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The Ekoji Buddhist Sangha of Richmond, the “Temple of the Gift of Light” located in Richmond's Museum District in Virginia, houses five distinct groups practicing in separate lineages of Buddhism: Pure Land, Soto Zen, Kagyu (Tibetan), and Vipassana, and the Meditative Inquiry group. This book discusses the exceptional degree of pluralism at Ekoji and the ways in which regionalism may manifest in relation to Buddhism in America. Using the Ekoji Buddhist Sangha of Richmond as the primary case study, the chapter shows how bodily practices serve as paths through the shared space of Ekoji and the streets of Richmond and reveals more about identity formation and expression.

Drukpa Künlé, “the Madman of the Drukpa,” is by far the best known of Tibet’s “holy madmen,” in Tibet, Bhutan, and more recently the Western world. After summarizing the ways Drukpa Künlé has been depicted in Tibetan oral tradition and biographies composed in recent decades, this chapter attempts to construct a picture of the man that is closer to historical fact, based on the four volumes of his Miscellaneous Writings. Although the historical Drukpa Künlé voiced criticisms of many aspects of the Buddhist culture of his day, there is no indication that he performed the sort of scatological behavior now thought to have been his forte. Rather, it seems that the wilder version of Drukpa Künlé is the result of a series of exaggerations that have taken place in the centuries since his death.

Chapter Three explores what we can surmise about the “religion” of Sönam Peldren and her supporters from a careful reading of her Life: the saint’s religious training and sectarian affiliation (or lack thereof), her religious and ritual practices, and her religious rhetoric as conveyed in the Life’s extensive quotations of what is presented as Sönam Peldren’s spontaneous verse. In exploring the text’s representation of Sönam Peldren’s religious training, practice, and rhetoric, this chapter suggests that she was most likely a popular religious figure operating in a Kagyü milieu, with both the saint and her biographers influenced by models of unconventional religious figures such as the non-monastic Indo-Tibetan Buddhist archetype of the great tantric adept and the specifically Tibetan incarnation of the archetype of the mad saint (Tib: smyon pa/ ma, or nyönpa/nyönma), as well as the distinctive religious practices such as Practice of the Observance, inner heat, songs of realization, and the tantric feast.

This chapter discusses the history of Bhutan and the history of Nepali migration to Bhutan. The author describes how the refugees use the terms umbho (‘above’) and undho (‘below’) to distinguish between the northern, higher-altitude, politically dominant, culturally Drukpa region, and the southern, lower-altitude, politically subordinate, culturally Nepali region. The author describes the history of Bhutan as beginning with the advent of Buddhism, and particularly of the Drukpa sub-order of the Kagyü School which came to prevail in Bhutan’s western valleys in the twelfth century. The author cites the seventh century as the beginning of Nepali migration to Nepal, and how this early date is cited by refugees to claim legitimacy in Bhutan. The author also describes the relationship between the kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan over the centuries. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the presence of Lhotshampa in Bhutan became politically problematic even though they have always believed that they migrated in a ‘civilizing role’ to Bhutan.

The introduction discusses the ways Tibetans have tended to think and speak about the “holy madmen,” with close attention to the categories and words traditionally employed. It also gives brief introductions to tantra and the history of the Kagyü sect. It then lays out some of the assumptions that underlie the arguments made to be made in the book, including the ways ideas about the supernatural are produced out of human discourse and the necessity of viewing saints as public figures. This is followed by summaries of the contents of each chapter.

This chapter considers the various projects taken up by the Madmen of Ü and Tsang in their later years. The Madman of Ü established a monastery, which to some of his followers seemed in contradiction with the ascetic lifestyle he had long pursued. Like the tantric literalist asceticism for which he became renowned, the Madman of Tsang’s various biographical and printing projects—including his composing and publishing the Life and Collected Songs of the eleventh-century saint Milarepa—were attempts to redefine the Kagyü sect, and thereby shore it up against certain threats posed by broader changes to Tibetan religious culture then taking place. The Madman of Tsang’s 1504 renovation of the Swayambhūnāth stūpa in Nepal serves as an important indication of the standing in the Buddhist world he had achieved.

This chapter surveys the lives of other “holy madmen” and “madwomen” throughout Tibetan history, from the twelfth century to the present, including Tangtong Gyelpo, “the Madman of the Empty Plain.” This chapter also explores some of the other ways a rhetoric of madness has been employed in Tibetan religious culture, including the use of “madman” as a pen name. Examples of the “madmen’s” influencing one another are shown, as are examples of specific representations of “holy madmen” influencing the biographical representations of later ones. The book closes by arguing that many of the conceptions of “holy madness” operative today bear the influence of Chögyam Trungpa, who employed the rhetoric of “crazy wisdom” to his own specific ends.