Trungpa, Chögyam Rinpoche

▪ Tibetan abbot

born February 1940, Kahm, Tibet

died April 4, 1987, Halifax, N.S., Can.

      abbot of the Surmang Monastery in Tibet and founder of the Tibetan Buddhist (Buddhism) organization Shambhala International, which was established in the United States in the late 20th century to disseminate Buddhist teachings, especially the practice of meditation.

      Chögyam Rinpoche Trungpa fled Tibet after the Chinese took control in 1959, moving first to England, where he studied at the University of Oxford, and then to Scotland, where he founded a monastery. In 1970 he founded a meditation centre, Tail of the Tiger (now Karmê-Chöling), in Vermont, the first of many in North America. In 1971 he moved to Boulder, Colo., where he established Vajradhatu (now Shambhala) International.

      Trungpa's followers regarded him as a tulku (“incarnation”) of the 14th-century Tibetan lama Kunga Gyaltsen. Although he received training in both the Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan traditions, Trungpa later expressed adherence to the Rimay, a nonsectarian Tibetan Buddhist (Tibetan Buddhism) movement. He invited a wide spectrum of Buddhist teachers to speak at Naropa Institute (now Naropa University), a school he founded in Boulder in 1974 that combined contemplative studies with Western academics. Adopting Western dress and manners, he emphasized meditation and presented Buddhism in a nonsectarian idiom that Westerners would understand.

      In 1986 Trungpa moved the headquarters of Shambhala International to Nova Scotia to escape what he considered the excessive materialism of American society. After his death he was succeeded as head of the movement by his student Thomas Rich (also known as Ösel Tendzin). Rich died several years later and was succeeded by Sawang Ösel Rangdröl Mukpo (now known as Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche), Trungpa's son.

      In the early 21st century, Shambhala International had more than 100 centres in North America and Europe. In 2001 the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, built to honour Trungpa, was consecrated in Red Feather Lakes, Colo.

John Gordon Melton

Additional Reading

Chögyam Trungpa, Born in Tibet (1976), is his autobiography. Good introductions to Tibetan Buddhism and culture are John Snelling, The Buddhist Handbook: A Complete Guide to Buddhist Schools, Teaching, Practice, and History (1991); and Graham Coleman (ed.), A Handbook of Tibetan Culture (1994).John Gordon Melton

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