Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987) was the 11th descendent in the line of Trungpa tülkus, important teachers of the Kagyü lineage, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism and renowned for its strong emphasis on meditation practice. In addition to being a key teacher within the Kagyü lineage, Chögyam Trungpa was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools and was an adherent of the Rime ("non-sectarian") ecumenical movement within Tibetan Buddhism, which aspired to bring together and make available all the valuable teachings of the different schools, free of sectarian rivalry. Throughout his life, he sought to bring the teachings he had received to the largest possible audience.

Already installed as the head of the Surmang monasteries in eastern Tibet, Trungpa Rinpoche was forced to flee the country in 1959, at the age of 20. Barely escaping Chinese invaders, he and a small party of monks made the perilous journey over the Himalayas to India on horseback and on foot. From 1959-1963, by appointment of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche served as the spiritual advisor for the Young Lamas Home School in Dalhousie, India.

In 1963, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche moved to England to study comparative religion, philosophy, and fine arts under a Spaulding Fellowship at Oxford University. During this time, he also studied Japanese flower arranging and received an instructors degree from the Sogetsu school. In 1967, he moved to Scotland, where he founded the Samye Ling meditation centre, the first Tibetan Buddhist practice centre in the West. Shortly thereafter, a variety of experiences--including a car accident that left him partially paralyzed on the left side of his body--led Trungpa Rinpoche to the decision to give up his monastic vows and work as a lay teacher. In 1969, he published Meditation in Action, the first of fourteen books on the spiritual path published during his lifetime. The following year represented yet another turning point in Trungpa Rinpoche's life, when he married Diana Pybus and moved to the United States, where he established his first North American meditation centre, Tail of the Tiger (now known as Karmê-Chöling) in Barnet, Vermont, USA.

A Decade of Powerful Activity

The ancient teachings and practical instructions that Chögyam Trungpa brought with him found an eager audience in the America of the 1970s, a decade during which he travelled nearly constantly throughout North America, published six books, established three meditation centres and a contemplative university (Naropa University). He became renowned for his unique ability to present the essence of the highest Buddhist teachings in a form readily understandable to Western students.

During this period, Chögyam Trungpa conducted six Vajradhatu Seminaries, three-month residential programmes at which he presented a vast body of Buddhist teachings in an atmosphere of intensive meditation practice. The seminaries assisted in the important function of training his students to become teachers themselves. Chögyam Trungpa also invited other teachers, including His Holiness the Gyalwang Karmapa--head of the Kagyü lineage--to come to the West and offer teachings.

It was also during this period that Chögyam Trungpa founded Vajradhatu (based in Boulder, Colorado, USA), the umbrella organisation for the many centres that were springing up throughout the world under his direction. In 1976, he appointed Thomas Rich to be his Vajra Regent, a traditional position giving someone the responsibility of carrying on the teaching legacy left by a teacher. Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin was the first westerner to be acknowledged as a lineage holder in the Kagyü tradition.

Shambhala Training and Nalanda

Late in the 1970s, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche expressed his long-held desire to present contemplative practice to those who were not specifically interested in studying Buddhism. He developed a programme called Shambhala Training, inspired by the legendary enlightened kingdom of that name. During the 1980s, while continuing teaching tours, Vajradhatu Seminaries, and book publication--and establishing a Buddhist monastery in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada--Trungpa Rinpoche increasingly turned his attention to the propagation of teachings that included not only Shambhala Training, which was attracting thousands of students, but also Japanese archery, calligraphy, flower arranging, tea ceremony, health care, dance, theatre, and psychotherapy, among others. In planting the seeds for these many activities, Trungpa Rinpoche sought to bring, in his words, "art to everyday life." He founded the Nalanda Foundation in 1974 as an umbrella organisation for these activities.

The essence of the organisation that Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche had founded was the offering of meditation instruction and teaching programmes at the more than 100 city-based centres spread throughout the world and at the several rural contemplative centres where intensive meditation and study programmes were held. At these various centres, which formed a large and somewhat informal network, students were introduced to the possibility of integrating meditation practice and study into their everyday lives. Depending on their interests and inclinations, students engaged in any of the many contemplative activities that are now part of Shambhala International--from traditional meditation practice to flower arranging and dance.

A New Era

In 1986, based on his desire to establish the centre of his organisation in a less agressive and materialistic atmosphere, Trungpa Rinpoche moved to the province of Nova Scotia in Canada, where hundreds of his students had already settled.

It would prove to be the last of his many moves. Not long afterwards, in April 1987, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's life came to an end. His passing was marked in an elaborate day-long ceremony, attracting more than 3,000 people, held on the Vermont land where he had first established a foothold in North America.

For more information, including teachings by Trungpa Rinpoche, visit www.shambhala.org/teachers/vctr