Many of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s students thought of him as a second Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava—the “lotus-born”—overcame cultural, political, and spiritual obstacles to bring the tantric teachings to Tibet from India in the ninth century. Likewise, Trungpa Rinpoche had to conquer religious and cultural opposition to Buddhism—the secret teachings, in particular—to establish his sangha in North America in the twentieth century. Taming Untamable Beings: Early Stories of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche with the Pygmies and Other Hippies is the story of that beginning.

Jim Lowrey is an “old dog” Trungpa student, who, with the rest of his Pygmy hippie family went to Trungpa Rinpoche’s first public talk in Colorado in 1970 and connected with him immediately. As part of the early baby boom generation, Jim is emblematic of the sixties generation of war protesters, college dropouts, and hippies, who matured as the American born-again organic, locally grown, free-run middle class.