A Look Back in Time
In the early summer of 1974, my wife Judy and I packed up our old VW micro-bus and left the residential therapeutic community in Connecticut that several students of Trungpa Rinpoche founded and decamped for Boulder. Judy was going to start work as an early staff member of Naropa Institute, and I was entering law school and serving on the Naropa governing board. In the best tradition of multi-tasking, Judy served as part of the maintenance crew, installing fire extinguishers and delivering telephone books (a dated concept),and as a meditation instructor supporting Trungpa Rinpoche, Ram Dass, and the rest of the pioneering faculty. I engaged in board work, catering meals for the staff working 18-hour days, and answering the many calls for action when the expected few hundred attendees grew to close to 2,000, either in the room or inhabiting the borderlands.
For the next 50 years, we were both deeply connected to the famous 500-year experiment proclaimed by Trungpa Rinpoche at the opening convocation.Judy served as our Naropa “Dean” (what we would call President today), and as a faculty member while also editing Trungpa Rinpoche’s books, writing her own pieces, and teaching Buddhism around the world. While most of my professional career was in the creation of housing for formerly homeless and low-income communities, creating health care opportunities for people living with HIV/AIDs, and launching social enterprises, I remained a member of the Naropa board, was one of our lawyers, and since 2012 have been privileged to be our president.I bring our story to the front of this wonderful magazine not because it is unique but very much the opposite.
It may seem that mindfulness, compassion, and contemplative pedagogy is ubiquitous—but 50 years ago, the idea of those disciplines together with service learning being central to a Western institution of higher education was a radical approach to how a learning community could give life to Naropa’s commitment to 'Transform Yourself, Transform the World.'
A version of our story is shared by hundreds of the pioneers who taught at Naropa and supported our students. It has established our university as the pioneering institution at the intersection of mindfulness and compassion practices, spirituality and psychology, creative arts, writing and poetics, and environmental justice built upon the foundational work described as contemplative education. It may seem that mindfulness, compassion, and contemplative pedagogy is ubiquitous—but 50 years ago, the idea of those disciplines together with service learning being central to a Western institution of higher education was a radical approach to how a learning community could give life to Naropa’s commitment to ‘Transform Yourself, Transform theWorld.’
Naropa at 50 is partially a recollection and appreciation for the founding history. Many of the articles are beautiful expressions of the unmatched academic excellence and creativity of our founding faculty. But as you read them, please also consider the seeds were planted that are now bearing fruit in so many ways, both planned and unplanned, but all in service of modern generations of students who need the uniquely Naropa skills to be prepared to engage a world in need of healing. I am moved every day by student encounters when I hear how impactful their Naropa experience is and how deeply committed they are to service.
Close to 50 percent of our students learn completely or mostly online, which carries great opportunity for Naropa to continue to grow and further diversify. But all students long for community, and the faculty and staff continue to find ways to foster that through both in-person and distance learning. Naropa has been the grateful beneficiary of much generosity, which continues to be a significant way our envisioned future may be realized. We are also blessed by faculty who, with an array of professional choices before them, elect to serve as the very worthy successors of their pioneering faculty elders who maintained the flame and nourished the community. The same holds for the staff who are stepping up with fresh thinking and innovation.Very soon the Naropa founding story will not be told by people like Judy and me who (fuzzier memory aside) were “in the room.” Yet the stories are embedded in our values, our rituals and practices, and in the unbroken lineage of students, faculty, staff, and board who embody the wisdom and the humor. Many thanks for sharing this wonderful volume and please feel a welcome part of our anniversary year.
