The mailing address for Shambhala Mountain Center locates it in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, but the Mountain Center's fame lodges it in the consciousness of anyone who, even peripherally, watched Buddhism rise in prominence in post-1960s America.

In 1970 Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche arrived in Boulder and popularized a series of esoteric Tibetan Buddhist teachings and practices for the benefit of a bunch of hippies (and eventually for the rest of us). His accomplishment was astounding. Tibetan Buddhist is not user friendly, but Trungpa Rinpoche made it so. That his personal life reflected dissipation more than enlightenment remains an area of contention.

In 1971 he founded the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, which is now known as Shambhala Mountain Center. Its wooly past remains on view in a handful of wonderfully improvised buildings that bespeak of a lifestyle that made much out of little.

There's also the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, where Trungpa Rinpoche's ashes are interred. It's a beautiful building in a peaceful place. I visited it yesterday – even though when I left Fort Collins the sky was overcast. At Mountain Center, it poured rain, as you can see in the photos below.

Mountain Center is located at approximately 8,000 ft, and a bit of snow dusted the mountain slopes. Nonetheless, a small globular cactus was in bloom – probably the Mountain ball cactus (Pediocactus simpsonii, which you can see below). Its simplicity of form and integration with its habitat (and my surprise at finding it thriving at such a high altitude) brought to mind the larger values that Mountain Center upholds.