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Naropa University
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Naropa University | |
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| Established | 1974 |
| Type: | Private |
| President: | Thomas B. Coburn |
| Faculty: | 198 |
| Undergraduates: | 451 |
| Postgraduates: | 634 |
| Location | Boulder, Colorado, United States |
| Website: | http://www.naropa.edu |
Naropa University is a private, liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado, the United States, which was founded in 1974 by Chögyam Trungpa. It is one of the few major accredited Buddhist-inspired universities in North America.
Accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, Naropa University is a private, non-profit, non-sectarian liberal arts institution practicing contemplative education.
Contemplative education is a philosophy of higher education that infuses learning with insight and compassion for one's self and others through the practice of meditation and contemplative disciplines.
Once experienced, it may feel surprisingly familiar, hearkening back to an earlier time when life was intense, immediate and crisp. As a child encounters new situations with few prejudices, so will the contemplative student learn, or re-learn, to forego unfair presumptions. He or she will not eliminate ego, but rather recognize it, set it aside, and prioritize a consideration for the plight of others.
The contemplative mind will not dig in its heels, obsessed with yesterday’s triumphs or failures, nor will it push forward, feverish with anxieties about what may or may never be. It is present, open, impressionable and quick to absorb knowledge. This is a state of wakefulness, complete and fully realized—a state of unmitigated alertness and focus—and it takes practice.
Like any muscle, the mind can be trained, resulting ultimately in the attainment of wisdom. At Naropa University, Eastern ways of knowing are integrated with the academic rigor of the Western academy in order that such wisdom, present in every being, may be made manifest.
Contemplative education has a great deal to do with honesty. It requires the student to take the bad with the good, without flinching, for good and bad are the reality of the world. It requires that mental calluses soften and that our tendency to avoid what is disconcerting, our tendency to not hear what is unkind, be confronted—that we engage life facing forward because this is a process by which we share in humanity. Empathy, “putting one’s self in another’s shoes” and vicariously experiencing that person’s feelings, is integral to becoming compassionate.
And unto ourselves we must also be honest. Anger, fear, resentment—such emotions exist alongside our capacities for love, fortitude and friendship, and it is possible to make peace with that fact. Authenticity does not require surrendering to negative thoughts, but it refuses to let us ignore them. Much of suffering stems from a sense of disconnection, a discrepancy between who we really are and the façade that we project. To recognize and understand our emotions is to deflate their ability to overwhelm us or cause discomfort. And by lessening internal strife, we are then better able to turn our attention outward, toward altruism.
Each semester, Naropa University closes offices and holds no classes for one day called Community Practice Day. On this day, members of the Naropa community—students, faculty, staff, and others—are invited to participate in group sitting meditation practice during the morning. Other contemplative disciplines are offered throughout the day, such as Japanese tea ceremony, t’ai-chi ch’uan, Christian labyrinth, ikebana, pagan ceremony, Christian contemplative liturgy, and Mudra Space Awareness. Panel discussions, departmental lunches, and community service projects are often offered in the afternoon.
The object of the day is to emphasize both togetherness in the Naropa community and the importance of leading a mindful, aware life rather than a high-speed, cluttered one.
Naropa University's founder, Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, was born in Tibet in 1940, a lineage holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma Buddhist traditions. In 1959, after the Chinese invasion, he escaped Tibet through the Himalayas to northern India. Like the Dalai Lama and other exiled teachers, he continued to teach and transmit the wisdom of the Buddhist dharma. In 1963, he received a Spaulding sponsorship to study comparative religion, philosophy, and the fine arts at Oxford University where he became fluent in English and conversant with the particular needs of Western students.
In 1970, Trungpa began presenting Buddhist teachings in the United States. During the next 17 years, he taught extensively, and founded meditation centers throughout North America and Europe. A scholar and artist as well as meditation master, he became widely recognized as one of the foremost teachers of Buddhism in the West, a distinction that put him in the unique position of possessing and understanding the wisdom of both cultures.
Trungpa realized his vision of creating a university that would combine contemplative studies with traditional Western scholastic and artistic disciplines with the founding of the Naropa Institute in 1974.
A quote famously attributed to Trungpa came on his first arrival in the United States: "Where are the poets? Take me to your poets!"[1]
During the two summer sessions Trungpa had an eye toward the future. He wanted to develop a plan for Naropa beyond the first summer. With Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, John Cage and Diane di Prima already on hand for the Institute's summer offerings, Trungpa asked the contemporary masters of American letters to found a poetics department.
Ginsberg and Waldman, who roomed together that first summer, came up with the name for the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
In June of 1975, the Institute assembled its first degree program, an MA Psychology program designed originally as an extension of a program in Connecticut – one of the many seminars resulting from Trungpa’s prolific and charismatic teaching career in the West. It was a 16-week Maitri program, based on Buddhist teachings about basic patterns of energy.
Trungpa had created Maitri before Naropa existed. When he asked Marvin Casper – who went on to chair Naropa’s Contemplative Psychology department and edit two of Trungpa’s books – to help restructure it, Casper turned it into a degree program at the Naropa Institute. Initially, students were required to attend three of the Institute’s summer sessions, take two Maitri programs in Connecticut and complete a six-month independent project.
In January of 1976, the Institute offered its first group of degree programs as Trungpa pushed the Institute toward accreditation: BA degrees in Buddhist Studies and Visual Art, the MA in Psychology, an MFA in Visual art and Expressive Arts Certificates in Dance, Theater and Poetics.
Major courses of study at Naropa University deepen knowledge, skills, and wisdom in a specific area and prepare students for graduate school, careers, and overall personal growth. Most majors take a little more than a quarter of a typical four-year undergraduate career and students are also allowed the option of a double-major or may create their own focus of study in the Interdisciplinary Studies program.
Naropa offers these undergraduate majors:
This major supports students in self-discovery, inner wisdom, and the development of interpersonal skills. The program is founded on the mindfulness/awareness teachings of Buddhist and Shambhala lineages, world wisdom traditions, and western psychology. Students choose a concentration in Psychological Science; Psychology of Health and healing; Somatic Psychology; or Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology.
This department focuses on a non-sectarian, yet distinctly Shambhala Buddhist, approach to teacher education. Various western holistic pedagogies are studied in order to broaden the student’s awareness of the wide range of choices available in developing a meaningful and authentic teaching style. The intention of the program is for students to become courageously genuine and empathetically transformative teachers. Students are given the opportunity to participate in apprentice-style internships with master teachers from these traditions.
This program welcomes students who feel drawn to study, celebrate, and serve the earth. The program integrates the disciplines of natural science, ecology, horticulture, systems theory, ecopsychology, service learning, sustainable living, and wilderness rites of passage.
This program invites its students to design a unique major by selecting courses from two or three different disciplines. Students begin the program by taking the required gateway seminar which surveys the history of disciplines as they are studied and as they constitute major and minor degree programs. This approach ensures that students bring an informed and educated perspective to their own unique focus of study.
At Naropa University, the practice of music encompasses the whole musician while focusing on the expressive world of the heart. This program offers a sense of creative freedom, examination of technical skills, emphasis on a multicultural perspective, and elements of composition and recording technology. The goal of this program is to make music that is a force for positive change in the world.
This major explores the causes of violence and war while focusing on a path to peace. Within this major there are four related areas of inquiry: history and politics of social change; theory and practice of peacemaking; the arts in peacemaking; spiritual disciplines and contemplative practices in peacemaking.
This department offers courses that examine the phenomenon of religion as it affects individuals, as it operates in culture, and as it addresses questions of life's ultimate values. Varying some by program, the approach is non-sectarian, scholarly, and critical, relying on the best of contemporary Western and traditional scholarship. Students experience a "hands-on" exploration of major meditation traditions and social service as well as being enriched by contact with the living lineages of Asian and Western teachers.
This program offers rigorous technical training, an emphasis on a student-centered creative process, and a contemplative approach to performance. Through the practice of mindfulness and cultural studies, students are encouraged to consider the arts as a pathway for self-discovery and as a means for serving others.
The first degree program of its kind offered in the United States, this program allows the student to practice and study sitting meditation and examine the philosophy of meditative movement. This exploration establishes a ground of study from which each student chooses a major area of concentration from the following disciplines: t'ai-chi ch'uan, yoga, or aikido. The Traditional Eastern Arts program also includes the study of the history, philosophy, and culture of the major discipline.
This major offers studio electives in several painting mediums, calligraphic forms, sculpture, pottery, and photography. Required courses in drawing, the history of visual art, meditation in conjunction with studio practice, and portfolio preparation form the foundation of the major.
This program emphasizes traditional and experimental approaches to creative writing in verse and prose within a variety of genres. Also emphasized is the development of competent critical writing in literature courses and in the critical thesis requirement of the student's final manuscript. All courses offered by the department are taught by active, published writers, giving an experienced practitioner's insight into literary art.
Students are given the opportunity to minor in Contemplative Education, Contemplative Psychology, Dance, Early Childhood Education, Ecology and Systems Science, Environmental History and Justice, Environmental Sustainability, Horticulture, Music, Religious Studies, Sacred Ecology, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Traditional Eastern Arts, Visual Arts, or Writing and Literature.
Naropa University offers sixteen master’s degree programs with both residency and low-residency programs available.
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (March 2007) |
(low-residency program)
In the course of the Contemplative Education degree students study various western holistic pedagogies in order to broaden the awareness of the wide range of choices available in developing a meaningful and authentic teaching style. The intention of the program is for students to become courageously genuine and empathetically transformative teachers and the “Education Beyond the Classroom” program welcomes non-teachers to apply.
The only graduate program in the United States that joins psychotherapy training with Buddhist meditation and deep understanding of the mind, this program caters to Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. Meditation practice and Maitri retreats are an integral part of the program as they aid the student in preparation for the demands of the clinical world by meeting the academic requirements for the Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) credential in the state of Colorado. With the LPC students are then eligible to sit for the Colorado State Board licensing examination after graduation.
This program employs an integrated, whole-systems perspective and aids students who wish to lead environmental organizations, as well as organizations and communities of all kinds, through the changes and the implementation of ongoing practices necessary for a just and sustainable society. The department’s educational philosophy and leadership skills are based on living systems models. The program offers a balance of theory, skills, and practical application, infused with contemplative and ecopsychological perspectives.
The degree in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism spans two years involving the broad, in-depth study of Buddhism as a spiritual, theological, and cultural tradition. Course work emphasizes Indian and Tibetan Buddhism with opportunities to study Sanskrit and Tibetan. Students choose between the History of Religions or the Tibetan Tradition sequence of Buddhist Studies courses. An Indo-Tibetan Buddhism with Language degree is also available and includes training in either Sanskrit or Tibetan.
This program provides a creative and challenging invitation for students to design their own program of study by working within two or three Naropa disciplines. In the required Proseminar, students examine the theories and methodologies that are inherent in the diverse disciplines of the university. With this background, students then pursue a well-defined plan of study, called the Learning Agreement, which is an intensive investigation into the areas of their specific interdisciplinary focus.
This degree prepares students for professional work in the fields of pastoral care, chaplaincy, dharma teaching, and community development. This three-year program is firmly grounded in Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice, though students can study all five world religions and have opportunities for courses toward counseling licensure. This program consists of 78 credits including significant internship and fieldwork experience designed to meet the interests and needs of individual students.
This 45-credit degree focuses on the non-Buddhist student who wishes to join the study of comparative religions with related contemplative practices and inter-religious dialogue. Students of this degree program develop literacy about the living practice traditions of world religions with a special emphasis on dialogue skills and an appreciation for religious pluralism. Departmental course offerings examine the phenomenon of religion as it affects individuals, as it operates in culture, and as it addresses questions of life’s ultimate values. A Religious Studies with Language degree is also available and includes training in either Sanskrit or Tibetan.
has three innovative graduate training programs in counseling, art therapy, and wilderness therapy. Each program offers state-of-the-art training in an engaging and supportive environment. The unique combination of transpersonal and contemplative approaches provides a larger view of the human experience as well as effective methods for working deeply with all dimensions of being. A Transpersonal Psychology degree (low-residency program) consists primarily of online classes and is available along with a Transpersonal Psychology, Concentration in Ecopsychology degree (low-residency program) centered around integrating theoretical, experiential, and service aspects of ecopsychology and transpersonal psychology.
This program’s curriculum focuses on awareness practices, movement disciplines, counseling techniques, multicultural perspectives, and scholarly pursuits that prepare students to be of service both to self and others. This program offers two 60-credit concentrations: dance/movement therapy and body psychotherapy. Both programs integrate personal and professional learning in a contemplative and somatic framework stressing the interwoven nature of sensation, emotion, thought, and movement. Graduates are prepared to work with individuals and groups in a variety of mental health settings, including hospitals, schools, as well as treatment and rehabilitation facilities. The program meets the academic requirements for the Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) credential in the State of Colorado. With the LPC students are then eligible to sit for the Colorado State Board licensing examination after graduation.
Naropa University offers two MFAs in Theater programs: Lecoq Based Actor Created Theater and Contemporary Performance. Both programs share a deep commitment to technical rigor and the groundbreaking creation of new forms, yet each program is distinctive in its pedagogies, faculties, and student bodies. Both years of the MFA Theater: Lecoq Based Actor Created Theater occur in London, UK, in cooperation with the London International School of Performing Arts. The training is rigorously physical in its approach, focusing on the dramatic and image-making capabilities of the actor's body. The MFA Theater: Contemporary Performance is offered on Naropa's campus in Boulder, Colorado. This is the first graduate training program that integrates contemporary physical theater, viewpoints theory and practice, and traditional contemplative practices.
The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, offers courses taught by active, published writers, giving an experienced practitioner's insight into literary art. The Kerouac School has as its mission the education of students as knowledgeable practitioners of the literary arts. Its objectives toward that mission include encouraging a disciplined practice of writing and cultivating a historical and cultural awareness of literary studies. A Creative Writing degree (low residency program) is also available. Students enrolling in this program will enjoy the benefits of the Naropa experience without having to relinquish other commitments, because coursework is fulfilled online.
Beat Generation poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa. The Naropa Summer Writing Program celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2004.
Many classes taught by Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and others, have been preserved and can be downloaded thanks to the Naropa University Archive Project[1].
As an unconventional institution, Naropa is occasionally the subject of critical examination. Peter Marin characterized the school in this way: "Naropa embodies a feudal, priestly tradition transplanted to a modern capitalist setting. The attraction it has for its adherents is reminiscent of the attraction the aristocracy had for the rising middle class in the early days of capitalistic expansion." (Marin, 1995, p. 58)
Particularly as an institution closely tied to Chogyam Trungpa, Naropa has been involved in controversy. Naropa faculty were prominent figures in the controversy ensuing from an incident involving Trungpa and poet W. S. Merwin, and a class led by Ed Sanders at Naropa conducted an extended investigation (Sanders, 1977) (also Kashner, 2004, p. 278ff), after the Boulder Monthly published an expose (Clark, 1980).
- ^ Waldman, Anne (2001). Vow to Poetry.
- Tom Clark (1980). The Great Naropa Poetry Wars. ISBN 0-932274-06-4.
- Sam Kashner (2004). When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. ISBN 0060005661.
- Peter Marin (1995). Freedom & Its Discontents, Steerforth Press. ISBN 1-883642-24-8. Chapter "Spiritual Obedience"
- Ed Sanders (ed.) (1977). The Party: A Chronological Perspective on a Confrontation at a Buddhist Seminary (no ISBN)
- Eliot Weinberger (1986). Works on Paper. ISBN 0-8112-1001-4.
