< Issue No. 13 (2018)Article
Fresh Bread from an Old Recipe: Chögyam Trungpa’s Transmission of Buddhism to North America, 1970–1977
Jones, Ryan, McGill University
Abstract
Chögyam Trungpa was a seminal figure in the introduction of Buddhism to North America, and as such his unique perspective on transmission and translation deserve scholarly attention. This paper argues Tibetan traditional historiography regarding the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet greatly influenced Trungpa’s transmission and translation of Buddhism to North America during the 1970s. Not only did Trungpa borrow the narratives of the Tibetan introduction, he presented the modes of transmission as ahistorical processes inhered within Buddhism itself.