Ole Nydahl

On 18 December 2020 Ole Nydahl and Anne Behrend welcomed the birth of their daughter Freya.

As of 2019, there were 635 Diamond Way centers throughout the world. Most are in Europe, Russia, or the United States.

On 31 August 2019 Ole Nydahl and Anne Behrend were married at the Diamond Way Buddhist center in Těnovice, Czech Republic.

In an interview in 2017 Ole Nydahl mentioned he had fathered two children.

The 14th Shamar Rinpoche, Shamarpa, stated in his biography of the 16th Karmapa that "it was Lama Ole who made the Karmapa's name be renowned and through this, he established some 600 dharma centers," noting that Nydahls work "is also the result of Gyalwa Karmapa's activity."

In 2014 Nydahl married Alexandra Munoz Barbosa at the Copenhagen Diamond Way Buddhist center. In 2017 they were divorced.

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

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, a meditation on the Buddha Loving Eyes (Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit, Chenrezig in Tibetan) and several forms of guru yoga or meditation on the lama (as given by the 16th Karmapa). 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.

In a 2009 article, Scherer, a professor of comparative religion at Canterbury Christ Church University and a student of Thaye Dorje, as well as a former student of Ole Nydahl, examined if these criticisms apply to the core rituals and practices performed in the Diamond Way. Scherer describes a number of practices, some of which have been partly adapted to the west, while others are fully in line with traditional Karma Kagyu practices, concluding that Baumann's critique applies only partly. According to Scherer, Nydahl's Diamond Way practices can best be described as a "neo-orthopraxy," a new, westernized form of traditional practices. He regrets that Nydahl's ideas are not discussed by Tibet scholars, and opines that they have a duty to counterbalance the prevailing negative criticism by sociologists and students of New Religious Movements.

Ole Nydahl met his future wife Hannah when he was 10 and she was five. They met again just after Nydhal came out of the army. Hannah Nydahl died of lung cancer in 2007.

Between late 1999 and April 2000 there was a public dispute between the German Buddhist Union and the German branch of Diamond Way, which was a member organisation of the Union. Due to Nydahl's disparaging attitude towards Islam, his political statements, his manner of expressing and presenting himself, and his relationships with women, there were calls for the expulsion of Nydahl's organisation from the Union. The dispute was resolved at a meeting between the two organizations on 4 October 2000; although differences were clear, they agreed to learn from the past and cooperate in the future. The conversation was described as "a first step" that "should eliminate misunderstandings, and lead to clarity and cooperation." The German branch of Diamond Way (Buddhistischer Dachverband Diamantweg) remained a member of the German Buddhist Union. In 2019 there were discussions and an application to exclude the Diamond Way from the German Buddhist Union (DBU), based on Nydahl's statements about Islam. DBU members were worried about possible damage to reputation and the German section of Diamond Way decided to leave the DBU.

Due to his role in the Karmapa controversy, Nydahl has been heavily criticized by the supporters of Ogyen Trinley Dorje, such as the authors Mick Brown and Lea Terhune, a student of Tai Situpa. In connection to this, some blame Nydahl for causing the 1992 split of the Karma Kagyu, and accuse him of breaking the samayas to his teachers, which is deprecated in Vajrayana.

When a great Tibetan lama dies, it is tradition in Tibetan Buddhism to find the next reincarnation to continue the work. When Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the Sixteenth Karmapa (head of the Karma Kagyu) died in 1981, two potential successors were found, Ogyen Trinley Dorje and Trinley Thaye Dorje, causing a major split in the Karma Kagyu. Because Shamar Rinpoche was one of Hannah and Ole Nydahl's main teachers, they supported his recognition of Trinley Thaye Dorje as the 17th Karmapa.

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.

In 1972, in a letter to Queen Margarethe of Denmark, the 16th Karmapa called Ole and Hannah Nydahl "trusted pupils," entrusting them to establish "a Centre and meditation centre" in Denmark. According to Bee Scherer, a professor of gender studies and religious studies at Canterbury Christ Church University, "Nydahl was not sent back in 1972 already as a "lama" in the sense of a traditionally trained and fully qualified Buddhist teacher." According to Scherer, Nydahl "gained recognition as a Lama (bla ma, traditionally acknowledged teacher)" in the period after the death of the Sixteenth Karmapa in 1981. In August 1983, he was "finally acknowledged as a "Buddhist Master" by the lineage holder Shamar Rinpoche," the 14th Shamarpa, who certified that Nydahl is "appointed Buddhist Master." Scherer notes that since 1995 "the usage of "Lama" by higher Lamas in reference to Nydahl has been documented."

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. 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. 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.

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.

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