About Ngagpa

In Tibetan Buddhism and Bon, a Ngagpa is a non-monastic practitioner of Dzogchen who has received a skra dbang, a hair empowerment, for example in the Dudjom Tersar lineage. This empowers one's hair as the home of the dakinis and therefore can never be cut. The term is specifically used to refer to lamas and practitioners who are “tantric specialists” and may technically be applied to both married householder tantric priests and to those ordained monastics whose principal focus and specialization is vajrayana practice. However, in common parlance, “ngakpa” is often used only in reference to non monastic Vajrayana priests, especially those in the Nyingma and Bonpo traditions.