Three months after the Sixteenth Karmapa’s death in late 1981, Trungpa Rinpoche lead the community in a supplication. He said:
Repeat after me.
Your Holiness please return to us.
Your Holiness please return to us.
Your Holiness please return to us.
Continue to teach us.
Be our guide.
Be our friend.
Be our only source of inspiration.
Please come back soon.
We wait for you.
Now that wait is over. His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa arrived in New York on Thursday, May 15, for a tour of the United States, including stops in New York, Boulder, and Seattle. His predecessor’s visits in the 1970s and 1980s had a profound impact on Trungpa Rinpoche’s sangha, and on the development of vajrayana dharma in the West. The return of the Karmapa, the head of the Kagyu lineage, the lineage of Trungpa Rinpoche, is an historic moment for the western sangha.
We would to express our gratitude to the Karmapa Foundation and Nalandabodhi for making these image available on the Chronicles. Check out karmapavisit.blogspot.com for more images and updates from the visit organizers.
