Controversy
In 1979 student editor Tom Clark published ‘’The Great Naropa Poetry Wars”, revealing that during a 1975 Halloween party, Trungpa had ordered the poet W.S. Merwin and his girlfriend, Dana Naone, (present for a three-month seminary program) to take off their clothes. (This was during the 3rd Vajradhatu Seminary held in Snowmass, Colorado.) Merwin and Naone resisted, whereupon members of Trungpa’s “Vajra Guard” (security) stripped them naked, despite their protests and calls for the police. After the incident they stayed to complete the program, but only after Trungpa promised no further trouble. The school later asked Ed Sanders and his class to conduct an internal investigation, resulting in a lengthy report.
Eliot Weinberger commented on the incident, in a critique aimed at Trungpa and Allen Ginsberg published in The Nation on April 19, 1980. He complained that Trungpa had successfully captured some of the best minds of his generation, yet he believed their fascination with Trungpa's presentation of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan theocracy created a dangerous exclusivity and elitism in literature.
Read more about this topic: Naropa University
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