The Dorje Dradul, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
The Dorje Dradul, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche , (1939-1987) was widely admired as a mediation master, teacher, and artist. He was the author of many books on buddhism and the path of meditation, including " Cutting Through Spiritual Matierialism", " The Myth of Freedom", and " Meditation in Action".
Trungpa Rinpoche was born in eastern Tibet. An incarnate lineage holder in the Kagyu and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism, he was Supreme Abbott of the Surmang Monasteries, where he received, at age 18, the degree of Khyenpo (comparable to a doctorate in theology, philosophy and psychology). As part of his education in Tibet, he also studied and practiced traditional arts such as calligraphy, poetry, dance, and thangka painting.
When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959, Chogyam Trungpa fled to India. There, by appointment by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he served as spiritual advisor to the 'Young Lama's Home School'. In 1963, he traveled to England, where he attended Oxford University as a Spaulding Fellow, studying western philosophy, religion, art and language. He established his first formal teaching center in Scotland in 1968. [He] was invited to teach in the United States in 1970. With his home in Boulder Colorado, he traveled and taught extensively, establishing more than one hundred meditation centers in the United States, Canada and Europe. The International association of Vajradhatu [now called Shambhala International], which he founded in 1973, coordinates the activities of these centers.
Trungpa Rinpoche also founded the Naropa Institute [now Naropa University], as innovative university that combines contemplative studies with a liberal arts curriculum. Shambhala Training was founded in 1976, and...[he]... developed a number of programs that apply the Shambhala principles to traditional ikebana, and kyudo (archery).
Chogyam Trungpa moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1986. He died there the following year on April 4."
