About
History and lineage
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche founded Karmê Chöling in 1970 as Tail of the Tiger, and in 1974 His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa gave it its name, the practice place of the Karma Kagyu.
Karmê Chöling began as Tail of the Tiger. In 1970 students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche bought a dairy farm in Barnet, Vermont, and under his direction made it a place to practice. He named it for a line of the I Ching, "treading upon the tail of the tiger." It was his first land center in North America, and the first Karma Kagyu meditation center in the United States.
A name from the Karmapa
In 1974 His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, head of the Karma Kagyu, made his first visit to North America at Trungpa Rinpoche's invitation, and Tail of the Tiger received him.
He gave the center the name it has carried since: Karmê Chöling, the practice place of the Karma Kagyu.
The lineages
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was trained in the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism and belonged to the Rimé movement, which honors every school of the tradition.
Karmê Chöling offers the traditional Buddhadharma of the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages and the Shambhala teachings, and it continues as a Shambhala center within the international Shambhala community.
The upper meadow
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche died on 4 April 1987. On 26 May 1987 more than 2,000 students, teachers, friends and dignitaries gathered in the upper meadow at Karmê Chöling for his cremation.
The Purkhang, the cremation structure built for him, still stands there. Tradition would have taken it down. It was left standing instead, to be completed one day as a stupa, a shrine that holds the relics of a realized teacher.
A household of practice
Since 1970 the center has kept a household organized around meditation: a resident community, programs and retreats through the year, and a land that holds the practice.