Document Type
Audio File
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
How does the deep encounter with our own traumas fuel our own spiritual journeys as therapists and teachers? Specifically, how can we train in "pure awareness" so that we go as deep into the darkness as we want and need to? And, finally, how might our own, personal trauma work enable us to work more effectively with traumatized students and clients. After reporting some of the presenter's own on-the-ground experiences in his own journey and those of his students, these questions are to be explored and discussed together.
Recommended Citation
Ray, Reggie, "Working with Space, Working with People: Tantric Non-dual Approaches to Trauma" (2016). Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy Conference. 7.
https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/nondual-wisdom-conference/7
Comments
Presenter: Dr. Reginald "Reggie" Ray is the co-founder and Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation and a University Professor (retired) at Naropa University.
Reggie received his B.A. in religion from Williams College (1965), and his M.A. (1967) and Ph.D. (1973) in the History of Religions from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, focusing on Indo-Tibetan Buddhism (Sanskrit and Tibetan languages). Reggie met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in May of 1970, a few weeks after his arrival in the US, and became one of his first American students. After spending a year in India on a Fulbright-Hays research fellowship in 1973, he took up a tenure track position in the Religious Studies department at Indiana University. In the spring of 1974, at the invitation of Chögyam Trungpa, he moved to Boulder, Colorado where he became the first full-time faculty member and chair of the Buddhist Studies (later Religious Studies) Department at Naropa University. In 1994 he published an internationally recognized, ground-breaking scholarly monograph, Buddhist Saints in India.
In 1997, Reggie became the first teacher in residence at the Shambhala Mountain Center and, over his seven year tenure there, became well known for his intensive Winter Dathün retreats, his Vajrayana programs, his students, and for helping to build SMC into a major retreat center. In 2005, seeking a permanent home for a growing community of students, Reggie and his then wife, Lee Ray, moved to Crestone, Colorado, and co-founded Dharma Ocean.
Reggie has written extensively on the history and practice of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, including six books and many articles, essays, and reviews. His scholarly work Buddhist Saints in India was runner up (1994) for the “best first book” award of the American Academy of Religion and favorably reviewed in some 15 major academic journals. His two volumes on Tibetan Buddhism, Indestructible Truth and Secrets of the Vajra World, have become classics in Buddhist America and beyond, and are widely used in university classes on Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. His corpus of work on somatically-based meditation, the book Touching Enlightenment, the audio set Your Breathing Body, and his annual program Meditating with the Body have deeply influenced a generation of meditators, Tibetan Buddhists, spiritual practitioners of many faiths, body workers, somatic therapists, and others interested in the spirituality of the body. These works and others, including his most recent audio set, The Practice of Pure Awareness, and his many online offerings, have made the highest teachings of Tibetan Buddhism accessible to modern people and effective in addressing their spiritual longings, aspirations and imperatives.