The Truth About Naropa University's History

Naropa University is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) school founded by a Tibetan Buddhist lineage holder who wanted an accredited academic home for bachelor's and master's students. Its location in Boulder, Colorado was no accident. The founder chose a setting of mountains and high elevation that echoed the classical Tibetan world he came from. In that respect it shares something with its sister organization, Shambhala Mountain Center, up in Red Feather Lakes.

For much of its history the school has run across three campuses: Arapahoe, Nalanda, and Paramita. The stated aim is to spread what the tradition calls 'enlightened society,' and it does so through a liberal arts curriculum covering psychology, neuroscience coursework, religious studies, interdisciplinary programs, and plenty more. Students have long had the chance to sit with recognized Tibetan Buddhist lineage holders, which deepens the mindfulness work taught in the classroom.

The training in those mindfulness practices is demanding. It aims at self-awareness, executive attention, and self-regulation, and the coursework deliberately pairs academic study with contemplative training so that students get both at once.

Why the school holds the interest it does comes down to three things: where it started, how it teaches, and what it could become. Start with the origin. Naropa was founded by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, one of Tibet's sharpest scholars, born into the world as a recognized reincarnated tulku of the highest order. When he and his companions were forced to leave Tibet or risk near-certain execution, he adapted to Western life with surprising speed. Alongside the Dalai Lama, he spent the rest of his days carrying Tibetan Buddhism to the West.

Then there is the method. Few schools in the country put rigorous academic training next to traditional Eastern meditation the way this one does. By letting students meet Tibetan Buddhist teachers one on one inside an accredited classroom, the institution built a base for mindfulness-centered higher education in psychology, religious studies, neuroscience, and other fields.

And there is the potential. The school was built to be a point of clarity in a culture that tends to prop up cognitive belief systems rather than let people perceive the mind directly. A student can train the mind hard here, through academic and contemplative work woven together, while earning a fully accredited degree. Sitting one on one with Tibetan Buddhist lineage holders, Zen lineage holders, and others, a student develops interior awareness under masters of mindfulness at the same time the paperwork of a real degree gets done. There is no other program in the United States offering quite that combination, and the reason is that the roots run deeper and longer than at the newer institutions.

The bachelor's offerings reflect that breadth: Contemplative Art Therapy, Contemplative Martial Arts, Contemplative Psychology, Creative Writing and Literature, Early Childhood Education, Environmental Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, Music, Peace Studies, Performance, Religious Studies, Visual Arts, and Yoga Studies.

The founder, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was a prolific teacher, author, poet, and artist. He is remembered most for bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, establishing more than 200 meditation centers and the first fully accredited Buddhist university. To make sense of his legacy, and the school's, you have to go back to the start.

He was born in February 1939 in the Kham region of Tibet. Before he turned two, he was recognized as the eleventh reincarnation of the Trungpa tulkus, a line of important teachers within the Kagyu school. Kagyu is one of the six main schools of Himalayan Buddhism, often called the 'oral lineage' school, and one of several that were newly interpreted branches of Vajrayana. Vajrayana is one of the three vehicles to enlightenment; the other two are Sravakayana and Mahayana. That tradition sits at the root of what Naropa would become.

His upbringing was built around a punishing schedule of study and practice. Three of Tibet's greatest teachers guided him: Jamgon Kongtrul, Dilgo Khyentse, and Khenpo Gangshar. The plan was for him to become supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries and governor of the Surmang region. He completed his studies, earning the degrees of Kyorpon (Doctor of Divinity) and Khenpo (Master of Studies), and was fully ordained at twenty.

Soon after, he followed the Dalai Lama out of Tibet during the 1959 uprising, a failed bid for freedom against communist China. He led a party of roughly 300 monks on foot and horseback across the Himalayas into India. Only thirteen survived the crossing. He stayed in India from 1959 to 1963, and on the Dalai Lama's advice served as an advisor to the Young Lamas Home School. During those exile years he took up English, convinced that language was a way of connecting mind and body. In time he would teach English to Americans himself.

His efforts won sympathy among Westerners, and in 1963 the Spalding Scholarship let him leave India for Oxford, where he studied comparative religion along with philosophy and fine arts. In 1967 he traveled to Scotland and, with Akong Rinpoche, co-founded a meditation center. That center, Samye Ling, became the West's first Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

In 1969 he left Scotland for Bhutan and went on a ten-day solitary retreat. There he faced a problem: he did not know how to reach Western students who were at once dazzled and intimidated by his robes and his teachings. The growing materialism of the world troubled him, and he spoke often of the dark ages he felt he lived in. He was unsure how to go on. Not long after returning to Scotland he was in a car accident with a female companion. The circumstances are still debated, but the result left him permanently paralyzed on his left side.

That accident pushed him to set aside his robes and vows. By 1970 he was arguing that the West needed a Dharma stripped of its cultural trappings. He married his young English wife, Diana Pybus, and, at his students' request, crossed over to the United States. Once in North America he moved quickly, opening his first retreat center, Karme Choling, in Vermont. Westerners came in numbers, many of them doubtful that this unconventional man was a Buddhist leader at all. That same year he founded Karma Dzong, a Buddhist community, in Boulder, Colorado, well before the university itself took shape.