The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes

Andy Karr is a teacher, author, and photographer whose works explore profound and penetrating insights into dharma and mind. At an early age, he dreamed of becoming a Zen master—as he describes, probably the result of reading Zen in the Art of Archery as a teenager and watching too many samurai movies. His interests led him to read Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind and to train under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center and under Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado.


Andy attended Trungpa Rinpoche’s three-month seminary in 1976, where intense periods of meditation practice alternated with intense periods of study. The message for him was clear: practice and study go together like the two wings of a bird. This became the guiding principle for his own journey. After moving to Paris in 1979, Andy cofounded the first Shambhala Centre in France.



After Trungpa Rinpoche passed away, Andy and his family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1993 he began studying Mahamudra and the progressive stages of view and meditation with Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. He became a senior teacher in Khenpo Rinpoche’s sangha and also taught at Gampo Abbey’s monastic college, including extended courses on Chandrakirti’s Introduction to the Middle Way and Shantarakshita’s Adornment of the Middle Way.

Andy is the author of Into the Mirror and Contemplating Reality and the coauthor of The Practice of Contemplative Photography. He continues to teach meditation, the Mahayana view, and Mahamudra. To learn more about Andy’s work, go to www.andykarrauthor.com.