Christie Cashman

Acharya Christie Cashman first studied the dharma with Suzuki Roshi at age 18, while attending the University of California at Berkeley. Then, in 1971 she entered the Shambhala Buddhist path with Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado. For the first two years in Boulder, Christie lived in a little downstairs room in Trunga Rinpoche’s house. He encouraged her to put away the guitar, practice meditation three hours a day, and enter long solitary retreats. Her life began to revolve around the retreats and intensive study of Buddhism. Along with many other students, she began to teach a full range of courses-from introductory meditation intensives at Naropa University to Vajrayana sadhana classes. For many years beginning in 1973, she attended and taught at the annual three-month seminaries and worked closely during that time with Rinpoche on teaching methods, course curriculum and implementation. During the 17 years Christie resided in Boulder, she worked full-time in Trungpa Rinpoche’s international administration. In 1987, when Christie moved to Nova Scotia, she spent a good part of each year in solitary retreat to delve further into the Shambhala terma tradition and vajrayana practice. During this time, she worked in the areas of environmental protection and dispute resolution before serving as the Shambhala Training International Executive Director. In 1999, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche appointed Christie as an acharya, thus beginning a life of traveling and teaching. Her focus is on the vajrayana teachings and she is chaperone to the Sakyong's core text on visualization practice, which enriches and eases the journey from dualistic perception to pure appearance. As a Werma Acharya, Christie leads Scorpion Seal Assemblies. Christie and her husband live in Halifax, Nova Scotia.