Early years (left) and Chögyam Trungpa Born in the
Nangchen region of
Tibet in March 1939, Chögyam Trungpa was eleventh in the line of
Trungpa tülkus, important figures in the
Kagyu lineage, one of the four main schools of
Tibetan Buddhism. Among his three main teachers were
Jamgon Kongtrul of Sechen, HH
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and
Khenpo Gangshar. The name
Chögyam is a contraction of
Chökyi Gyamtso (), which means "Ocean of
Dharma".
Trungpa () means "attendant". He was deeply trained in the Kagyu tradition and received his
khenpo degree at the same time as
Thrangu Rinpoche; they continued to be very close in later years. Chögyam Trungpa was also trained in the
Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools, and was an adherent of the
ri-mé ("nonsectarian") 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. At the time of his escape from Tibet, Trungpa was head of the Surmang group of monasteries.
Escape from Tibet On April 23, 1959, the 20-year-old Trungpa set out on a nine-month escape from
his homeland. Masked in his account in
Born in Tibet to protect those left behind, the first, preparatory stage of his escape had begun a year earlier, when he fled his home monastery after its occupation by the
Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). After spending the winter in hiding, he decided definitively to escape after learning that
his monastery had been destroyed. Trungpa started with
Akong Rinpoche and a small party of
Buddhist monastics, but as they traveled people asked to join until the party eventually numbered 300 refugees, from the elderly to mothers with babies. Even the Queen of Nangchen joined for a period. then, eating their leather belts and bags to survive, they climbed 19,000 feet over the Himalayas before reaching the safety of Pema Ko. After reaching
India, on January 24, 1960, the party was flown to a
refugee camp. Between 2006 and 2010, independent Canadian and French researchers using
satellite imagery tracked and confirmed Trungpa's escape route. In 2012, five survivors of the escape in
Nepal,
Scotland, and the
United States confirmed details of the journey and supplied their personal accounts. More recent analysis has shown the journey to be directly comparable to such sagas as
Shackleton's
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. In 2016 accumulated research and survivors' stories were published in a full retelling of the story, and later in the year preliminary talks began on the funding and production of a movie.
Early teachings in the West The
16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, was known for seeing the future and made plans accordingly. In 1954, shortly after giving Trungpa the
monastic vows, the Karmapa turned to him and said, "In the future you will bring Dharma to the West". At the time, Trungpa wondered what he could be talking about. In exile in India, Trungpa began his study of English.
Freda Bedi then initiated a project with Trungpa and Akong Tulku called the
Young Lamas Home School in
Dalhousie, India. After seeking endorsement from the
14th Dalai Lama, they were appointed its spiritual director and administrator respectively. In 1963, with the assistance of Bedi and other sympathetic Westerners, Trungpa received a grant from the
Spalding Trust to spend time at
Oxford, and was granted "common room" access to
St Antony's College, at
Oxford University. Akong Rinpoche and another monk shared a flat with Trungpa. In 1966, after the departure of the western
Theravadin monk Ananda Bodhi, the Johnstone House Trust in
Scotland invited Trungpa and Akong to take over Ananda Bodhi's
meditation center, which in 1967 became
Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West. Musician
David Bowie had been one of Ananda Bodhi's meditation students there. He made that decision principally to mitigate students' becoming distracted by exotic cultures and dress and to undercut their preconceptions of how a
guru should behave.
Introduction of the Vajrayana Trungpa was one of the first teachers to introduce
Tibetan Buddhism and the
Vajrayana to the West. As in Tibet, the schools of the Vajrayana Buddhism and their practices are the domain of everyone, including the
monastic sangha, the vow-holding
sangha, and the lay
sangha. In the United States, Trungpa introduced the Vajrayana mostly to the lay
sangha. The presentation of these teachings gave rise to some criticism. According to Trungpa's former student Stephen Butterfield, "Trungpa told us that if we ever tried to leave the Vajrayana, we would suffer unbearable, subtle, continuous anguish, and disasters would pursue us like furies". Other Vajrayana teachers also warn their students about the dangers of the path. Butterfield said, "to be part of Trungpa's inner circle, you had to take a vow never to reveal or even discuss some of the things he did." But Butterfield also said, "This personal secrecy is common with gurus, especially in Vajrayana Buddhism", and though he noted "disquieting resemblances" to cults, acknowledged that Trungpa's organization is not a cult: "a mere cult leaves you disgusted and disillusioned, wondering how you could have been a fool. I did not feel that charlatans had hoodwinked me into giving up my powers to enhance theirs. On the contrary, mine were unveiled."
Meditation and education centers In 1973, Trungpa established
Vajradhatu, encompassing all his North American institutions, headquartered in
Boulder, Colorado. Trungpa also founded more than 100 meditation centers throughout the world. Originally known as Dharmadhatus, these centers, now more than 150 in number, are known as
Shambhala Meditation Centers. He also founded retreat centers for intensive meditation practice, including
Rocky Mountain Dharma Center in
Red Feather Lakes, Colorado,
Karmê Chöling in
Barnet, Vermont, and
Gampo Abbey in
Cape Breton,
Nova Scotia. In 1974, Trungpa founded the Naropa Institute, which later became
Naropa University, in
Boulder, Colorado. Naropa was the first accredited
Buddhist university in North America. Trungpa hired
Allen Ginsberg to teach
poetry and
William Burroughs to teach
literature. Trungpa had a number of notable students, among whom were
Pema Chödrön,
Allen Ginsberg,
Peter Orlovsky,
Anne Waldman,
Diane di Prima,
Peter Lieberson,
John Steinbeck IV,
José Argüelles,
David Nichtern,
Ken Wilber,
David Deida,
Francisco Varela, and
Joni Mitchell, who portrayed Trungpa in the song "Refuge of the Roads" on her 1976 album
Hejira. Ginsberg, Waldman, and di Prima also taught at Naropa University, and in the 1980s
Marianne Faithfull taught songwriting workshops. Lesser-known students Trungpa taught in England and the US include Alf Vial,
Rigdzin Shikpo (né Michael Hookham), Jigme Rinzen (né P. Howard Useche), Karma Tendzin Dorje (né Mike Crowley), Ezequiel Hernandez Urdaneta (known as Keun-Tshen Goba after setting up his first meditation center in Venezuela), Miguel Otaola (aka
Dorje Khandro), Francisco Salas Roche, German financier Burkhard Brauch (aka
Chugai Keisho), and
Francesca Fremantle.
Rigdzin Shikpo promulgated Trungpa's teachings from a primarily
Nyingma rather than Kagyü point of view at the Longchen Foundation.
Shambhala vision In 1976, Trungpa began giving a series of secular teachings, some of which were gathered and presented as the
Shambhala Training, inspired by his vision of the
legendary Kingdom of
Shambhala. Trungpa actually started writing about Shambhala before his 1959 escape from Tibet to
India, but most of those writings were lost during the escape. In his view not only was individual enlightenment not mythical, but the Shambhala Kingdom, an enlightened society, could in fact be actualized. The practice of Shambhala vision is to use mindfulness/awareness meditation as a way to connect with one's
basic goodness and confidence. It is presented as a path that "brings dignity, confidence, and wisdom to every facet of life." Trungpa proposed to lead the Kingdom as
sakyong (Tib. "earth protector") with his wife as
queen-consort or
sakyong wangmo. Shambhala vision is described as a
non-religious approach rooted in
meditation and accessible to individuals of any, or no, religion. In Shambhala terms, it is possible, moment by moment, for individuals to establish enlightened society. His book,
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, provides a concise collection of the Shambhala views. According to Trungpa, it was his
intention to propagate the
Kingdom of Shambala that provided the necessary inspiration to leave his homeland and make the arduous journey to India and the West.
Work with arts and sciences From the beginning of his time in the United States, Trungpa encouraged his students to integrate a contemplative approach into their everyday activities. In addition to making a variety of traditional contemplative practices available to the community, he incorporated his students' already existing interests (especially anything relating to
Japanese culture), evolving specialized teachings on a meditative approach to these various disciplines. These included
kyūdō (Japanese archery),
calligraphy,
ikebana (flower arranging),
Sadō (
Japanese tea ceremony),
dance,
theater,
film,
poetry,
photography,
health care, and
psychotherapy. His aim was, in his own words, to bring "art to everyday life." He founded the
Nalanda Foundation in 1974 as an umbrella organization for these activities, but changed its name to
Naropa Institute. after which his condition deteriorated, requiring
intensive care at the hospital, then at his home and finally, in mid-March 1987, back at the hospital, where he died on April 4, 1987. In 2006 his wife, Diana Mukpo, wrote, "Although he had many of the classic health problems that develop from heavy drinking, it was in fact more likely the diabetes and high blood pressure that led to abnormal blood sugar levels and then the
cardiac arrest". Trungpa's doctor Michael Levy concurred in his initial statement, and added that a
bacterial infection likely caused his death. One of Trungpa's nursing attendants reported that he suffered in his last months from classic symptoms of terminal
alcoholism and
cirrhosis, His body was packed in salt, laid in a wooden box, and conveyed to Karmê Chöling. On 26 May 1987, more than 2,000 students and friends and Tibetan Buddhist masters including
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the
12th Tai Situ Rinpoche, the
3rd Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, and the 12th Tsurpu Gyeltsab, Drakpa Tenpa Yarpel Rinpoche, attended Trungpa's cremation ceremony and a cloud in the shape of an
Ashe as symbolic of
enlightenment. "Everyone who stayed long enough at Trungpa's cremation saw the rainbows", Butterfield said.
Continuation of the Shambhala lineage Upon Trungpa's death, the leadership of
Vajradhatu was first carried on by his American disciple, appointed
Vajra Regent, and Dharma heir
Ösel Tendzin. Among Tendzin's controversial actions was his rejection of the recommendation of senior
Kagyu lineage holder the
Tai Situpa to take over leadership of Vajradhatu in conjunction with Trungpa's half-brother, Damchu Tenphel, who resided in
Tibet. This was "regarded by members as a serious slight to lineage authorities and was construed as the Regent's attempt to secure his position of control". Also controversial was that Tendzin "took further action to buttress his centrality by denying students permission to seek teachings from other Kagyu Tibetan teachers, claiming that only he possessed the special transmission, materials and knowledge unique to the Trungpa lineage. Students were told that if they wanted to practice within the community, they would have to take spiritual instruction from the Regent." Other behavior was troubling as well. As one scholar who has studied the community noted, Tendzin was "bisexual and known to be very promiscuous" and "enjoyed seducing straight men" but the community "did not find [this behavior] particularly troublesome". Not all his partners were unwilling; one scholar said "it became a mark of prestige for a man, gay or straight, to have sex with the Regent, just as it had been for a woman to have sex with [Trungpa] Rinpoche", but at least one student reported that Tendzin had raped him. As a former Vajradhatu member attested, "a chilling story had recently been reported by one of ... [the] teachers at the Buddhist private school [for the Vajradhatu community]. This straight, married male was pinned face-down across Rich's desk by the guards [the
Dorje Kasung] while Rich forcibly raped him." In 1989 it was revealed that Ösel Tendzin had contracted
HIV and knowingly continued to have unprotected sex with his students, without informing them for nearly three years. Some of these students later died of
AIDS. Others close to Tendzin, including Vajradhatu's board of directors, knew for two years that Tendzin was HIV-positive and sexually active but kept silent. As one student reported at the time: Shambhala's leadership then passed on to Trungpa's eldest son and Shambhala heir,
Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. In 2018, Buddhist Project Sunshine, an organization founded as a
survivors' network for former Shambhala Buddhist members, reported multiple allegations of
sexual assault within the Shambhala community. In response, Sakyong Mipham issued a letter to the community, saying: After the allegations of sexual misconduct, Naropa Institute removed Sakyong Mipham from its board in 2018. In 2020,
The Walrus published an investigative report detailing a
culture of abuse dating to Shambhala's earliest days, with all three leaders of the organization, including Chögyam Trungpa, having been credibly accused of sexual misconduct and
abuse of power. ==Acclaim==