Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987) was widely admired as a meditation master, teacher, and artist. He was the author of many books on Buddhism and the path of meditation, including Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, The Myth of Freedom, and Meditation in Action.

Trungpa Rinpoche was born in Eastern Tibet. An incarnate lineage holder in the Kagyü lineage and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism, he was Supreme Abbot of the Surmang Monasteries, where he received, at the age of eighteen, 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, Trungpa Rinpoche fled to India. There, by appointment of 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.

Trunpga Rinpoche was invited to teach in the United States in 1970. Making his home in Boulder, Colorado, he traveled and taught extensively, establishing more than 100 meditation centers in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Shambhala International, which he founded as Vajradhatu in 1973, coordinates the activities of these centers. Trungpa Rinpoche also founded the Naropa Institute (now Naropa University), an innovative college that combines contemplative studies with a liberal arts curriculum. A secular program of meditation called Shambhala Training was founded in 1976, and Trungpa Rinpoche developed a number of programs that apply the Shambhala principles to traditional Eastern disciplines such as ikebana (flower arranging) and kyudo (archery).

Chögyam Trunpga moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1986. He died there the following year on April 4.

Carolyn Rose Gimian