Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and the 14th Dalai Lama meeting at the Spirituality and Education Conference at the Naropa Institute in 1997. Photo by Dona Laurita, used courtesy of the Reb Zalman Legacy Project.
From its inaugural summer session in 1974, the Naropa Institute stressed experiential engagement over dispassionate observation, introducing students to the idea of the scholar-practitioner in all disciplines. Students of poetry would learn from active poets like Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, spiritual aspirants from spiritual teachers like Ram Dass and Jack Kornfield, dancers and musicians from Barbara Dilley and John Cage.
The previous summer, John Baker and Marvin Casper had approached their teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist master of the Kagyü School, with the idea for a college founded on the Buddhist principles of “wisdom, compassion, and enlightened action.” Hearing their idea, Trungpa Rinpoche quickly lifted his hand, as if shooting a pistol, saying, “I’m pulling the trigger on the Naropa Institute.”[1]
Or at least that is how the story is usually told. According to Thomas Hast, another of Naropa’s founders, a small group of Trungpa Rinpoche’s students had gathered prior to this conversation to talk about the idea of creating a college. It was after the first Vajradhatu Seminary in the inspiring summer of 1973. The college they agreed was to be based on “ecumenical principles,” and not simply “Buddhist principles.” It was the 70s, after all, and there was a feeling that it was time for the religions to come together. The college would be the kind of place where that could happen. By the next summer, John Baker, Marvin Casper, Thomas Hast and others, with the blessing of Trungpa Rinpoche, had created the first summer institute.[2]
In his opening talk to the more than 1,500 attendees of the institute’s first session, Trungpa Rinpoche called Naropa a place “where East meets West and sparks will fly.” [3] It was clear that Trungpa Rinpoche’s vision for the Naropa Institute was also to create a place where all the world’s wisdom traditions might be preserved and taught in their integrity. Playfully, he called it “The Yogi School.”[4]
When Dr. Judith Simmer-Brown first joined the new full-time faculty in January of 1978,[5] Trungpa Rinpoche asked the staff to apply for a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, desiring that Naropa become a host and connecting-hub for a number of small contemplative communities from different traditions—Hindu Yogis, Muslim Sufis, Hasidic Jews, and Contemplative Christians.[6] According to Simmer-Brown, it was to be a place “where authentic contemplative traditions could be taught and practiced in an environment of dialogue, respect, mentoring, and community.”[7]
Dr. Reginald Ray, another original faculty member, recalled the hesitancy of some of the faculty at Trungpa Rinpoche’s suggestion that the institute initiate a program of interreligious “contemplative studies” . . .
As Buddhists just beginning to find our way around Buddhism, we thought we had left Christianity and Judaism behind for good. As is typical of new converts, we shared a resistance and lack of curiosity toward other religions, and especially toward those with which we had grown up.[8]
Since the founding of the Naropa Institute in 1974, many individuals have contributed to its growth and development. While the designations of Naropa’s leadership positions have changed over its history, each of the individuals in these positions of leadership has offered exemplary vision and direction to shape Naropa’s path.
