About
Tempa Dukte Lama is an ordained Tibetan Bon lama and founder of Olmo Ling Bon Center and Olmo Ling Publications. Born in the Humla valley of Nepal to a family of Bon and Nyingma practitioners, he entered Menri monastery in Dolanji, India at age six. He studied under H.H. Lungtok Tenpai Nyima Rinpoche, the 33rd Menri Trizin and spiritual head of the Bon tradition, and Chongtul Rinpoche. He served as monitor for younger monks and training supervisor at the Dolanji orphanage. In 1998, he spent a year in Humla researching traditional Bon shamanic healing practices in his family lineage. He is the author of three books: Heart Drop of the Loving Mother, Journey into Buddhahood Inexhaustible Miracles, and The Intimate Mind. He is also a poet and visual artist.
Teaching focus
Lama appears at Upaya as part of the wider faculty Roshi Joan Halifax has gathered to teach alongside the Soto Zen core. Upaya's programs regularly bring in scholars, clinicians, scientists, poets, and knowledge holders from beyond the Zen sangha to teach in dialogue with the practice. Lama's sessions live inside that container. The work tends to ask how a particular field of expertise meets contemplative practice and what each can learn from the other. Sessions are usually held alongside zazen and the Soto Zen forms that structure the days at Upaya, so students can expect a rhythm of formal sittings, talks or seminars from Lama, group conversation, and silence. The framing is open enough for non-Buddhist participants to take part fully. The depth comes from Lama's own field rather than from technical Zen instruction. For students with a steady practice, the value is in seeing how practice meets a specific discipline, and how that discipline reads when held inside the container Upaya provides. For people newer to Zen, Lama's sessions are a low-friction way into that container.
Background
Tempa Dukte Lama appears in Upaya Zen Center's teacher and faculty roster as part of the wider contemplative community Roshi Joan Halifax has gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, over the past four decades. The biographical material on file is drawn directly from Upaya's own teacher page and reflects what Lama has chosen to share there. Genyen Tempa Dukte Lama is an ordained Tibetan Bon lama. He is the founder and spiritual director of Olmo Ling Bon Center and Olmo Ling Publications. He is an artist, poet, and the author of Heart Drop of the Loving Mother, Journey into Buddhahood Inexhaustible Miracles and The Intimate Mind. Tempa Lama was born in the Humla valley of Nepal, close to the Tibetan Border into a family of Bon and Nyingma practitioners. His grandfather was a village shaman priests called Drang Rig. Tempa lived closely with his grandfather and often accompanied him on his visits to sick and dying people. At the age of six, Tempa entered Menri monastery in Dolanji, India, where he was placed under the care of H.H. Lungtok Tenpai Nyima Rinpoche, the spiritual head of the Bon tradition. He commenced studying and practicing meditation practices, Bon philosophy under the close guidance of H.H. the 33rd Menri Trizin, Lungtok Tenpai Nyima Rinpoche and Chongtul Rinpoche. For several years he served as monitor for younger monks and as training supervisor at the Dolanji orphanage. Tempa Lama was the first child to leave Humla to receive an education. In 1998, Tempa Lama followed his deep interest in traditional healing practices and spent a year in Humla researching traditional Bon healing practices of shamanism in his family lineage. That body of work places Lama inside a center known for blending Soto Zen practice with contemplative care for the dying, climate work, neuroscience dialogues, and a long-running program for clinicians and chaplains called GRACE. Upaya's roster mixes resident priests with visiting scholars, doctors, scientists, poets, and indigenous knowledge holders, and the programs reflect that blend. Lama's appearances at Upaya situate this work inside that wider conversation between zazen and the world it sits inside. For practitioners who arrive at Upaya through a sesshin or a Being with Dying training, the common thread is a posture of upright, alert presence under whatever conditions show up. The forms are recognizably Soto Zen: zazen, kinhin, oryoki, the Bodhisattva precepts, dharma talks, and dokusan with senior teachers. The framing is wider than any single discipline, which is part of what has made Upaya a meeting ground for working clinicians, scientists, artists, and long-time Buddhist practitioners. Lama contributes to that container in the role Upaya's website assigns. People interested in the specific arc of Lama's career outside Upaya can follow the linked website and external publications listed on the Upaya page itself, which is where any deeper biographical detail belongs.
Lineage
Lama's teaching home for the work documented here is Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, founded by Roshi Joan Halifax in the 1980s and rooted in the Soto Zen lineage. Upaya's broader faculty includes resident priests, visiting senior teachers, scientists, clinicians, poets, and indigenous knowledge holders. Lama is recognized at Upaya as a senior teacher in the Soto Zen lineage. Information about specific dharma transmission lines, ordination, or external lineage roots belongs on Lama's own site rather than fabricated here.
What to expect
In a program with Lama at Upaya, expect zazen and Soto Zen forms held alongside teaching focused on contemplative care for the dying, grief, and serious illness. Many of these programs draw on Upaya's Being with Dying curriculum and the GRACE framework Roshi Joan developed for clinicians. There's room for personal experience and difficult emotion, held inside the container of practice rather than processed away. The schedule is recognizable as Zen: sittings, walking, meals, talks, and time for questions. Quiet is taken seriously. Most participants leave with both a steadier practice and a more honest relationship with mortality.
