Ole Nydahl

Ole Nydahl (born 19 March 1941), also known as Lama Ole, is a lama providing Mahamudra teachings in the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.

With his wife, Hannah Nydahl (1946-2007), he founded Diamond Way Buddhism, a worldwide Karma Kagyu Buddhist organization with over 600 centers for lay practitioners.

Nydahl is the author of more than twenty books (in German and English) about Diamond Way Vajrayana Buddhism, with translations into multiple languages.

Titles include The Great Seal: Mahamudra View of Diamond Way Buddhism,The Way Things Are, Entering the Diamond Way, Buddha and Love and Fearless Death.

Ole Nydahl was born north of Copenhagen into an academic family.

Growing up in Denmark during the second world war, Nydahl witnessed his parents working in the Danish resistance movement, helping transport Jews to neutral Sweden.

In the early 1960s, he served briefly in the Danish Army, then studied philosophy, English, and German at the University of Copenhagen, where he completed the examen philosophicum with the best possible grade.

He began but did not finish a doctoral thesis on Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception.

As a young man, Nydahl was involved in boxing, motorcycles, race car driving and also travelled overland from Denmark to Nepal several times.

As described in his autobiography Entering the Diamond Way, his travels were financed through smuggling, for which he was once arrested and detained in Denmark.

He used this time in pre-trial detention for meditation and read "Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrine" by Walter Evans-Wentz.

In 1968, Ole Nydahl and his wife Hannah travelled to Nepal on their honeymoon.

In Nepal they met their first Buddhist teacher, the Drukpa Kagyu master Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche.

In December 1969, the Nydahls met Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu lineage.

Since the early 1970s, Nydahl has toured the world giving lectures and meditation courses.

They learned phowa from Ayang Rinpoche in 1972.

In addition, the Nydahls received teachings and empowerments from various Tibetan lamas, including Dilgo Khyentse, Bokar Rinpoche, Gyaltrul Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama.

Upon returning to Europe in 1972, the 16th Karmapa asked Hannah and Ole Nydahl to begin teaching Buddhism and organize meditation centers, first in their native Denmark, then in Germany and other countries.

The centers belong to the Karma Kagyu lineage and operate under Ole Nydahl's practical guidance.

In the early 90s, Diamond Way Buddhism was founded as a way to protect established centers during the Karmapa controversy.

, there were 635 Diamond Way centers throughout the world.

Most are in Europe, Russia, or the United States.

Ole Nydahl regularly travels between them during the year giving lectures and meditation courses.

In a newsletter dated 9 July 2010, Nydahl responded to questions about the types of practices taught in Diamond Way Centers by stating "I never taught anything I was not asked to pass on by the great Sixteenth Karmapa and that its basis was always the Guru Yogas of the Karmapas. Nothing else is practiced in our now 650 Diamond Way centers world-wide where my students meditate side by side."

According to Bee Scherer, "This trajectory is a deliberate yet restrictive selection from the vast richness of Kagyu practices", providing an introductory course into Karma Kagyu practices.

Jørn Borup, a professor of religion at Aarhus University, says that Ole Nydahl is "the most lasting influence on the Buddhist practice scene in Denmark" and "has in many ways been the icon of living Buddhism in Denmark".

Until 2013, Nydahl taught conscious dying or phowa, as well as other Buddhist meditation practices, but in recent years he has been focused on giving Mahamudra; teachings on the nature of mind.

Nine years after the British woman Freda Bedi became the first Western student of the 16th Karmapa, the Nydahls took refuge and became students of the Karmapa.

They studied and meditated in the Himalayas, where they completed the Ngöndro or preliminary practices in six months, and had explanations and empowerments for 8th Karmapa guru yoga meditation practice and other methods.

During this time the Nydahls also became students of Mipham Chokyi Lodro, the fourteenth Shamarpa, the 3rd Jamgon Kongtrul, and Kalu Rinpoche in Sonada.

From the Karmapa, the Nydahls learned about Vajrayana Buddhism and mahamudra, and received the Kagyu Ngagdzo transmission.

From the Shamarpa, they took the Bodhisattva vows and learned about Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation.

Students in Diamond Way Centers practice the Ngöndro given by Wangchuk Dorje, 9th Karmapa Lama, which are a set of four foundational practices that are intended to prepare the mind for enlightenment, and several forms of guru yoga or meditation on the lama, such as the 16th Karmapa meditation, and the 8th Karmapa meditation (as given by the 16th Karmapa).

He traveled almost constantly for over 40 years, teaching in a new city nearly every day, until 2017 when his health necessitated reducing his travel schedule.

Together with his students, Nydahl has created Buddhist centers that provide access to Vajrayana meditation methods without requiring an understanding of Tibetan language or culture.

In the Diamond Way centers, the meditations and names of the various Buddha forms have been translated into Western languages.

Ole Nydahl believes it essential for people to understand and read the meditations in their own language in order for Buddhism to become truly rooted in the West, as noted in the preface to the meditation booklet titled Refuge and the Enlightened Attitude, used in Diamond Way Buddhist Centers, in which Nydahl states, "This practice used to have an exotic edge because the repetition was in Tibetan. It has now been brought into a Western context, enabling us to understand it on a much deeper level."

Diamond Way centers are run entirely by volunteers; the organization does not maintain any paid staff.

The organizational structure is intended to be democratic and to function on the basis of idealism and friendship.

According to Buddhism Today, the Diamond Way Buddhist magazine, "hierarchical systems will not sell with independent people in the West. Nobody wants a distant teacher on a pedestal or a big organization standing on their shoulders and telling them what to think."