The Shambhala Archives is a repository of film, audio and video recordings, photographs, negatives, transparencies, manuscripts, transcripts, books, and artwork by Venerable
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche or relating to him. The Shambhala Archives also holds teachings by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and other prominent teachers. The Archives is also responsible for the care, preservation and conservation of the personal belongings of
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche including sacred and everyday objects, robes, and clothing.
The work of the Shambhala Archives is ongoing as we continue to migrate audio and video to new media so that the teachings can continue to be heard and seen. Our work in the Labrang, the division that cares for Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's belongings continues not only in the preservation of each object or piece of clothing, but involves recording pertinent information through research and database cataloguing.
Presently the Shambhala Archives is one of one of the largest audio-visual collections of Tibetan Buddhist teachers in the West. We invite you explore this site to learn more about what we have, what we have been doing, and what we still need to do.
Photo courtesy of Liza Mathews,
from the collection of the Shambhala Archives
Our Annual Newsletter for 2012
As part of my own contemplation on basic goodness, I reflected on my father’s life. He experienced the loss of his culture, the destruction of his home, and the knowledge that his friends and family were being tortured. One of the most brilliant minds of his generation—the last to be fully trained in Tibet—he became a refugee in places where nobody understood who he was or what he knew. Of all people, he had the right to say, “I have been given this transmission of basic goodness, and I’m beginning to doubt it. People are not good.” Instead, he showed us basic goodness and urged us to create enlightened society.—The Sakyong, Jampal Trinley Dradül
This past summer the Sakyong was talking about his retreat experience from the year before and he offered this reflection on his father’s life—of coming out of a Tibet that was being destroyed, and deciding to teach the Buddhist path and the Shambhala dharma of basic goodness for the rest of his life. This feeling of profound connection to the Vidyadhara is especially poignant this year, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his parinirvana. We are marking the occasion in many ways, personal and communal, as the mahasangha of the great mahasiddha we knew, and whose teachings and tradition we continue to practice.
In addition to funding our ongoing expenses, we hope to concentrate on several special projects: 1) digitizing, cataloging and re-housing the VCTR photography collection, 2) improving the care of the Vidyadhara’s belongings in the Ladrang, 3) conservation and display of the Surmang Relics, 4) and digitizing our video collection.
Photographs
We have more than 50,000 images in our VCTR photography collection. We have begun to digitize and catalogue these photographs, but we have completed less than three percent of the collection. This year, we received a direct request from His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa to help select photos of the 16th Karmapa from our archives, for an exhibit in Bodhgaya honoring the 900th anniversary of the Karmapa lineage. After completing this pilot project we are ready to move forward with other parts of the collection. A generous donor provided funding for a new computer dedicated to the photography collection. As part of the preservation process, we need a scanner that will give us better quality high resolution scans. Eventually many of these photographs will be uploaded to a site that we have already created to be seen and enjoyed by all. You can visit this site by clicking here. It is still in the construction phase so check back often!
Care for the Personal and Religious Objects of the Vidyadhara from his Ladrang
Many of the Vidydhara’s personal and religious objects from his Ladrang have now been catalogued and photographed, including his clothing, shrine objects, Tenno room lacquerware, and artwork. We are now working towards housing everything in acid free tissue and containers in an environmentally controlled storage space in order to preserve this precious heritage. The Sakyong has said that all of these items are objects of blessing from the Vidyadhara and will be used as the Vidyadhara requested in his will for the education of future warriors. Lady Diana Mukpo and her family are also supporting the work ongoing in the Ladrang.
The Surmang Relics
We are beginning to work on the conservation and display of the objects from the Surmang collection, precious objects that were hand carried by the Vidyadhara from Tibet. You can view the Surmang Relics here at our website. In 2012, the 25th Anniversary of the Vidyadhara's Parinirvana, the Surmang Relics will be installed in the Shambhala shrineroom in Halifax in a secure and environmentally controlled case. Presently, interior designer Bob Rader is working with Jeanne Riordan Perks, Carolyn Gimian and conservator Ann Shaftel on all aspects of the project. Although there are some donations in place to support this project, additional support is very much needed.
Continuing Commitment to Our Vast Audio-Visual Collection
The Shambhala Archives has continued the archival migration of audio and video of teachings that are in our vault. We have more than 1,000 hours of analog video that need to be migrated or digitized and stored on secure hard drives and data tapes. Your donations continue to support this necessary work. Last year Gordon Kidd worked on the digital migration of analog videos such as Skillful Means and Wisdom (1976), which was also released as a DVD set this year.(available at http://www.shambhalamedia.org/). The Iconography of Buddhist Tantra (1975), The Dance of Enlightenment Aesthetics seminar, (1975), Visual Dharma, (1978) and Creating Enlightened Society, (1982), were also migrated to digital formats. The Archives also accessioned recent talks of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche of the Scorpion Seal programs and the Vajrayana Seminaries of 2009 and 2010. An important part of our mandate is to archive and preserve both audio and video teachings by the Saykyong.
Audio Recovery Project Honoured with Award
June 2010
On June 11, 2010 the Shambhala Archives received the Carman V. Carroll Award for Outstanding Achievement in Archival Preservation from the Council of Nova Scotia Archives. The goal of the award is to foster an appreciation of preservation and recognize its place as a vital component within the ongoing daily operations of an archives.
The Shambhala Archives received the award for the Audio Recovery Project to preserve and digitize the audio recordings of the Vidyadhara, the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The Archives is honoured to have received this award. Gordon Kidd, the Technical Director of the Archives, and Carolyn Gimian, Director Emeritus and Past President of the Council of Nova Scotia Archives, represented the Shambhala Archives at the awards ceremony.
Jamgon Kongtrul Seminar: Meditations on the student-teacher relationship
-Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
In this extraordinary seminar, Chögyam Trungpa explores his intimate relationship with his root teacher, Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen, and how this relates to the student teacher relationship in Buddhism altogether.
