Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was one of the most realised Dzogchen and Mahamudra masters of the twentieth century, and the patriarch of the Nepal-anchored lineage that has shaped a generation of Western and Asian practitioners. A holder of the Chokling Tersar terma cycles transmitted through his great-grandfather Chokgyur Lingpa, he was also the maternal grandson of the great Barom Kagyü teacher Tersey Tulku.
After fleeing the destruction of Tibet, he established Nagi Gompa, a hermitage above the Kathmandu Valley on the southern slope of Shivapuri, and later built Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling at Boudhanath. He was renowned for the directness of his pointing-out instructions in the unified Mahamudra-Dzogchen tradition, distilled in his teaching cycle Rainbow Painting and the posthumous As It Is volumes compiled by Erik Pema Kunsang.
His four sons — Chokyi Nyima, Tsikey Chokling, Tsoknyi, and Mingyur Rinpoches — together with his grandson Phakchok Rinpoche, form the curatorial spine of the Nepal Vajrayana lineage that The Promised Studios takes as its editorial heart. He passed into parinirvana at Nagi Gompa in February 1996.