Reginald Ray

Dr. Reginald “Reggie” Ray has four decades of experience in both study and intensive meditation practice within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He currently resides alternately in Colorado in Boulder and Crestone, where he is the Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to the practice, study and preservation of the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the practice lineage he embodied.

Reggie received his PhD from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in 1973. After spending a year in India on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship, studying Tibetan and completing his dissertation, he took up a tenure track position at Indiana University. In the spring of 1974, at the invitation of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, he became 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. In subsequent years, he received two of the prestigious year long NEH Senior Research Fellowships in support of his scholarly writing. 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.

Ray has written extensively on the history and practice of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, including six books and many articles, essays, and reviews. His most recent works include Touching Enlightenment and an in-depth CD set of teachings and guided practices entitled Your Breathing Body. He also authored Meditating with the Body (Sounds True), Indestructible Truth (Shambhala), Secret of the Vajra World (Shambhala) and Buddhist Saints in India (Oxford University Press).