Boulder, Colorado, is an epicenter for Buddhist culture. A sister city to Kathmandu, Nepal, and Lhasa, Tibet, Boulder is known for its celebrations of Himalayan art, music, dance, and cuisine. It hosts the Buddhist Arts and Film Festival, and is home to Shambhala Publications—a Buddhist-centered book publisher. The Insight Meditation Community of Colorado has also maintained a strong presence in Boulder since the early nineties. The beauty of Green Mountain provides a perfect backdrop for the Buddhist centers of Colorado’s Front Range.
In downtown Boulder, just one block away from the famed Pearl Street pedestrian mall, you’ll find the Boulder Shambhala Center (unaffiliated with Shambhala Publications). Established in 1974, the center belongs to the global network of meditation centers created by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939–1987). The center offers Shambhala Training courses through its The Way of Shambhala program, meditation instruction and guidance, dharma talks, and other events. Two hours northwest, the Drala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes is home to the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya. Built in honor of Trungpa Rinpoche following his death, the stupa houses his skull relic inside a golden Buddha statue.
Naropa University is a Buddhist-inspired, nonsectarian, private liberal arts university. The university draws its inspiration from Nalanda, in India, where scholars and artists converged to study between the 5th and 12th centuries. The name “Naropa” can be traced to Nalanda’s famed 11th-century scholar. Also founded by Trungpa Rinpoche in 1974, Naropa was envisioned as a place where those with diverse religious backgrounds could engage with science, art and literature, and contemplative practices. It offers both undergraduate and graduate programs in disciplines such as art therapy, religious studies, mental health counseling, environmental studies, and creative writing.
3| Boulder Zen Center and Guest House
The Boulder Zen Center sits in the city’s urban center, just across the street from Naropa University, offering daily zazen sessions, weekly dharma talks, and various programs and intensives. One such program is Wild Dharma, an annual backpacking trip through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that focuses on Zen practice in the wild through zazen, chanting, dharma talks, and “mountain oryoki” meals—silent, contemplative meals underneath Colorado’s towering peaks. The center also provides space for residential practice at the property’s Boulder Guest House and offers public volunteer opportunities.
4| Great Dharma Chan Monastery
Southeast of the city center, the newly built Great Dharma Chan Monastery sits on thirty-five acres of idyllic countryside, with Colorado’s breathtaking Rockies piercing the horizon. Completed near the end of 2021, the monastery—one of the many Chung Tai Shan branch meditation centers around the world, established by Venerable Wei Chueh (1928–2016) of Taiwan—is open daily to visitors and practitioners. Great Dharma offers weekly meditation classes, retreats led by resident monastics, and special ceremonies.
Hakubai Zen Center holds zazen and kinhin (walking meditation) morning practice throughout the week in the tradition of the Japanese Soto school, complemented by periodic retreats throughout the year. The center’s abbot, Martin Mosko, is a landscape architect and an award-
winning garden designer, which is evinced by Hakubai’s own stunning gardens. Varied ceremonies, including funerals, blessings, ordinations, and weddings, are oriented around the center’s gardens. On-site yurts can be booked for private events as well. Visitors should reach out to the center before dropping by, as the grounds are accessible only by reservation.
In the shadow of Colorado’s jagged Flatirons sits the University of Colorado. Sponsored by the university’s Center for Asian Studies, the Tibet Himalaya Initiative (THI) regularly hosts lectures, film screenings, graduate colloquiums, and readings on topics connected to the
Himalayas. THI’s interdisciplinary approach draws in a wide range of scholars and artists to engage with the public on religion, culture, and sociopolitical situations in Tibet and the broader Himalayan region. The initiative also supports Tibetan and Nepali language programs and independent studies.
Founded in 1996 as one of the first centers under Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Nalandabodhi Colorado offers Sunday morning drop-in meditation sessions and classes open to the public. It’s part of a larger, international community with more than twenty centers worldwide, emphasizing a path of Buddhist learning structured around study, meditation, and mindful activity based on Vajrayana teachings from the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The center also offers memberships that grant access to special events and sessions, which help support its curriculum and activities.
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