Naropa Institute
Discover Naropa University
Naropa University is a Buddhist-inspired, student-centered liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado. A recognized leader in contemplative education, Naropa's undergraduate and graduate programs emphasize professional and personal growth, intellectual development, and contemplative practice.
Through rigorous academics, faculty mentoring, contemplative practice, and community engagement, Naropa students develop the abilities to think critically, to communicate effectively, and to know their hearts and minds. The result: Graduates who live deeply fulfilling lives working to improve people's lives and the condition of our planet.
Step into a lineage of change agents.
Naropa may offer a contemplative liberal arts education, but that doesn't mean we're quiet. Naropa's three campuses in Boulder crackle with energy. Students, faculty and staff fearlessly make art, write experimental prose, study Sanskrit, attend concerts, research environmental inequity, plant organic gardens, volunteer in the community, and campaign for social justice.
Compelling classes. Academically, Naropa asks you to "show up"-not just physically, but intellectually. At Naropa, you will be an involved learner, contribute to collaborative intellectual exchanges, and stretch yourself creatively and personally.
Great teachers. A Grammy Award winner. World-renowned Buddhist scholars. Famous writers. Fulbright Fellows. These are just some of the faculty at Naropa who represent the best in their field.
Contemplative education. Education at Naropa starts with learning about yourself through contemplative practice. The awareness and energy you derive from this will make you more effective at everything you do.
Service matters. Get real-world experience by volunteering, interning, or doing fieldwork in the community.
Naropa University's founder, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was born in Tibet in 1940, a lineage holder of both the Kagyü 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 Tibetan 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 familiar with the particular needs and interests of Western students.
In 1970, Trungpa began presenting Buddhist teachings in the United States. During the next seventeen years, he taught extensively and founded meditation centers throughout North America and Europe. A scholar and artist as well as a meditation master, he became widely recognized as one of the foremost teachers of Buddhism in the West. This distinction put him in the unique position of possessing and understanding the wisdom of both cultures, with the ability to join them in a compassionate, innovative and fruitful way.
With the founding of the Naropa Institute in 1974 (later to become Naropa University), Trungpa realized his vision of creating a university that would combine contemplative studies with traditional Western scholastic and artistic disciplines.
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