Karl G. Springer passed away on March 13, 2019, in Seattle, Washington. Earlier this year, Karl’s family decided to spread his ashes around The Great Stupa at Drala Mountain Center in Colorado. A group of Karl’s family and friends gathered to mark this event on July 9, 2025.
Karl was among Trungpa Rinpoche’s earliest students in the United States. He met Trungpa Rinpoche after traveling to Tail of the Tiger Meditation Center, now Karme Choling, in Barnet, Vermont. He described to me the drive he took with his friends from college to see the Tibetan Lama he had heard about. He said he never looked back after meeting Rinpoche.
I do not know all the roles Karl played within Vajradhatu, Nalanda, and Shambhala Training, but Trungpa Rinpoche eventually appointed him as head of the Vajradhatu Office of External Affairs. In this capacity, Karl led interactions and collaborated with other Buddhist sanghas, organized visits from renowned Tibetan teachers, and occasionally lectured on Vajra Politics.
I met Karl in 1986 when he was visiting Los Angeles and I was a college student nearby. Karl attended a Sadhana of Mahamudra feast at the Los Angeles Dharmadhatu, and we got to talking afterward and later corresponded by mail. I had never met Trungpa Rinpoche, but I was getting connected to meditation while simultaneously nursing some doubts and skepticism about the Vajradhatu scene during that era. I think Karl enjoyed my youthful exuberance, and he invited me to sit in on his planning meetings for the upcoming World Buddhist Congress in Los Angeles. Shortly after that, Trungpa Rinpoche passed away, and Karl encouraged me to attend the cremation at Karme Choling.
I flew from California to Vermont for the cremation, and Karl invited me to audiences and other encounters with the visiting Tibetan teachers at the event. The first-hand experiences with these teachers helped me understand my own preconceptions about learning the dharma from non-Westerners, as well as giving me an opportunity to experience different aspects of devotion to the dharma and the teachers.
The next time I saw Karl was at the 1988 Vajradhatu Seminary, where we shared a few meals together, and he once again invited me sit in on a meeting with a visiting Tibetan teacher. I asked him why he would invite a “newbie,” such as myself, to these encounters, but he seemed to think it was a weird question, and he indicated that it was important to provide opportunities for people to connect with teachers.
I communicated with Karl infrequently during the period of the Vajra Regent’s illness and the transformation of Vajradhatu into Shambhala International. After the Vajra Regent’s death, Karl deepened his relationship with Thrangu Rinpoche, but he always described the importance of propagating Trungpa Rinpoche’s teachings. Karl suffered from a painful degenerative neurological disorder, which he regarded as a constant teaching. We would laugh over how he had re-discovered the truth of suffering and the practice of acceptance.
Karl was an inspiring figure for me. He had no sympathy for fakes or people engaged in self-deception. He was willing to work hard to achieve his goals and to serve his guru, even if it meant enduring discomfort or ridicule. He said that the great thing about shamatha-vipashyana practice—in the manner taught by Trungpa Rinpoche—was that you can’t build anything out of it. He somehow had an early realization that the path was a matter of giving up allegiance to one’s habitual reactivity and then opening one’s eyes to the already-existing wisdom. I felt that Karl saw, acknowledged, and appreciated me in a very complete way, which was special. His primary meditation instruction to me was simply to join all experiences with meditation, to include it all in the practice. Karl had a profound understanding of the choicelessness of one’s path. He seemed to stand with one foot in samsara and one foot in nirvana, expressing and dancing with the energy which encompasses both.
I appreciated the opportunity to join with others in spreading Karl’s ashes at The Great Stupa. It was great, indeed, to feel his ashes and toss them into the wind. I regret not communicating more with Karl towards the end of his life. I offer this note as an expression of friendship.
-Ed Zaron Tingdzin Nyima Sherap Dashon
Tributes
(the original announcement of Karl's death, March 15, 2019)
Dear Sangha Friends,
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Mr. Karl G. Springer following a long illness, on March 13, 2019, in Seattle. [Funeral details below.] Mr. Springer was a close and long-time student of the Vidyadhara, the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and served him in many capacities as the Vidyadhara worked to establish the teachings of the Buddha and Shambhala dharma throughout the world.
Karl met the Vidyadhara in the early ‘70’s at the Vermont retreat center, then known as Tail of the Tiger, now Karme Choling, and quickly stepped into the first of many roles of responsibility as the Executive Director. During his years with the Vidyadhara and the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin, and as a Board member of Vajradhatu, Karl served most prominently as the Director of External Affairs, which meant that at one time or another, and often concurrently, he was in charge of the network of local Dharmadhatus; the Shambhala Training program; Karme Choling; and the tours and visits of the Buddhist teachers hosted by Vajradhatu – great masters including His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa, His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, Tulku Urgyen, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness Sakya Trizin, the venerable Kalu Rinpoche, and many others. For good measure, Karl was also one of the leaders of the creation of Naropa Institute and served as its first Executive Director.
Karl always accepted his assignments and the trust bestowed upon him with great energy and devotion. He was known for his loyalty to the teachers and teachings of the Buddha throughout both the western and eastern worlds of dharma, including the United Nations. Trungpa Rinpoche wrote a poem to Karl that is now well known as the title of a volume of Trungpa’s collected poems:
“Timely Rain”
In the jungles of flaming ego,
May there be cool iceberg of bodhicitta.
On the racetrack of bureaucracy,
May there be the walk of the elephant.
May the sumptuous castle of arrogance
Be destroyed by vajra confidence.
In the garden of gentle sanity,
May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.
20 October 1977
