The Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was born in Tibet in 1940. At the age of eleven months he was recognized as the successor to the tenth Trungpa tulku, or incarnate teacher, and entered his chief monastery in Surmang, located in eastern Tibet. During the next nineteen years he was fully trained in the Kagyü and Nyingma traditions of Buddhism, receiving the degree of khenpo, the equivalent of a doctorate. During this period he was enthroned as the abbot of the Surmang group of monasteries and empowered as Lord Mukpo, the civil governor of the Surmang region.
With the invasion of the Chinese communists in 1959, Trungpa Rinpoche was forced to flee on foot from Tibet to India. He spent four years in India before traveling to Oxford University on a Spalding scholarship, where he studied Western psychology, arts, and comparative religion and philosophy.
While at Oxford he began to teach Buddhism to Western students and in 1968 founded a meditation centre, Samye-Ling, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. That same year Trungpa Rinpoche visited Bhutan at the invitation of the Bhutanese royal family. The following year, he relinquished his monastic vows and married an Englishwoman, Diana Pybus, and in May of 1970 moved with her to North America in response to invitations to teach there.
Shortly after his arrival, he founded a meditation and study centre in Vermont called Tail of the Tiger (later renamed Karme-Chöling) and another, Karma Dzong, in Boulder, Colorado. In 1973 he founded Vajradhatu, an international association of Buddhist meditation and study centres, and in 1974, the Nalanda Foundation, a nonprofit, educational organization. Vajradhatu and Nalanda Foundation, under Trungpa Rinpoche's leadership, established numerous divisions, groups and projects promoting all aspects of Buddhist practice and study.
Vajradhatu centers include Karme-Chöling; Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center, a retreat center in Colorado; Gampo Abbey, a monastery in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; and over 100 local centers worldwide. Major divisions of Nalanda Foundation include Naropa Institute and Shambhala Training. In 1977 Trungpa Rinpoche made the first of a series of visits to the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada, eventually selecting it as the new headquarters of Vajradhatu and the Nalanda Foundation. He and his family moved to Halifax late in 1986, and he died there the following year.
From 1970 to 1987, Trungpa Rinpoche traveled continually, criss-crossing the North American continent and, occasionally, Europe, teaching and lecturing to tens of thousands of people. He concentrated a great deal of his teaching activities in two locations: in Vermont, at Tail of the Tiger in Vermont (now Karme-Chöling); and in Colorado, at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center and at Karma Dzong in Boulder.
After his escape from Tibet, Trungpa Rinpoche studied English in India and at Oxford and thereafter spoke it as a matter of choice. He taught his Western students in English rather than in his native Tibetan tongue, a practice which was generally not followed by other Tibetan teachers in the West. This marked the first time that teachings on Buddhism, particularly the advanced teachings that Trungpa Rinpoche transmitted, were systematically presented to Western students in their own language and idiom.
To say that Trungpa Rinpoche was a prolific teacher is almost an understatement; the sound recordings in this fonds represent only a portion of the prodigious amount of teaching he did during his lifetime. His students, and later the organizations he founded, created and collected sound recordings of his teachings, from almost the moment he set foot in North America until his death. Many of the sound recordings of the teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche have been published in over thirty volumes by Shambhala Publications, Inc. (Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02116); and in several dozen additional volumes, by Vajradhatu's in-house publishing division, Vajradhatu Publications. Vajradhatu Recordings, a department of Vajradhatu, an association of Buddhist churches founded in 1973 by the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was responsible for the creation, acquisition, custody, and use of sound recordings of the teaching and administrative activities of Trungpa Rinpoche, as well as of his successors, of other Buddhist teachers, and of administrators of Vajradhatu and of Nalanda Foundation.
Records indicate that systematic creation, acquisition and custody of sound recordings of Trungpa Rinpoche had begun as early as 1969. Among early documents is a list of recordings offered for sale, including a brief description of the ongoing effort to record, transcribe and disseminate Trungpa Rinpoche's teachings through this medium. In the early 1970's, these activities were carried on by Karma Dzong Recordings in Boulder, Colorado. Around the time of the founding of Vajradhatu, in 1973, Karma Dzong Recordings was renamed Vajradhatu Recordings. Sound recordings of Trungpa Rinpoche were maintained in the custody of Vajradhatu Recordings (now Kalapa Recordings) until 1989, when they were transferred to the Vajradhatu Archives.
Fonds consists of a large collection of sound recordings of Trungpa
Rinpoche dating from 1969 to 1987, predominantly of public talks and seminars
taught over a seventeen-year period throughout North America and Europe.
The fonds also includes sound recordings of a series of courses taught
by Trungpa Rinpoche in the early 1970's at the University of Colorado in
Boulder, Colorado; of traditional Buddhist ceremonies conducted by Trungpa
Rinpoche; of interviews with groups of students to discuss various aspects
of meditation practice and study; of two talks at dathuns, month-long programs
of meditation practice; of informal discussions on a variety of topics;
of poetry readings and exercises in elocution; of interviews conducted
on behalf of various media, including radio, television and newspapers;
and of a small group of "mystery" recordings.
The fonds is divided into the following series:
1. Early Scotland talk
2. 1970 public talk or seminar
3. 1971 public talk or seminar
4. 1972 public talk or seminar
5. 1973 public talk or seminar
6. 1974 public talk or seminar
7. 1975 public talk or seminar
8. 1976 public talk or seminar
9. 1978 public talk or seminar
10. 1979 public talk or seminar
11. 1980 public talk or seminar
12. 1981 public talk or seminar
13. 1982 public talk or seminar
14. 1983 public talk or seminar
15. 1985 public talk or seminar
16. 1986 public talk or seminar
17. Ceremony
18. Dathun talk
19. Informal discussion
20. Meditation instruction audience or interview
21. Mysteries
22. Poetry and elocution
23. Radio, magazine or newspaper interview
24. University of Colorado class
Title based on contents of the fonds.
Extent includes duplicates
. Some audio reels show evidence of deterioration. As a conservation
measure a number of audio reels have been exercised and copied to both
digital and high-quality cassette formats.
Portions of the fonds are restricted to authorized students. Access
to those records is by arrangement with the Archives Director.
Inventories accompany series descriptions.
For additional details see the Vajradhatu Archives Database of Holdings.
Further accruals are expected.
Videocassette recordings related to portions of the fonds are in the
custody of the Archives, and some are described in a finding aid for the
Vajradhatu Archives Video Recovery Project.
Photographic records related to portions of the fonds are described
in the Vajradhatu and Nalanda Foundation Information Office Photographic
Fonds Finding Aid.
Related materials may be found in the following fonds of sound recordings:
the Vajradhatu fonds; the Vajradhatu Seminary fonds; the Nalanda Foundation
fonds; the Naropa Institute events fonds; the Shambhala Training events
fonds; and the Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin fonds.
An inventory of verbatim transcriptions of portions of the fonds exists.
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