Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin was born in a small farming community in the Ngari region of Tibet. His ordination at age 13 began his important relationship with Tsechen Dongag Choeling, a Sakya monastery in Mundgod, India. His first teacher there was a monk from Shalu, who cared for him like a parent and influenced the young Jamyang Tenzin by example, rather than through any philosophical teachings.

After Khanpo Jamyang Tenzin had completed his basic training, and because of his qualities of quick intelligence and a well-developed faculty of memorization. he was encouraged to study at the recently founded Sakya College, by Geshe Jamyang Tsultrim. This fellow student, who was a few years senior to him, was the first scholar from Mundgod monastery to be admitted to the College.

The Sakya Centre's Lam Dre of 1976, was where Jamyang Tenzin first met Khenchen Appey Rinpoche, co-founder, with His Holiness Sakya Trizin, of Sakya College.  This great scholar was to be his mentor and teacher, and Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin developed under Rinpoche's guidance as one of the remarkable group of proteges who emerged from Sakya College's early years. His fellow students admired his grasp of the Abhidharma studies, for which his phenomenal memory was greatly useful.

His capacity to undertake administrative tasks was nurtured by Khenchen Appey Rinpoche's appointing and training him to be Sakya College's accountant and treasurer. And when the late Khenpo Migmar Tsering left Sakya College to work at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, in 1984, Jamyang Tenzin was appointed to fulfill those roles at Sakya College for several years.

A point of transformation in Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin's life was his undertaking of a three-year retreat from 1990 to 1993 under the guidance of His Eminence, Chogye Trichen Rinpoche. Having officially made the commitment to return to Mundgod at the conclusion of his retreat and without emphasizing any counted repetitions, Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin set out to internalize the teachings he had received and to integrate them deeply into his practice, both on and off-session. He relied upon a text of earlier pith instructions, which had been given by Deshung Ajam Rinpoche to practitioners in very remote places, as his support in initiating and developing his personal path of practice.

Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin had never felt the desire to go abroad or to study other things. After his retreat, during which a chronic health problem was cleansed and cured, his general level of health had nonetheless been weakened, requiring almost a year of rest before he took up his duties in Mundgod. There, his major priority was to upgrade the education of the young monks and to give them a thorough grounding in philosophical studies, while also taking responsibility for all the monastery's administration. Now that he was a more experienced leader, and a deepened practitioner, he found this task to be not nearly as stressful as his previous Sakya College duties. 

For many years, though this is not generally known, Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin has raised money to help not only dozens of Tibetan refugee families in South India, but also, in a non-discriminating fashion, he has equally helped those local Indian families most in need, through tireless work with European sponsors.

In 2001, Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin was requested by Khenchen Appey Rinpoche to work together with his good friend from Sakya College days, Dr. Ngawang Jorden, both as IBA's philosophy lecturers.  He and Dr. Jorden were entrusted with fulfilling the Most Venerable Khenchen Appey
Rinpoche's original vision for IBA, to provide philosophy and practice teachings to non-Tibetan speaking people.

Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin's years of retreat and his practical grasp of the workings of providing a top-level education make him an ideal teacher of IBA's practice-focussed courses. His IBA students benefit greatly, not only from his ability to quote freely from memory from any number of holy texts, but most profoundly from his example of humility, stability, simplicity and directness.

I am enjoying the IBA better and better. I see improvement in the students’ interest and inspiration towards the Dharma, especially in those who return year after year. Their understanding improves greatly and they also benefit a lot, personally. When one develops an understanding of Dharma, one is much better equipped to be effective in changing oneself, helping others and living harmoniously with our environment. All this is an immediate result of study.

- Khenpo Jamyang Tenzin