Precious Master of the Mountains

From birth, Chogyam Trungpa Tulku was destined for great things. The son of poor nomads, he was born in a yak-skin tent near Pago-Punsum, one of the holiest mountains in Tibet. When he appeared, according to legend, pails of water turned to milk and a rainbow spread across the sky. The infant was declared to be the reincarnation of the tenth Trungpa Tulku, a supreme abbot of one of Tibet's strongest Buddhist sects. A royal coronation, attended by 13,000 monks, followed soon after, and the boy was raised to rule nearly a thousand square miles of farm land, grazing fields and fortress-like monasteries.

Now, 38 years later, Chogyam--incarnate lama and "precious master" --sits behind a polished rosewood desk in a small but luxurious office in Boulder, Colo. Behind him hangs a large tapestry of a snow lion by the Japanese artist Tatsumura. His own paintings and calligraphy decorate the other walls. Six disciples, among them a scientist, a classicist and a physiotherapist, cluster around him, each dressed, like the master, in a dark suit. All are part of Chogyam's new kingdom: Naropa Institute, named for a great 8th century Buddhist scholar, the largest Buddhist study center in the U.S.

Unlike many transplanted Eastern sects, which offer little more than meditation, Chogyam's tantric teachings are what Naropa calls "both an intellectual discipline and a practical psychology based on meditation." A rigorous but still unaccredited college, sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a delicatessen, Naropa offers degree programs in psychology, Buddhist studies and art, as well as certificate programs in Western dance, theater and poetry. Its faculty includes Modern Dancer Barbara Dilley, Novelist William Burroughs and Poets John Ashbury and Allen Ginsberg. Says Resident Poet Anne Waldman: "Naropa is fast becoming the poetics capital of America. It has the most diverse collection of accessible poets around."

Exotic Externals. The roots of Naropa go back to 1959, when Chogyam fled the Communist takeover of Tibet and went to England to study Western culture at Oxford. Once there, he decided to wear Western clothes, to "do away with exotic externals, which were too fascinating to students in the West." The next step: marriage to a 16-year-old English girl. At that heresy against celibacy, his followers in the United Kingdom rebelled, and Chogyam decided to try America.

Starting afresh with a small meditation community in Vermont, Chogyam slowly built up a new following. Then, in 1974, he launched the Naropa Institute summer program in a Boulder elementary school. About 450 students were expected. Instead, 2,300 showed up for courses that ranged from the history of Buddhism to self-exploration. The initial 41-member faculty included Psychologist Gregory Bateson, onetime LSD Apostle Ram Dass and Buddhist Scholar Herbert Guenther. Two subsequent summer schools each drew about 1,500 students, and the visiting faculty grew to more than 90 members. Encouraged by such success, Naropa went full time last year with 120 students, nine faculty and 13 staff members.

Buddhist Renaissance. The heart of the institute, which fills the top floor of a 70-year-old red brick building, is a huge meditation room that doubles as a dance studio. Here, seated on red cushions, the students and the mainly Buddhist staff meditate for 26 hours weekly. "It is purely voluntary," explains Jeremy Hay ward, a Cambridge University physicist who is now Naropa's vice president. "But we nearly all do it. Meditation is the key." Otherwise there are few Eastern trappings: no beads, bells, robes, incense or even long hair. Says Ron Greathead, 33, a drama student: "We don't talk about Buddhism very much; we think it."

Behind Naropa is the master's dream of a "great Buddhist renaissance" in America. "Americans have the greatest amount of confusion and wealth in the world," says Chogyam, a short, plumpish man who giggles frequently and peers over his glasses with benign amusement. Meditation attracts troubled Americans, he feels, because it damps their ego and ambition. "People are very relieved when they learn that they are nothing, that they don't exist," he says. Chogyam offers no panacea to his followers. His basic message is: "Go and sit and think and find sanity."

"What is the goal of all this?" he asks. "The goal is to have no goal." But Chogyam, who lives in a comfortable Boulder mansion with his wife and three sons, also has an earthly goal: expanding Naropa into the Buddhist University of America, with a heavy emphasis on psychology. Naropa now operates on $600,000 annually, of which $136,000 comes through donations and the rest from student fees. But the school has no endowment and at present lacks the necessary funds to expand and gain college accreditation. Still, the staff and students seem certain that Naropa will eventually become a full-fledged university. The faithful will provide.

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