Editing Allen Ginsberg (section)

===Buddhism and Krishna===
{{See also|A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada|Mantra-Rock Dance}}
In 1950, Kerouac began studying Buddhism<ref name="tyger">{{Cite web |last=Ginsberg |first=Allen |date=April 3, 2015 |title=The Vomit of a Mad Tyger |url=http://www.lionsroar.com/the-vomit-of-a-mad-tyger/ |access-date=April 3, 2015 |publisher=[[Shambhala Sun|Lion's Roar]]}}</ref> and shared what he learned from [[Zen in the United States#Dwight Goddard|Dwight Goddard's]] ''Buddhist Bible'' with Ginsberg.<ref name="tyger" /> Ginsberg first heard about the [[Four Noble Truths]] and such sutras as the [[Diamond Sutra]] at this time.<ref name="tyger" /> Ginsberg's endorsement helped establish the Krishna movement within New York's [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] culture.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Prideaux |first1=Ed |title=The true story of Hare Krishna: Sex, drugs, The Beatles and 50 years of scandal |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/hare-krishna-sex-god-beatles-hindu-guru-chant-temple-message-a9226531.html |access-date=11 August 2024 |work=The Independent |date=December 3, 2019}}</ref>

Ginsberg's spiritual journey began early on with his spontaneous visions, and continued with an early trip to India with [[Gary Snyder]].<ref name="tyger" /> Snyder had previously spent time in [[Kyoto]] to study at the First Zen Institute at [[Daitoku-ji]] Monastery.<ref name="tyger" /> At one point, Snyder chanted the [[Prajnaparamita]], which in Ginsberg's words "blew my mind."<ref name="tyger" /> His interest piqued, Ginsberg traveled to meet [[14th Dalai Lama|the Dalai Lama]] as well as the [[Karmapa]] at Rumtek Monastery.<ref name="tyger" /> Continuing on his journey, Ginsberg met [[Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje|Dudjom Rinpoche]] in [[Kalimpong]], who taught him: "If you see something horrible, don't cling to it, and if you see something beautiful, don't cling to it."<ref name="tyger" />

After returning to the United States, a chance encounter on a New York City street with [[Chögyam Trungpa]] [[Rinpoche]] (they both tried to catch the same cab),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fields |first=Rick |title=How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America |publisher=[[Shambhala Publications]] |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-87773-631-8 |page=311}}</ref> a [[Kagyu]] and [[Nyingma]] [[Tibetan Buddhism|Tibetan Buddhist]] master, led to Trungpa becoming his friend and lifelong teacher.<ref name="tyger" /> Ginsberg helped Trungpa and New York poet [[Anne Waldman]] in founding the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at [[Naropa University]] in [[Boulder, Colorado]].

Ginsberg was also involved with [[Vaishnavism|Krishnaism]]. He had started incorporating chanting the [[Hare Krishna (mantra)|Hare Krishna mantra]] into his religious practice in the mid-1960s. After learning that [[A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada]], the founder of the [[International Society for Krishna Consciousness|Hare Krishna]] movement in the Western world had rented a store front in New York, he befriended him, visiting him often and suggesting publishers for his books, and a fruitful relationship began. This relationship is documented by [[Satsvarupa dasa Goswami]] in his biographical account ''Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta''. Ginsberg donated money, materials, and his reputation to help the Swami establish the first temple, and toured with him to promote his cause.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wills, D. |year=2007 |title=Buddhism and the Beats |volume=1 |pages=9–13 |work=Beatdom |publisher=Mauling Press |location=Dundee |editor-last=Wills, D. |url=http://www.beatdom.com/buddhism_and_the_beats.htm |access-date=March 4, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100501050535/http://www.beatdom.com/buddhism_and_the_beats.htm |archive-date=May 1, 2010}}</ref>

[[File:Prabhupada's arrival in San Francisco 1967.jpg|thumb|left|Allen Ginsberg greeting [[A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada]] at [[San Francisco International Airport]]. January 17, 1967]]
Despite disagreeing with many of Bhaktivedanta Swami's [[International Society for Krishna Consciousness#Four regulative principles|required prohibitions]], Ginsberg often sang the Hare Krishna mantra publicly as part of his philosophy<ref name="Brooks 1992 78–9">{{Harvnb|Brooks|1992|pp=78–79}}</ref> and declared that it brought a state of ecstasy.<ref>{{Harvnb|Szatmary|1996|p=149}}</ref> He was glad that Bhaktivedanta Swami, an authentic [[swami]] from India, was now trying to spread the chanting in America. Along with other [[counterculture of the 1960s|counterculture]] ideologists like [[Timothy Leary]], [[Gary Snyder]], and [[Alan Watts]], Ginsberg hoped to incorporate Bhaktivedanta Swami and his chanting into the hippie movement, and agreed to take part in the Mantra-Rock Dance concert and to introduce the swami to the Haight-Ashbury hippie community.<ref name="Brooks 1992 78–9" /><ref>{{Harvnb|Ginsberg|Morgan|1986|p=36}}</ref><ref group="nb">(from the "Houseboat Summit" panel discussion, [[Sausalito, California|Sausalito CA]]. February 1967)({{Harvnb|Cohen|1991|p=182}}):<br />
Ginsberg: So what do you think of Swami Bhaktivedanta pleading for the acceptance of Krishna in every direction?<br />
Snyder: Why, it's a lovely positive thing to say Krishna. It's a beautiful mythology and it's a beautiful practice.<br />
Leary: Should be encouraged.<br />
Ginsberg: He feels it's the one uniting thing. He feels a monopolistic unitary thing about it.<br />
[[Alan Watts|Watts]]: I'll tell you why I think he feels it. The mantras, the images of Krishna have in this culture no foul association&nbsp;[...] [W]hen somebody comes in from the Orient with a new religion which hasn't got any of [horrible] associations in our minds, all the words are new, all the rites are new, and yet, somehow it has feeling in it, and we can get with that, you see, and we can dig that!</ref>

On January 17, 1967, Ginsberg helped plan and organize a reception for Bhaktivedanta Swami at [[San Francisco International Airport]], where fifty to a hundred hippies greeted the Swami, chanting Hare Krishna in the airport lounge with flowers in hands.<ref>{{Harvnb|Muster|1997|p=25}}</ref><ref group="nb">Addressing speculations that he was Allen Ginsberg's guru, Bhaktivedanta Swami answered a direct question in a public program, "Are you Allen Ginsberg's guru?" by saying, "I am nobody's guru. I am everybody's servant. Actually I am not even a servant; a servant of God is no ordinary thing." ({{Harvnb|Greene|2007|p=85}}; {{Harvnb|Goswami|2011|pp=196–97}})</ref> To further support and promote Bhaktivedanta Swami's message and chanting in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg agreed to attend the [[Mantra-Rock Dance]], a musical event 1967 held at the [[Avalon Ballroom]] by the San Francisco [[ISKCON|Hare Krishna]] temple. It featured some leading rock bands of the time: [[Big Brother and the Holding Company]] with [[Janis Joplin]], the [[Grateful Dead]], and [[Moby Grape]], who performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder [[Bhaktivedanta Swami]] and donated proceeds to the Krishna temple. Ginsberg introduced Bhaktivedanta Swami to some three thousand hippies in the audience and led the chanting of the [[Hare Krishna mantra]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Bromley|Shinn|1989 |p=106}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Chryssides|Wilkins|2006|p=213}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Joplin |first=Laura |title=Love, Janis |publisher=Villard Books |year=1992 |isbn=0-679-41605-6 |location=New York |page=182}}</ref>

[[File:1967 Mantra-Rock Dance Avalon poster.jpg|thumb|right|upright|The [[Mantra-Rock Dance]] promotional poster featuring Allen Ginsberg along with leading rock bands.]]
Music and chanting were both important parts of Ginsberg's live delivery during poetry readings.<ref>Chowka, Peter Barry, "[http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/ginsberg/interviews.htm This is Allen Ginsberg?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408084404/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/ginsberg/interviews.htm |date=April 8, 2019 }}" (Interview), [[New Age Journal]], April 1976. "I had known [[A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada|Swami Bhaktivedanta]] and was somewhat guided by him&nbsp;[...] spiritual friend. I practiced the Hare Krishna chant, practiced it with him, sometimes in mass auditoriums and parks in the Lower East Side of New York. Actually, I'd been chanting it since '63, after coming back from India. I began chanting it, in Vancouver at a great poetry conference, for the first time in '63, with Duncan and Olson and everybody around, and then continued. When Bhaktivedanta arrived on the Lower East Side in '66 it was reinforcement for me, like 'the reinforcements had arrived' from India."</ref> He often accompanied himself on a [[Pump organ|harmonium]], and was often accompanied by a guitarist. It is believed that the Hindi and Buddhist poet [[Nagarjun]] had introduced Ginsberg to the harmonium in Banaras. According to [[Malay Roy Choudhury]], Ginsberg refined his practice while learning from his relatives, including his cousin Savitri Banerjee.<ref>Klausner, Linda T. (April 22, 2011), "American Beat Yogi: An Exploration of the Hindu and Indian Cultural Themes in Allen Ginsberg", Masters Thesis: Literature, Culture, and Media''[http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=2152608&fileOId=2152615 Lund University]''.</ref> When Ginsberg asked if he could sing a song in praise of Lord [[Krishna]] on [[William F. Buckley, Jr.]]'s TV show ''[[Firing Line (TV series)|Firing Line]]'' on September 3, 1968, Buckley acceded and the poet chanted slowly as he played dolefully on a harmonium. According to [[Richard Brookhiser]], an associate of Buckley's, the host commented that it was "the most unharried Krishna I've ever heard."<ref>Konigsberg, Eric (February 29, 2008), "Buckley's Urbane Debating Club: ''Firing Line'' Set a Standard For Political Discourse on TV", ''[[The New York Times]]'', Metro Section, p. B1.</ref>

At the 1967 [[Human Be-In]] in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and the 1970 Black Panther rally at Yale campus Allen chanted "Om" repeatedly over a sound system for hours on end.<ref>{{harvnb|Morgan|2007|p=468}}</ref>

Ginsberg further brought mantras into the world of rock and roll when he recited the [[Heart Sutra]] in the song "[[Ghetto Defendant]]". The song appears on the 1982 album ''[[Combat Rock]]'' by British first wave punk band [[The Clash]].

Ginsberg came in touch with the [[Hungry generation|Hungryalist]] poets of [[Bengal]], especially Malay Roy Choudhury, who introduced Ginsberg to the three fish with one head of Indian emperor [[Akbar the Great|Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar]]. The three fish symbolised coexistence of all thought, philosophy, and religion.<ref>Mitra, Alo (May 9, 2008), [http://www.thewastepaper.blogspot.com/ Hungryalist Influence on Allen Ginsberg ]. thewastepaper.blogspot.com.</ref>

In spite of Ginsberg's attraction to Eastern religions, the journalist [[Jane Kramer]] argues that he, like Whitman, adhered to an "American brand of mysticism" that was "rooted in humanism and in a romantic and visionary ideal of harmony among men."<ref>Kramer, Jane (1968), ''Allen Ginsberg in America''. New York: Random House, p. xvii.</ref>

The Allen Ginsberg Estate and Jewel Heart International partnered to present "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends", a gallery and online exhibition of images of [[Gelek Rimpoche]] by Allen Ginsberg, a student with whom he had an "indissoluble bond," in 2021 at [[Tibet House US]] in New York City.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimnpohce and Friends |url=https://www.jewelheart.org/events/transforming-minds-kyabje-gelek-rimpoche-and-friends-photographs-by-allen-ginsberg/ |access-date=November 3, 2022 |website=jewelheart.org |publisher=Jewel Heart}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Spiegel |first=Alison |date=September 29, 2021 |title=Inside the New Allen Ginsberg Photography Exhibit at Tibet House US |publisher=Tricycle Magazine |url=https://tricycle.org/article/allen-ginsberg-exhibit/ |access-date=November 3, 2022}}</ref> Fifty negatives from Ginsberg's Stanford University photo archive celebrated "the unique relationship between Allen and Rimpoche." The selection of never-before presented images, featuring great Tibetan masters including the Dalai Lama, Tibetologists, and students were "guided by Allen's extensive notes on the contact sheets and images he'd circled with the intention to print."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Paljor Chatag |first=Ben |date=2022 |title=Curatorial Reflections on 'Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends, Photographs by Allen Ginsberg 1989–1997' |url=https://yeshe.org/curatorial-reflections-on-transforming-minds-kyabje-gelek-rimpoche-and-friends-photographs-by-allen-ginsberg-1989-1997/ |journal=Yeshe, A Journal of Tibetan Literature, Arts and Humanities |volume=2 |issue=1 |access-date=November 3, 2022}}</ref>