Tsering Dolma was the eldest daughter of a farming and horse trading family living in the hamlet of Taktser.

She was the eldest sister of the 14th Dalai Lama, and acted as a midwife to her mother during his birth in 1935 at the age of 16.

[1] She married Taklha Puntsok Tashi, a Tibetan politician in 1937 and they moved to Lhasa in 1940.

[2][3] She was part of the 1950 Tibetan delegation to India who met with Jawaharlal Nehru, and she also formed part of a 1954 delegation to Beijing to meet with Mao Zedong and the National People's Congress.

[4][3] She fled Tibet to India in response to the 1959 Tibetan uprising alongside her brother and other prominent Tibetans with the support of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Center.