It is a very little-known fact that the morning after the Albert Hall event, Allen Ginsberg visited the English bhikkhu Sangharakshita at the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara. In his 'Travel Letters' (Windhorse Publications, 1985), Sangharakshita writes: "Ginsberg I had known since 1962 or 1963, when he came to see me at my Vihara in Kalimpong, and when I had taken him to see the Chinese Buddhist Yogi C. M. Chen.
How he came to know of my existence, living as I did in a remote corner of the Eastern Himalayas, I no longer recollect. He may have heard of me through the West Coast poet Gary Snyder, who had corresponded with me in the fifties, when he had already begun his own exploration of Buddhism and in particular of Zen. He may have heard of me in Calcutta, where he had called at the Maha Bodhi Society's head-quarters, and where he had left his friend Peter Orlovsky, who was too ill to accompany him. Again, he may have been given my address by my somewhat eccentric old friend the very English 'Tibetan' Buddhist nun Sister Vajira, whom he had met in Darjeeling.
Our second meeting took place in London, in the decorous surroundings of the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara, where I was then staying. Ginsberg had come to London to take part in the 1965 International Poetry Reading Festival at the Royal Albert Hall, which had ended in chaos only the night before. When I asked him what had happened, he replied, simply, 'I was drunk'."
Intriguing extra background, Roger. Thank you for sharing.
It is a very little-known fact that the morning after the Albert Hall event, Allen Ginsberg visited the English bhikkhu Sangharakshita at the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara. In his 'Travel Letters' (Windhorse Publications, 1985), Sangharakshita writes: "Ginsberg I had known since 1962 or 1963, when he came to see me at my Vihara in Kalimpong, and when I had taken him to see the Chinese Buddhist Yogi C. M. Chen.
How he came to know of my existence, living as I did in a remote corner of the Eastern Himalayas, I no longer recollect. He may have heard of me through the West Coast poet Gary Snyder, who had corresponded with me in the fifties, when he had already begun his own exploration of Buddhism and in particular of Zen. He may have heard of me in Calcutta, where he had called at the Maha Bodhi Society's head-quarters, and where he had left his friend Peter Orlovsky, who was too ill to accompany him. Again, he may have been given my address by my somewhat eccentric old friend the very English 'Tibetan' Buddhist nun Sister Vajira, whom he had met in Darjeeling.
Our second meeting took place in London, in the decorous surroundings of the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara, where I was then staying. Ginsberg had come to London to take part in the 1965 International Poetry Reading Festival at the Royal Albert Hall, which had ended in chaos only the night before. When I asked him what had happened, he replied, simply, 'I was drunk'."