The holdings of the Shambhala Archives include a large selection of video, photographic, and audio materials, as well as documents, books, manuscripts, calligraphies, and other physical objects.
These holdings include many of the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche; as well as the teachings of many other Buddhist teachers, and oral histories of their students.
The Shambhala Archives has approximately 50,000 images in its photo collection. The majority were taken between 1963 and 1988, in the analogue universe of negatives, prints, and transparencies. A small number of these have been converted to digital images. We are in the process of converting several thousand images to digital files, in order to provide online access to parts of our collection.
The majority of the photographs in the Archives relate to the life and teachings of the founder of Shambhala, the Vidyadhara the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The original Information Office of Vajradhatu had around 20,000 photographs that relate to Trungpa Rinpoche’s activities. These were transferred to the Archives after his death in 1987. The Vidyadhara’s family has donated many family photos as well as his personal photos to the Archives. In addition, several photographers have donated large collections of material related to the life and teachings of the Vidyadhara. We are grateful to all the photographers and welcome the donation and/or bequest of personal and professional collections.
Visit our photograph portfolio – Link
The holdings of the Shambhala Archives includes more than:
10,000 Audio Cassettes- 3,500 Audio Reels
- 3,000 Video Cassettes
- 4,500 CD and other optical media
- 2,500 high resolution digital audio files
View audio & video available for purchase –
Kalapa Media – CDs, DVDs, & transcripts
Listen to audio recordings from Shambhala Archives Video Recovery Project
The Chronicles of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche – Link
History
In 1970, upon his arrival in North America and commencing teaching in the summer, the Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche specified that all his lectures be recorded on audio tape. In the following few years he created the Department of Vajradhatu Recordings within the overall Vajradhatu organization, to ensure that the teachings by lineage holders within the Vajradhatu mandala were documented, recorded and preserved. As the Audio Fonds of the Shambhala Archives details, eventually over 2400 audio recordings were accumulated of his various teachings and presentations.
The Shambhala Archives is the storage and preservation facility for these teachings, having been transferred from Vajradhatu Recordings, now Kalapa Recordings in the late 1980s. The teachings are catalogued into a database that acts as a resource for the sangha in locating information on specific talks. Kalapa Recordings continues its responsibility for managing the documentation of the teachings of the current lineage holder, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, senior Acharyas, and visiting teachers.
Making these materials available to students and dharma centers is a shared responsibility. Audio, video, and books in print and electronic form are published and available through Kalapa Media. Online classes and streaming delivery of video and audio is provided through Shambhala Online.
Principal among our on-going projects in the Archives is the Audio Recovery Program. As detailed in a report by PHD student Cynthia Cochran, in 2006, the ARP project began the initial migration to digital formats of the analog audio holdings of Trungpa Rinpoche in the Archives. This digitization work continues as we turn to the teachings on analog tape of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and those of visiting teachers, reaching back into the 1970s.
These teachings include:
- 2,400 talks by Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
- 1,000 talks by Sakyong Jamgon Mipham, Rinpoche
- 1,000 talks by the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin
- 700 talks by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, Rinpoche
- His Holiness the XVIth Gyalwa Karmapa
- His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
- His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- His Eminence Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche
- His Eminence Shamar Rinpoche
- His Eminence Situ Rinpoche
- His Eminence Tenga Rinpoche
- Ven. Khandro Rinpoche
- Ven. Ponlop Rinpoche
- Suzuki Roshi
- Maezumi Roshi
- Pema Chödrön
- Allan Ginsberg
- Alan Watts
- The Nalanda Translation Group
Digital Audio
Since the mid-2000s centers have been recording to a digital audio formats Digitally recording in full resolution .aiff, .wav, .au, or other lossless audio file formats is the standard specified through the Shambhala International Policy for documenting dharma talks. After each teaching program a set of files on a hard-drive goes to the Shambhala Archives, where they are backed up to a server for storage and further access. These procedures for documenting teachings in audio and video formats, and stewarding them in digital formats are on-going through the combined work of Kalapa Recordings, Centre East Productions and the Shambhala Archives.
Audio Recovery Project
Project History –
written by Cynthia L. Cochran, May 1, 2006
photographs taken 2007-2008
The ARP was first proposed in 1996. The equipment and methodologies employed have evolved over the subsequent nine years as technological advances offered better solutions. All aspects of the digitization process have been, and continue to be, handled by SA staff, utilizing equipment purchased and funded by SA. Over these ten years, project protocols have included the use of a Sony PCM digital audiotape recorder to digitize and record to VHS videotapes; migrating to new analog reels and type IV metal cassette tapes; digitizing and recording to audio CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and to hard drives, configured in a redundant array of inexpensive discs (RAID), which provide two terabytes of storage on a computer server (Levy, email to author, 24 April 2006).
Link to the article
This link is to the more technical specs of the project:
Download the Audio Recovery Implementation Plan (Downloads a .pdf file on click).
Video Recordings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
The video recordings of Chögyam Trungpa are a precious resource. For many students, the ability to see him presenting the teachings is very powerful.
View our online video offerings – Link Of the collection of 261 early B/W videos, over 80% is now converted to professional digital video formats—best for preservation. Although a relatively small collection of material, the video recordings are extremely important. All of the seminars given by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the first three years of Naropa University (1974 -1976), were recorded on black and white video, and the material is in excellent condition. The Video Recovery Project was the first preservation project undertaken by Archives staff. Between 1992 and 1995, over 200 of these video tapes were copied to more robust analog formats. Half of the converted videos have since been published as DVDs with study guides for classes.Additionally, there are other early seminars given in Boulder, Colorado and at Karme‐Choling in Vermont, and a small number of talks at other locations, including two seminars in California. A detailed archival level description of this fonds is found further down. A number of these seminars have also been published and are available through Kalapa Media.
The color video collection, which is about one third of the whole, includes two Shambhala Training public talks, a seminar on visual dharma from 1978, a vajra assembly conducted by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and a number of other ceremonies and talks.
The further migration of the Archives’ video collection began with equipment being funded by the Shambhala Trust in the early 2000s. Playback/capture of the VRP videos into DV25 video format files enabled the Archives’ staff to begin migration of the entire analog video collection into industry recognized digital file storage and then publishing in DVD format. Today these files are also beginning to make their way to the online library of Shambhala Online for streamable access.
All of these digital files, (audio and video), are stored on RAIDs (bundled hard-drive servers), a storage protocol of choice for audio-visual collections. Our continued digital migration activity necessitates the need to acquire more RAID servers. We also hope to acquire a linear tape-drive system to provide additional backup support. This system would ensure additional redundancy.
Most of the data we need to back up now includes born-digital media files, the best example being the teachings of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. His teachings have been recorded digitally since 2005 (through Kalapa Recordings and affiliates at all teaching programs), and stored in original digital form on our hard-drive servers. Our holdings of Sakyong Mipham comprise over 15 Terabytes (15,000 GB) of audio and video files.
Here is an example of how our digital storage is organized:
Every year on April 4 the Archives displays the personal belongings of VCTR for people who come to the Centre in Halifax for Parinirvana Day.
View items of The Surmang Treasures here – Link
View items of VCTR Collection here – Link
View VCTR Ladrang Exhibit here – Link
In his will, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche stated,
“The monumental objects should be cherished and kept. The household articles should be treated as special…. I have never conducted myself frivolously, so all my collections should be regarded as objects of learning.”
During his lifetime and for several years after Rinpoche’s death, close students who were personal attendants of the Vidyadhara were the caretakers of these objects. In the mid 1990s, responsibility for the Collection was transferred to the Shambhala Archives and has been maintained by the Archives through the donation of time and funds by students of the Vidyadhara.
The inventory and appraisal of all the artifacts from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s collection was completed in 2018 and all are safely stored in new archival quality boxes and tissue paper. At present there are over 1700 objects in the collection. Trungpa Rinpoche’s Buddhist robes are stored on rolls, and his chubas are padded with archival materials along the sleeves and collar and are stored flat. His Japanese robes are folded along the seams with archival tissue interleaving, to avoid damage from folds. Rinpoche’s western clothing, suits and uniforms, are on handmade padded hangers, to keep the shoulder seams in good condition and stored on racks, covered in muslin. Lacquerware, rupas and ceremonial objects such as vajra and ghanta are wrapped in archival tissue and kept in sectioned archival boxes.
In addition, all of the objects have been photographed by a professional photographer, Marvin Moore, and cataloged with unique numbers; they were then described and entered into our database, a museum quality software called Past Perfect Museum software.
As a result, each item’s location and condition is fully searchable. Reports can be made describing the many fields on each record, in order to locate and review the condition of each item, or add to the description and provenance, or add stories about the item. We also keep records and biographies of contributing people, e.g. the kusung and family members who handled many of these objects when the Trungpa Rinpoche was alive..
The storage space is environmentally controlled for temperature and humidity with a heat pump installed in 2018, and monitored twice weekly. The space is kept clean on the same schedule.
This summer, 2022, we hope to have the assistance of an intern by means of a government grant to assist in an inventory and new condition report for each item.