One of the earliest Buddhist events to take place in New Zealand was a three-month retreat led by a Canadian Buddhist teacher known as Namgyal Rinpoche, on the shores of Lake Rotoiti, in 1973. This article will provide a qualitative case study of the retreat, and show how the practices and motivations of the group reveal and challenge the assumptions of some of the theoretical frameworks scholars have used to interpret the spread of dharma to the West.