations and prizes both from critics and audiences at the 2012 Tibetan Film Festival in Zurich and Dharamsala, Phuljung has made more than four films and documentaries; and helped create nine music videos for Tibetan music artists such as Yeshi Khando, Sonam Topden,  and Tenkun among others. Today, Phuljung is one of the finest and most popular online video creators in the Tibetan Diaspora. As part of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy’s (TCHRD) campaign against Gender-Based Violence, Phuljung also assisted in recording sixteen accounts of Gender-based-Violence faced by Tibetan women and girls from all walks of life.

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