Happy birthday, Allen Ginsberg!
“I met Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa, on a street corner in New York with my father, by accident.”
From June 3rd, 1926 to April 5th, 1997 Allen Ginsberg (AKA Lion of Dharma, AKA Heart of Peace, AKA Carlo Marx in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road) roamed the earth, taking inspiration from every facet of life and giving it right back to those who would have it. One of the most controversial public figures of his times, among the most outrageous of poets, Allen Ginsberg was also a friend, lover, photographer, peace activist, king of May, and meditation practitioner in the Vajrayana tradition. At Shambhala Mountain Center, where Ginsberg’s teacher, friend, and guru Trungpa Rinpoche is buried in the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, one third of Allen Ginsberg’s earthy remains are interned in a polished granite memorial in the shape of a lion, backlit by the Tibetan letter for “Ah”, the shortest form of the perfection of wisdom, and just a short distance from the remains of his life partner, Peter Orlovsky. Visitors may visit this site with a steep climb near the Stupa.
Shambhala Mountain Center staffer and graduate of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Jennifer Lane shares a memory of Allen Ginsberg in 1995 when he was being honored at Naropa and reflecting on his life’s endeavors. The video tells the whole story.
