American NBC cameraman with Ebola is 'reincarnation of Tibetan teacher' whose English aristocrat mother married Buddhist guru when aged 16

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The NBC News cameraman who is infected with Ebola is the son of a renowned Tibetan monk responsible for bringing Buddhism to the West in the 1970s. His mother is an English aristocrat who was seduced at age 15 by the guru and married him at 16.

When Ashoka Mukpo was just 8 months old, his father - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche - announced that the boy was a 'tulku' - the reincarnation of a Tibetan Buddhist Lama.

Mr Mukpo later traveled to Tibet, where he was enthroned and honored as the ninth reincarnation of Khamnyon Rinpoche, 'the Mad Yogi of Kham.'

A further twist in the cameraman's life: Trungpa, who is considered his father, is not his biological dad. His biological father is actually Mitchell Levy - a Jewish doctor from New York who was Trungpa's personal physician - whom his mother Lady Diana Mukpo was sleeping with at the time.

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Ashoka Mukpo, the NBC News cameraman infected with Ebola, was named the reincarnation of a Buddhist Lama. He is seen here in Tibet  at a ceremony where he was enthroned as the ninth incarnation of Khamnyon Rinpoche, the so-called 'Mad Yogi of Kham'

Colorful family: Ashoka Mukpo,  an 33-year-old American freelance journalist working in Monrovia, Liberia, has tested positive for Ebola, his biological father has confirmed

Controversial: Mukpo's mother Diana and his adoptive father Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, pictured shortly after their controversial marriage, when she was just a 16-year-old schoolgirl and he a 30-year-old monk

The 33-year-old Mr Mukpo remains a Buddhist. But, despite his wild family history and divine lineage, he has rejected the path of a monk. Instead, he chose a life working for nonprofits and has said his calling is to help alleviate suffering in the world. 

After his father Trungpa died in 1987, his mother married his biological father, Dr Levy and moved to quiet suburban Providence, Rhode Island. 

'I don't think my role is to be a teacher and to be wearing the robes and to be up on a throne. And if that makes me failed tulku, then maybe that's just my karma,' he said in the 2009 documentary Tulku produced by his half-brother.

'I still think I can be of some kind of benefit to somebody. And that's what being a Buddhist, I think, is about.' 

Mr Mukpo, who earned a master's degree from the London School of Economics, has been in Liberia on and off since 2012, and had worked for an NGO helping Liberians gain legal rights to the land they lived on, according to an interview with Details magazine. 

He had recently taken a freelance job as a cameraman on an NBC News crew in Liberia, working with the network's chief medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman. It was while working for NBC that he got sick and was diagnosed with Ebola. 

Dr Snyderman and her team are returning to the U.S. today and will put themselves into a voluntary 21-day quarantine. 

Mr Mukpo is being cared for by Doctors Without Borders in Monrovia, Liberia and is expected to be flown back to a special Centers for Disease Control facility in Nebraska on Monday. 

Speaking out: Mr Mukpo's biological father Dr Mitchell Levy and his mother Lady Diana Judith Mukpo said their son's prognosis remains good, despite the horrifying diagnosis

The indulgent monk: Chögyam Trungpa, seen here in the early 1970s with Lady Diana, was known for smoking, drinking and taking drugs. He also slept with many of his students - even after getting married

Mr Mukpo's father was a hard-drinking, womanizing Buddhist luminary who founded the first Buddhist monastery in the West and taught the likes of Davie Bowie, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Joni Mitchell in the 1960s and 70s.

Chögyam Trungpa was known for his wild, hedonistic Tantric parties that were fueled by drugs, booze and sex. He frequently seduced and slept with his students - claiming that it would help them on their path to enlightenment. 

He died at age 48 in 1987 from complications from extreme alcoholism after founding the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Galloway, Scotland, and the Shambhala Mountain Center outside Boulder, Colorado.

His mother is Lady Diana Judith Mukpo, born Diana Pybus, the daughter of a wealthy London lawyer.

She attended Benenden School, an all-girl's boarding school in Kent, England, where she is thought to have been a contemporary of Princess Anne and Baroness Manningham-Buller, former Director General of MI5.

In December 1968, aged 15 and on her Christmas break from Benenden, Diana met 28-year-old Chögyam Mukpo, or Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche as he was known as a lama, at the Buddhist Society in London’s Eccleston Square.

In the documentary Tulku, she recalled the first time she laid eyes on the monk, saying: 'I felt like I'd known him for lifetimes. Just immediate, instantaneous lifetime connection. and the rest is history.'

She later sneaked out of her boarding school stole into his hotel room that night. She later recalled that she had been hoping that she would end up in bed with him when she introduced herself. 

Luminaries: Trungpa founded a monastery outside Boulder, Colorado, where he attracted poets, writers and musicians. He is seen here with Allen Ginsberg

Holy man: Mr Mukpo is a tulku, a child who is a reincarnation of a Buddhist master

Trungpa, who had been having sex since age 13, obliged.  

Trungpa had traveled to Britain in 1963 on a scholarship to study at Oxford University after fleeing the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and shortly before meeting Diana, he had been teaching David Bowie about Buddhism.

In 1970, Diana, just 16 and the Tibetan guru, aged 30, ran away to Scotland to marry.

The sensational story of the lawyer's teenage daughter who ran away to marry a monk nearly twice her age became front page news.

'We must have been quite a sight,' Mrs Mukpo wrote in 2002.

'Thirty-year-old Rinpoche, a rather short Tibetan, crippled with a special caliper on his leg and a cumbersome walker to support him, and me, Diana Pybus, a tall, sixteen-year-old girl with long blond hair.’

The cameraman took to Facebook on a number of occasions while in West Africa, describing the desperation of the situation as it unfolded. 

On September 18, he posted a message describing how he has seen some 'bad things' and told his friends how 'unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be'. 

The message appeared on the page: 'Man oh man I have seen some bad things in the last two weeks of my life. 

'How unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be. 

'How in some parts of the world, basic levels of help and assistance that we take for granted completely don't exist for many people. 

'The raw coldness of deprivation and the potential for true darkness that exists in the human experience. 

'I hope that humanity can figure out how we can take care of each other and our world. 

'Simple, soft aspiration for all my brothers and sisters on this earth who suffer the elements and the cold. may we all be free, loved, and tended to... ' 

Mukpo had been doing human rights work in West Africa for 'several years before returning to Liberia when the Ebola outbreak began, his biological father, Dr Mitchell Levy said in a statement.

'Having lived there for the last several years, Ashoka was well aware of the risks but felt strongly about trying to help provide honest perspective from the ground level.'

Dr Levy confirmed his son had been diagnosed and said: 'Ashoka is being evacuated to the USA where he will receive the best possible treatment. The doctors are optimistic about his prognosis.'

Religious reincarnation: As a tulku child, Ashoka travelled to Tibet with his family at a young age and was ‘enthroned’ as the reincarnation of a highly regarded monk named Khamyon Rinpoche

Mukpo, from Providence, Rhode Island, recently posted on Facebook that he had seen some 'bad things' and told his friends how 'unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be' 

Inspired: Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche taught David Bowie mediation at a centre in Scotland in the late 1960s

'We are doing everything we can to get him the best care possible. He will be flown back to the United States for treatment at a medical center that is equipped to handle Ebola patients,' said NBC News President Deborah Turness said in a note to staff concerning the sick journalist. 

'The rest of the crew, including Dr. Nancy, are being closely monitored and show no symptoms or warning signs,' she added. 

'However, in an abundance of caution, we will fly them back on a private charter flight and then they will place themselves under quarantine in the United States for 21 days – which is at the most conservative end of the spectrum of medical guidance.'

Speaking to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday evening, Dr Snyderman said that just the previous day the cameraman had appeared healthy when they were required to have their temperatures taken as a border crossing. 

At that time his temperature was considered normal, but as the day progressed he felt tired and achy and went to get some rest.

After he discovered that he was running a slight fever, he immediately quarantined himself and sought medical advice. 

Mukpo has been involved in securing workers' rights in the West African countries and was a former advocate for a Non-Governmental Organisation

Snyderman has tweeted her thanks for the support she has received since a member of her team in Liberia was diagnosed with Ebola