Contents
Interview with a Buddha: In 1977: Karmapa and Jamgon Rinpoche were the featured guests on Vermont Report, a half-hour Vermont Public Television news program
The Ceremony of the Vajra Crown: beautfully filmed in 16mm by John Karol, who was nominated for an Oscar two years later (Documentary Short). Shot at the Cathedral of the Woods, New Hampshire.
Preserving the Dharma Texts: Gene Smith and Shamar Rinpoche describe the collaboration between Karmapa and the Library of Congress to duplicate the Kangyur and Tengyur and distribute them to the newly forming monasteries outside of Tibet.
The Line of Karmapas
Rumtek
Connecting to Karmapa
The Line of Karmapas
In "The Line of Karmapas" Very Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche and eminent Tibet scholar, Gene Smith describe:
The previous 15 generations of Karmapas
Early relationships to Chinese emperors
The origins of the Black or Vajra Crown
The sectarian conflicts in early Tibet
Scholarly achievements among Karmapas
The ongoing transmission of lineage
Thrangu Rinpoche is the senior teacher of the Karma Kagyu lineage.
At the age of six, Rinpoche was recognized as a tulku by His Holiness Karmapa XVI. Rinpoche was the abbot and philosophy professor at Rumtek Monastery.
Gene Smith is a scholar's scholar. He led the Library of Congress field office in New Delhi for 20 years. One of his primary charges was to locate and preserve the extant Tibetan texts brought out of Tibet by refugees. His vision and original scholarship, starting in the early 1960s, paved the way for much academic study of Tibet. The forewards he wrote to many important Tibetan texts were compiled in the book, Among Tibetan Plateaus. He currently administers the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center.
Rumtek
Today's leading teachers of the Kagyu lineage lived at Rumtek together. They describe the harshness of refugee life, the construction of the new Rumtek monastery, working with the liturgical and ritual differences that evolved from groups that had been geographically dispersed, and the social environment of great masters in development.
The following share their memories of Rumtek:
- Thrangu Rinpoche, abbot of Rumtek
- Tenga Rinpoche, Vajra (Ritual) Master of Rumtek
- Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
- Traleg Rinpoche
- Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
- Achi Tsepal, translator to Karmapa
- Ngodup T. Burkhar, translator to Karmapa
Connecting to Karmapa
Gene Smith describes his education at the University of Washington where he studied under Tibetologist, Hugh Richardson, who had written about the Karmapa lineage.
Tenzin Palmo describes visiting Karmapa in Calcutta in the mid 1960s.
Ngodup T. Burkhar describes the fortuitous events that led him to Rumtek as a teenager in 1973 and set him on the path to translating for Karmapa.
Dr. Mitchell Levy describes leaving the 1980 Vajradhatu Seminary with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and how he became Karmapa's personal physician.
Achi Tsepal, Karmapa's translator during the 1974 and 1977 tours, describes coming into the service of Karmapa.