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JOHN REYNOLDS
BIOGRAPHY
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John Myrdhin Reynolds, aka Vajranatha, studied History of Religions,
Anthropology, Arabic, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies at Columbia
University, at the University of California at Berkeley, and at the
University of Washington at Seattle. At the former he pursued Islamic
Studies under Prof. Arthur Jeffrey and Iranian Studies under Prof. J.
Duchesne-Guillemin. He did his PhD research in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and
Buddhist Philosophy under Prof. Edward Conze, the world-renowned scholar
of the Buddhist Prajnaparamita literature.
He then spent more than ten years in India and Nepal doing field
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Hindu Ashrams in South India and at Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in
Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and Nepal. At these latter locales, he researched the
literature, rituals, and meditation practices of the Nyingmapa and Kagyudpa
schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His Lama teachers included Dezhung Rinpoche,
Kangyur Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Gyalwa
Karmapa, and many others. His special study was Dzogchen and the Buddhist
Tantras, both in their own terms, and in comparison with Gnosticism and other
mystical traditions of the West. As a result, he translated into English many
original Tibetan texts belonging to the Nyingmapa and Kagyudpa traditions, and
more recently texts from the Bon tradition. In Nepal he researched the
techniques and lore of Tibetan shamanism, including rites of exorcism and soul
retrieval, employed and practiced among Ngakpa Lamas belonging to the Nyingmapa
school. The thrust of this research was experiential and participatory, and not
just restricted to texts. He has been initiated into both the Nyingmapa and the
Kagyudpa orders of Tibetan Buddhism and in 1974 in Kalimpong he received
ordination from HH Dudjom Rinpoche as a Ngakpa or Buddhist Tantric Yogin of the
Nyingmapa order, receiving the name Vajranatha (Rigdzin Dorje Gonpo). With the
inspiration and permission of HH, he began in-depth research into the
Ngakpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism stemming from Guru Padmasambhava and
Nubchen Sangye Yeshe in the 8th century of our era.
Since then he has continued his researches and lectured widely in India,
Europe, and America. He has taught History of Religions and Buddhist Studies at
Shanti Ashram (South India), at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), at
the University of California (Santa Cruz), and more recently at the College of
New Rochelle in New York City. Furthermore, he has taught in various countries
of Europe, lecturing and presenting seminars on Buddhism, meditation, Tibetan
shamanism, and psychological development in Amsterdam, Den Haag, Groningen,
Copenhagen, Malmo, Oslo, Devon, and London, as well as in Italy, Greece,
Mallorca, Poland, Hungary, and Jugoslavia.
In the past two decades he has worked closely with
Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, the foremost exponent of Dzogchen practice in the West,
on a number of translations of important Nyingmapa Dzogchen texts. Since 1989,
he has worked closely with Lopon Tenzin Namdak, the foremost scholar of the
Bonpo tradition outside of Tibet, on the translation into English of a large
number of ancient and rare Bonpo Dzogchen texts, including the Zhang-zhung
Nyan-gyud, and also the Ma Gyud, the Bonpo Mother Tantra. As his principal
focus, he continues his research into the historical origins of Dzogchen in both
the Nyingmapa and the Bon traditions, and especially into the connections of
Dzogchen and the Bon tradition with the Iranian religious culture of ancient
Central Asia and the West, including Iranian Buddhism, Mithraism, and
Gnosticism. This research into original texts in Tibetan and Sanskrit, as well
as comparative studies in terms of religion, mysticism, and magic, and the
producing of monographs thereon, is known as the Vidyadhara Project.
For more information, visit his website at http://www.vajranatha.com.
BOOKS
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