Pawo Choyning Dorjee

Pawo Choyning Dorjee

Pawo Choyning Dorjee

Pawo Choyning Dorjee helps the Scholarship Committee review applications. He finds it a very enriching and inspiring experience hearing personal stories of hope and aspiration from devoted Buddhist practitioners and students from the world over. Hearing their stories makes him appreciate the richness of the Buddhadharma even more.

Pawo is a story teller. He undertook a 5-year project of retracing Xuanzang’s 7th-century Journey to the West. He traveled the ancient silk roads of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India documenting the region’s ancient Buddhist sites and cultures. The photos and stories are documented in his book The Light of the Moon. He was the Producer of Rinpoche’s fourth feature film, Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait. In 2019, he wrote and directed his own feature film, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom. The film, which was made entirely with solar batteries in the world’s most remote school in the Himalayan glaciers, has won numerous international awards and became Bhutan’s first Oscar entry in 33 years.

I have been serving Rinpoche as part of his Khyentse Labrang in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, since 2006.