Short answers, pulled from the story.
Sogyal Rinpoche, born Sonam Gyaltsen Lakar in 1947 in the Trehor region of Kham, Tibet, was a Tibetan Dzogchen lama recognized as the incarnation of the visionary saint Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa. He founded Rigpa, an international network of over 100 Buddhist centres in 23 countries, and authored The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. He died on the 28th of August 2019 in Thailand at age 72.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is a best-selling book by Sogyal Rinpoche, first launched in the United States in September 1992. It spent several weeks at the top of the bestseller lists and has since been printed in more than two million copies across 30 languages and 56 countries. The book grew out of Rinpoche's encounters in 1983 with figures in the caring professions and near-death research, including Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and Kenneth Ring.
Sogyal Rinpoche faced allegations of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of students, as well as misuse of charitable funds, with accusations stretching back to the 1970s. A $10 million civil lawsuit was filed in 1994 and settled out of court. In 2017, eight senior Rigpa students sent a twelve-page letter detailing the abuse, and a subsequent investigation by UK law firm Lewis Silkin LLP, whose report was released on the 5th of September 2018, upheld most of the allegations.
At a conference in Ladakh on the 1st of August 2017, the Dalai Lama referred to Sogyal Rinpoche as "my very good friend" and then said: "Now he is disgraced." He extended his criticism to Rigpa's organisation during an interaction with students from the University of California, San Diego, in Dharamsala on the 6th of September 2017.
Rigpa is an international network of Buddhist centres and groups founded by Sogyal Rinpoche, taking its name in 1979 from the Tibetan word for the innermost nature of mind. By the time of Sogyal Rinpoche's retirement in 2017, it encompassed over 100 centres and groups in 23 countries across Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. The French Buddhist Union suspended Rigpa France and its Lerab Ling centre in August 2017 before lifting the suspension in 2019.
Sogyal Rinpoche studied traditional Tibetan subjects at Dzongsar Monastery under tutors including Khenpo Appey. He later attended a Catholic school in Kalimpong in India, studied at Delhi University, and in 1971 was granted a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, as a visiting scholar in comparative religion. He also studied with many Tibetan Buddhist masters, especially Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche.