From Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche Prologue:

Since you have asked so many times, I will tell a bit about my life. In our Tibetan tradition, we begin a life story by tracing back one's family to its origins. My family name is Tsangsar. My other name, as I am considered a reincarnation of a yogi, is Chöwang Tulku.

I was born in Central Tibet, taken to Kham, then went back and forth between the two several times. I fled the communists to Sikkim and finally moved to Nepal, where I am now living as an old man. That's my life in a nutshell. I haven't accomplished any great deeds. Mostly it's just one sad event after another.

Whenever I tell a story, I always avoid the two shortcomings of exaggeration and denigration-neither adding any extra qualities that someone does not possess nor refusing to acknowledge qualities that are truly present. As I am not the type of person who remembers specific dates, don't look for any clear chronology here.

I can, however, tell you some of the stories I have heard, many of which come from my grandmother.

From "My father's Abduction":

..... Not long after the funeral, Grandmother had to travel to Tsikey. As her party came out of a narrow pass, they suddenly confronted twenty-five monks on horseback. The monks blocked the trail; except for the absence of rifles, it was like facing a division of an opposing army ready for battle. They demanded Grandmother hand her son over to them right then and there.
Chimey Dorje, was only three, but he was clever. When the monks were about to grab him, he objected, "I'm not Sönam Yeshe's tulku. It's him!" and he pointed at his brother, my uncle Sang-Ngak, who was standing next to him.
Unfortunately, one of the monks in the "welcoming party" knew better and retorted, "It's not true. That's his brother."
During this confrontation, Grandmother's attendants had their hands on their knives. "We can at least kill a few of them," they whispered to her. "What do you want us to do?"
"No, today there is no need to shed blood," my grandmother cautioned. "Anyway, there are twenty-five of them; you would be lucky to overcome eight or ten. They have the upper hand, so they win this round. Rainbows don't appear every day-let's be patient. Our day will come."
You can see how obstinate some Khampas can be: Könchok Paldrön's small child was being abducted in front of her very eyes and there was nothing she could do.
In the meantime, a monk had grabbed Chimey Dorje, wrapping him up tightly in his shawl and the maroon-clad gang of monks carried him off.

About his personal teacher:

Samten Gyatso always considered being a vajra master or guru for others a personal obstacle, even though he was very successful at it and became very famous. Because his chief aim had actually been to spend his life practicing alone in caves, he lamented to me, "I have the feeling that my whole life has gone in the wrong direction-that I fell under the sway of obstacles."
In the past, the tradition was that one obeyed the command of one's guru, who would say, "Go to such-and-such a place and raise the victory banner of realization. When you have reached accomplishment, then you can truly benefit beings."
The disciple would go to that spot and practice one-pointedly until reaching realization. Afterward, he or she would venture out into the world to benefit beings. That is the way it should be. Without receiving permission or the command from one's guru, one does not start to work for the welfare of others as a vajra master. But after receiving the command or permission, one should definitely undertake the task.
When Samten Gyatso grew older, he often thought, "I should have stayed in caves, but instead I fell under the power of hindrances."
This wasn't just talk: he actually felt that way. He had no ambition to become a vajra master or sit above anyone else. He once explained, "Being successful is actually called the pleasant obstacle. Whereas any unpleasant obstacle is easily recognized by all, success is rarely acknowledged to be a barrier on the path. Unpleasant obstacles include, for example, being defamed or implicated in scandal, falling sick or otherwise meeting with failure and misfortune. Able practitioners can deal with these. They recognize these situations as obstacles and use them as part of the path.
"But with pleasant obstacles-such as becoming renowned, having disciples gather around you and working for the welfare of others-one starts to think, 'Well, now! I'm becoming really special. I'm benefiting many beings. Everything is fine! I'm so successful'-without recognizing that the infatuation with success is a major hindrance to progress."
When this happens, Samten Gyatso warned that people only think, "My altruistic capacity to benefit others is expanding!" This is what they tell themselves, all the while failing to notice that they have actually fallen prey to an obstacle.

Preparing to leave Tibet:

I had left my two sons and their mother at Drong monastery, north of the city, and sent a messenger to fetch them. When they arrived I told them of my decision to go to Sikkim.
Hearing of this my brother-in-law Wangdu, who was a Central Tibetan aristocrat, exclaimed, "The Potala palace in the heart of the Lhasa valley is like a splendid tangka painting upon which the Dalai Lama shines like a radiant sun. How can the Chinese communists be any match for such a lofty presence? The communist army may run over you Khampas without any problems, but there is no way in the world that they can conquer the Central Tibetan government."
"The Chinese army has an incredible number of battalions, each with thousands of soldiers," I replied. "Please tell me the exact number of conscripts in the Central Tibetan army, which you consider so formidable. I wonder if they can muster any more than a mere ten or twenty thousand troops. When a mountain comes crumbling down in an avalanche, simple trees and bushes are unable to hold it back."
My brother-in-law would hear nothing of it. His attitude was typical of most the Central Tibetan aristocracy: unwilling to entertain even the thought that his country was about to be crushed. So, my wife and her family simply refused to go.
As one of them put it, "There is no way we can just abandon our property and wealth!"
So I left on my own.

From The Master in the Hollow Tree

Tricycle Magazine features a wonderful story of Jamdrak, the eccentric yogi-master who lived out his days in a hollow tree trunk: Tricycle, August, 2005, page 46-49.

By the time Jokyab had set off to see him, Jamdrak was eighty-three years old. He lived contentedly in the hollow formed by the roots of a huge tree at a remote hermitage way up in the mountains. The old master couldn't sit up straight, as his spine had curved with age. Jamdrak was not only extremely old by Tibetan standards, but he was quite peculiar in his ways. He wore a large cotton bib around his neck because he tended to drool, and he never blew his nose but let it run freely. He couldn't care less what people thought about how he looked. He was a real yogi. He didn't wear the shirt and shawl of an ordained practitioner-just a coat fashioned out of scraps of old sheepskin, the outside patched together with different kinds of cloth. One of these was a large piece of exquisite brocade with a golden dragon design. Apparently, he had stitched this fine swatch of silk on his tattered robe after someone offered it to him, though it cost him a few bitter remarks from the manager of the nearby monastery, who hated to see such good brocade go to waste like that. Jokyab made the arduous journey-several weeks on foot and horseback-to Jamdrak's hermitage accompanied by a friend who was an incarnate lama. But once they finally arrived, Jamdrak's first words to them were, “Three years ago I started life-retreat.” By that he meant he'd made a commitment to remain in retreat until death. “I don't teach anymore,” he continued. “I'm far too old for that. Please don't be angry.” Jokyab and his friend weren't angry, but they were extremely upset. To be turned down this way, especially after traveling such a long distance, was a huge disappointment. So they kept insisting. “Come back tomorrow morning,” was Jamdrak's only reply. (Read more...)