Reginald Ray
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Through Tibetans
Ray studied Tibetan Buddhism, traditional shamanic wisdom, and yogic-contemplative practices with the Tibetan refugee and recognized Vajrayana traditional-wisdom holder Chögyam Trungpa; and later studied under the tutelage of traditional Dagara teacher from Burkina Faso, Malidoma Somé.
A founding academic member of Naropa University, Ray was a longtime senior teacher in Vajradhatu (renamed Shambhala International in 2000) and from 1996 to 2004 was teacher-in-residence at the Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center (which became Shambhala Mountain Center in February 2000). He left the Shambhala organization to found his own teaching center in 2005, Dharma Ocean. Dhama Ocean, in addition to teaching meditation programs and hosting intensive retreats, is a non-profit foundation "dedicated to the practice, study and preservation of the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche."
Academic training
Ray has a BA in religion from Williams College (1965), and received an M.A. (1967) and Ph.D. (1973) in History of Religions from the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he focused on Buddhism and Indian religions. Among his mentors at Chicago was Mircea Eliade, a Romanian historian of religion.
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Teaching career
Ray first encountered his main Buddhist teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1970, and studied with him until Rinpoche's death in 1987. In 1974, at the invitation of Trungpa Rinpoche, Ray left a tenure-track position at Indiana University and relocated to Boulder, Colorado—then the center of Trungpa Rinpoche's community–to become the first full-time faculty member and chair of the Buddhist Studies Department at Naropa University, where he taught until his retirement in July 2009. Ray also served on the Nalanda Translation Committee and held a half-time appointment in the Religious Studies department at the University of Colorado.
From 1996 to 2004, Ray was teacher-in-residence at the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, which became the Shambhala Mountain Center in February 2000. Ray is the director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation.