An Unlikely Heathen: Attending Naropa as a Non-Buddhist

From its name to its sitting cushions, Naropa University screams Buddhism.  Its instructors and students alike sport mala beads and singing bowls.  Its classes begin and end with a bow.  Even its somewhat tongue-in-cheek mascot, the “Bodhi Cheeta,” references the school’s religious leaning.

Which is understandable, given its beginnings.  Naropa’s history involves a solid background in Buddhist philosophy and meditation instruction, and its early psychology department was perhaps based more in religious studies than traditional psychology.  Granted, the school has evolved a lot, and there is now a wider range of voices and opinions that come together to make Naropa what it is.

Having said that, there are a few Buddhism-related things about this school that must be considered.  The undergraduate psychology program requires several “Buddhist Psychology” courses, which contain a fair dose of religious “dharma,” and the TCP program requires at least four credits of meditation classes that can only be waived if one has gone through the undergrad program.  Are these classes useful?  I would say yes, although I have run into people who were less than happy about their mandatory status.  Nevertheless, Buddhism is here to stay at Naropa, and the psychology programs here will never be fully separate from Buddhist philosophy.

Now, knowing that Buddhism is essential to Naropa’s academic philosophy may be a wonderful discovery for the hopeful Buddhist applicant to this school.  But what about those of us who aren’t?  What about those of us who are Jewish, Christian, Pagan, Atheist, etc.?  What about those of us who don’t really want another religion forced down our throats?

Well, there’s good news and bad news.  The good news is that it won’t be.  Unless you apply to the religious studies program, you can be sure that the Buddhist philosophies that are integrated into the programs here will be tied back into the subject of study.  As a psychology student, for example, you will learn about the four noble truths, and then you will learn how the real-life manifestations of this concept result in your clients having a really rough time of things.

But, as I mentioned, there’s bad news as well.  That bad news is that you will probably feel a little weird in this school, because there isn’t a particularly large degree of focus on the other religions present here.

I have met a fair number of Jewish people here, and there is some Jewish presence in the Religious Studies department.  But the Jewish religion is rarely brought up in Psychology courses.  Christianity is almost less discussed, even though there are a fair number of Christian students here as well.  And if you come from a western religion that is not Judeo-Christian in origin, prepare to be largely ignored.

Bear in mind, you won’t be unwelcome here.  It’s quite likely that people won’t particularly understand where you’re coming from spiritually, and if you’re a member of one of the more traditionally evangelical religious organizations, you may be met with awkward silence if your bring up your faith in class.  But from what I’ve seen, it seems to be fairly uncommon for people to be outright discriminated against for their religious beliefs.

However, it’s important to remember that people are people, even at Naropa.  Prejudice, fear, and judgment are qualities that all of us are hard pressed to quash out all (or even most) of the time.  I myself identify as Pagan, but I don’t generally go spreading it around.  On the rare occasion that I mention this fact, I rarely receive any notable interest or response.  I don’t know if they’re worried about offending me, or trying to maintain an air of nonjudgment, but I get the feeling if I mentioned practicing Hinduism, or even Sufism, I wouldn’t receive such blank stares.  I am involved in Naropa’s student group PAN (Pagans At Naropa), and I occasionally meet other people who identify similarly.  But I can’t remember having ever heard an instructor bring up a nature-based religion, aside from the occasional reference to some form of Native American spirituality, and I’ve been attending this school for about three years.

I’ve come to terms with this fact, and it doesn’t particularly bother me.  But what will this mean for you?  Ultimately, it means that this institution has its philosophical leanings, as most private institutions do.  I certainly wasn’t driven away by this issue, and in fact, I chose to return for my graduate studies.  Even if you’re not Buddhist, you’ll be fine.  If you’re worried about it, you can bet that someone else will be having the same misgivings you are, and you may even form a new friendship over this shared concern.  No one will expect you to be Buddhist, and no one will expect you to convert.

And even though the Buddhist concepts in these classes may be strange, unfamiliar, or may even clash with your own beliefs, know that it’s okay if you don’t buy into it.  Take what is useful to you, leave what is not.  Your experience as a Naropa student will be worthwhile, if you let it.

Making Meaning Without Religion: Ritual for the Secular

This morning, at the Nalanda Campus of Naropa, I was greeted at the door by an armed policeman in a bulletproof vest.  It wasn’t because there had been a shootout, or anything like that.  In fact, I don’t know why every entrance to the building was being monitored by armed law enforcement officials.  But I can only assume that it had something to do with the dozens of people who had arrived to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year celebration.

That image really stuck with me.  Here was a whole community of people who had gathered together to sing, pray, and appreciate their religious community, but somehow the presence of armed force was necessary to ensure peace.  I don’t know the history behind this scenario, and perhaps it’s a new security measure in response to the recent protests in the Middle East.  But, as a secular person, it struck me to see the faith of these people who had gathered together to celebrate, despite the threat of possible violence.

As someone who was raised Orthodox Catholic, I am very familiar with ritual celebration.  In my childhood, everything from eating breakfast to celebrating Christmas involved some form of ritual.  We observed dozens of holy days that most people have never heard of, fasted before major holidays, and even seemingly simple tasks were often preceded and followed by prayers.  I think it is difficult for secular people to entirely grasp this.  It wasn’t as though every day was a holiday, but every day was special because everything in every day held meaning.  Life was full of rites of passage, which were celebrated with great enthusiasm.

However, as I mentioned earlier, I am secular.  I no longer identify with any religion, and religion itself has little appeal for me.  It’s not that I think religion is wrong; it simply does not resonate with my own spiritual experiences.  Yet, while I do not miss the religious aspects of my childhood, I do miss the ritual.  There’s something about the marking of change, progress, and growth in a communal, celebratory way that fills some deep need in me.  And in recent years, I’ve started to feel a strange anxiety over not recognizing these milestones.

So what is a secular spiritualist to do?

The largest problem that I’ve run up against is that I lack the element of community.  Having come from a religious background, and an immediate family of ten people, ritual simply doesn’t have the same meaning for me when it is performed in solitude.  But if the individuals participating in a group ritual do not actually feel a connection to its inspiration, it becomes meaningless pageantry, which feels invariably hollow.  Time after time, I’ve tried to organize some sort of ritual gathering to celebrate a life event, only to watch it morph into a meaningless night of drinking games.

And this doesn’t surprise me.  Because how can you successfully bring a group of people together to celebrate an event when the event doesn’t hold meaning for the people celebrating?  Ritual has to be personal, and celebration of events in this way must evoke some shared appreciation on an immaterial level.  Furthermore, how do you get people together who don’t just want a pageantry?  For people who were not raised in a religious context, the flashiness of ritual can have more appeal than its underlying intent, and sometimes people are more interested in the show of the thing than in the meaning behind it.  If the intent is not there, the ritual’s meaning is lost, and the felt-sense of acknowledgement is painfully absent.

Thus far, I have not been successful in figuring this out.  It’s something that I’ve been puzzling over for the past few years.  My struggle is this: what events exist in life that draw us all together, that we all care about enough to be personally invested in?  Of course, things like graduations, marriages, funerals, etc. exist, and involve a great deal of ritual.  But what about outside of these things?  What about when the seasons change, or when you have a particularly bad break-up, or when you wake up one morning and realize that your life has grown stale and you need to make a change?  Some people can, and do,  acknowledge these things by themselves.  But how do you do so as a group?  Is there any way for an entire group of people, who are not religiously affiliated, to be emotionally (and perhaps spiritually) invested in this process?  And if they can, how do you design such a ritual?  Do you design it as a group?  If the ritual is meant to be focused on one person, how are the other people incorporated?

I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with, or thoughts on, this topic.  It’s one that has been consistently in and out of my mind for a while, and I suspect I’m not the only person who has been feeling the anxiety of unacknowledged things.