Bringing Buddhism West
Sent home by the Karmapa to teach, the Nydahls open the first Diamond Way centers in Copenhagen, Graz, Scandinavia and Germany, organise the great Tibetan masters’ first tours of the West, and begin teaching behind the Iron Curtain.
Part of Lama Ole Nydahl
8 moments in this segment.
- — Hannah Nydahl, translator of the lineage. Hannah Nydahl — Ole and Hannah were partners in the work, and she became one of the Karma Kagyu lineage’s most trusted translators, working closely with its highest lamas for nearly forty years.
- — The 16th Karmapa in Copenhagen. The 16th Karmapa with Hannah and Lama Ole Nydahl during his historic tours of the West in the 1970s, hosted at the centers the Nydahls had begun to build.
- — Teaching in communist Poland. Under difficult circumstances, Lama Ole began in 1975 to teach and build centers in communist Poland — the start of the deep friendships and connections to the Eastern Bloc that would define so much of his life’s work.
- — The Karmapa in the Gampopa hat. The 16th Karmapa wearing the Gampopa hat of the lineage — the teacher and driving force behind Diamond Way Buddhism coming to the West.
- — The Vajra Crown. The 16th Karmapa holding the Vajra Crown during the Black Crown ceremony, a defining image of the Karma Kagyu lineage in the 1970s.
- — The Black Crown Ceremony. The 16th Karmapa performs the Black Crown ceremony — the rare ritual, said to liberate on sight, at the heart of his tours through the Western centers.
- — The 16th Karmapa & the Black Crown. The 16th Gyalwa Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje performing the Black Crown ceremony — the rare ritual in which the Karmapa places the Vajra Crown upon his head, said to liberate on sight. It was at the heart of the historic tours of the West that Lama Ole helped organise.
- — Lopön Tsechu Rinpoche. born in Bhutan in 1918, a master who built seventeen stupas across the West and remained close to the Nydahls until his death in 2003.
