LEVI ASHER
NAROPA
The early-to-middle 1970's were
good years for alternative culture in
The Naropa Institute itself was created by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a remarkable Chinese/Tibetan guru whose
confrontational, unpredictable teaching style was smart enough to impress Allen
Ginsberg into fully adopting the Buddhist
religion. Trungpa taught a rough and humorous form of
Buddhism, designed to force change by confronting the deepest roots of
complacency with whatever means possible. After first meeting Ginsberg and
sensing such a complacency, Trungpa
challenged him to shave off his beard; Ginsberg did so. Years later, when
Ginsberg complained that he was not taken seriously due to his hippie image, Trungpa commanded him to begin wearing suits at public
gatherings, which Ginsberg did for the rest of his life.
Trungpa's confrontational style might have gone too
far, though, when in 1975 the poet W.S. Merwin and Merwin's girlfriend Dana Naone
visited Naropa to experience his instruction. Unable
to elicit satisfactory responses from these two, Trungpa
finally instructed other students to drag them into a large gathering and
forcibly strip them naked. This act naturally shocked and outraged the American
Buddhist community, and soured the public reception of the Naropa
Institute for at least a few years.
The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, the poetry school at the Naropa Institute has been a tremendously positive force in
the American post-Beat poetry scene for decades.
by Levi Asher December 1, 1994