Drala Mountain Center (formerly known as Shambhala Mountain Center, Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center, and Rocky Mountain Dharma Center) is a spiritual retreat center located on 600 acres in a valley in the northern Colorado Rocky Mountains. The original center on this land was founded by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1971 at Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. The center is one of several retreat centers affiliated with Shambhala, a global Buddhist community of predominantly Western students that has been in crisis in recent years due to multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct against its leader, and public revelations of an institutional history of ongoing abuse. History Trungpa arrived in Boulder, Colorado, in 1970 with a number of students from Tail of the Tiger in Barnet, Vermont, now known as Karmê Chöling. Students from neighboring towns and across the country became part of the Karma Dzong Meditation Center in Boulder. Trungpa's growing umbrella organization was called Vajradhatu. The land for what was then called Rocky Mountain Dharma center was purchased for Trungpa with money from a donor. A band of hippies who called themselves the Pygmies built the first rough structures and inhabited the land as a commune, and the first dathun (intensive meditation instruction) was held there in the summer of 1974. Improvements were made over the next decades and more structures built, to create the capacity for year-round programs. In 1987, Trungpa died, and a series of leadership changes impacted the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. After Trungpa's death, Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin became spiritual head of Vajradhatu until around 1989. Citing an AIDS-related infection, allegations arose that Tendzin had passed HIV to a male partner in the Colorado congregation, who in turn unknowingly infected his female partner. Tendzin, who was HIV-positive, knowingly had sex with students for three years without disclosing his infection. He had a delusion that his enlightened status protected himself and others from AIDS. It eventually came out that the Vajradhatu board of directors had known of the problem for more than two years and had done nothing about it. After the death of Ösel Tendzin in 1990, Trungpa's son, Ösel Rangdröl Mukpo became head of the organization. In 1995, Ösel Rangdröl Mukpo was enthroned as Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, a chögyal, or "dharma king," who holds and propagates the teachings of Shambhala. The name of Rocky Mountain Dharma center was changed to Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center sometime in