Pulling a Torch From the Sky: The Radical Dzogchen of Keith Dowman

Keith Dowman's life has been totally unconventional, and his role as an unorthodox master of Tibetan dharma has been recognized by traditional lamas and their adepts. He began as a pilgrim, became a translator, then a peripatetic teacher and finally a lineage holder. The Tibetans acknowledge Keith's role in the lineage of Drukpa Kunley in which the teacher appears as a traveler on the road, independent from institutions or ceremonial conventions. These are not the tulkus or the geshes; these are the wisdom holders, the divine madmen, the itinerant yogis, perpetually traveling, teaching, and writing.
Keith's teachings draw on his many translations and his extensive reading of Tibetan Dzogchen philosophy. He is strikingly unadorned and one hundred percent himself. He is sharp, deep, humble, transparent and unwaveringly confident in his view of Radical Dzogchen. He has no institutional links, so there cannot be any institutional lineage or formal certification. There will be no transfer of a "title" in a formal ceremony. As Keith has stated, "It will be a matter of simply pulling the torch out of the sky".

J. M. White

I have explored and written about esoteric and indigenous traditions around the world. I studied at Naropa Institute with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Harry Smith and Gregory Corso. I have written about the Paleolithic art in the caves of France, as well as travel journals about Tibet, Peru and Mexico. I have explored the ancient ruins of the prehistoric people of the Southwest and have attended the kachina dances at Zuni pueblo. I have compiled and edited the autobiography of Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and have ten books in print, five of prose and five of poetry.
I did graduate study in Phenomenology at Duquesne University and hold an M.A. in philosophy from Vanderbilt. My poems, interviews, essays and book reviews have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Sewanee Review, Janus Head, Parabola and The Mirror as well as in magazines and journals in Canada, England, Italy, Japan, New Zealand and India. I continue to live in rural Middle Tennessee where I founded Anomolaic Press and publish my own work along with the novels and short stories of William Gay.

Lamont Ingalls

In the late 1970s I began to hear about Zen Buddhism from several sources: a friend in Nashville gave me a copy of Philip Kapleau's The Three Pillars of Zen; I was reading Gary Snyder's poems, essays and interviews that were informed by his years in a Zen Monastery in Kyoto; and Jack Kerouac's Beat Zen-influenced poems, Mexico City Blues. Earlier in the 70s I had studied Leary, Alpert and Metzner's The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead but did not read the Evans-Wentz translation it was based on until much later. Around this time, while I was living in New Orleans, I came across Alexandra David-Neel's classic, Magic and Mystery in Tibet. This book was a seminal introduction to the "Land of Snows" for many Westerners who found resonance with the teachings from a mysterious theocratic society dedicated to the pursuit of enlightenment.

For several years in the 1980s I studied and practiced at the New Orleans Zen Center under the direction of Roshi Robert Livingston. This lineage was Soto Zen and the center represented the foundational work and teachings of Taisen Deshimaru. In the mid-1990s I practiced under the tutelage of Master Goshun Shin, PhD at the American Zen College in Germantown, MD. Master Goshun had founded three Zen monasteries in South Korea before emigrating to America in 1969. He established this Zen community in Maryland in 1976.

At the beginning of the 21st Century, Michael White and I met near Nashville and began the first of many lengthy discussions about The Beats and Buddhism. Later, in Florida, he presented me with several texts on Tibetan Buddhism by Namkhai Norbu and Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche, his root gurus. This began a more focused study of Tibetan Buddhist texts and topics related to "The Land of Snows". In 2014 Michael learned that Keith Dowman was going to give a weekend teaching in Naples, Florida. He asked if I was interested, and I readily agreed. Keith, of course, followed his teachings and practice with a Q&A session. The most important response I heard from Keith was to my question about my background in Soto Zen. He said, "Soto Zen is excellent preparation for Dzogchen."

In 2016 Michael and I, and another friend, Sifu Michael Stults, brought Keith to Florida for another long weekend of teaching and practice. The retreat was held at a Quan in Sarasota dedicated to the martial and healing arts and presided over by Sifu Stults. This began a long series of conversations with Keith and his many fellow pilgrims and scholars, and the Dzogchenpas he has taught and guided for the past three decades. This biography focuses on Keith's journey from England to India, Nepal and Mexico, and on his life as a renowned translator of seminal Dzogchen texts and teacher of Radical Dzogchen, teachings which he evolved from the traditional Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana/Dzogchen lineage but recast for the Western mind.