Jim Hartz passed away on July 21, 2025. He was born in Bay City, Michigan on June 25, 1944.
Jim was an early student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, since 1973 or so. His illustrious and full life included early years as an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War, a “brother” at Thomas Merton’s monastery Gethesmani, and then a practitioner and teacher with Trungpa Rinpoche’s sangha. Jim was a poet and writer, Director of The Poetry Center in San Francisco, and taught poetics theory and writing at San Francisco State University. He researched and wrote on the correlations between Trungpa Rinpoche’s and Thomas Merton’s teachings, a subject close to his heart. He lived his last several years in Boulder.
There will be a brief ceremony for Jim with his body at Greenwood and Myers Mortuary, 2969 Baseline Road, Boulder at 3pm on Thursday, July 24. If you are coming, please be on time, as the time window for the ceremony is short.
Jim has been an indelible, highly literate, eloquent and intelligent presence in our community for many years. We wish him a journey graced with the exuberance and passion with which he lived this life.
Many thanks to Clarke Warren and Rime Society for passing on this information
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Jim was full of so many fervent ideas and thoughts, hoping to improve the lot of mankind and the universe. It felt to me like there was an ocean of kindness down in the base of his being.
This is a biographical sketch of Jim Hartz's life, compiled by Suzanne Engert, Tim McMaster, and John Horner, and from autobiographical notes Jim himself left:
"Jim Hartz passed away on July 21, 2025. He was born in Bay City, Michigan on June 25, 1944.
His family moved to Florida when he was young. In his words, he had a “Huckleberry Finn childhood.” From there, the family moved to Detroit where he was part of the “greaser” and gang scene.
Jim was a good athlete, and after high school, he was recruited by Bo Schembechler to play football at Miami of Ohio University.
Radicalized by the Vietnam War, his education was short-circuited and he operated a bookstore in Cincinnati, Ohio; worked with Noam Chomsky’s anti-war organization “Resist”; did draft-counseling and gave anti-war lectures at churches. He never strayed from his roots in the anti-war movement, and was a compassionate and critical observer of the international system and US domestic and foreign policy.
Jim went to live as a “brother” at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Thomas Merton’s monastery near Bardstown, KY. There he studied Merton’s writings and read the book: “Meditation in Action” by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. As a result he became a Buddhist and a student of Trungpa Rinpoche. Trungpa Rinpoche appointed him a meditation instructor in 1974 and encouraged him to teach. In 1975, Jim attended the Vajradhatu Seminary, and moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1976.
Jim considered Thomas Merton and Chögyam Trungpa to be his “two main mentors.” Jim’s major topic of research was correlating Merton and Rinpoche’s teachings—in fact, Merton and Rinpoche had planned to do a book together, bringing the Christian Contemplative and Buddhist Meditative traditions together.
Jim was a poet and a scholar. He lived in San Francisco for several years in the 1980s, where he was Literary Director at Intersection for the Arts. Subsequent to that, he became Director of The Poetry Center and American Poetry Archive at San Francisco State University. He also taught a graduate level seminar in poetics theory and poetry writing. He received his master’s degree at St John’s in Santa Fe; and worked toward a PhD at Antioch College in Ohio.
And he collected books…many books: on the Dharma, politics and poetry—his favorite topics to study and discuss.
Jim returned to Boulder in the early 90s, and lived at Marpa House and RMSC. He then moved to Clarksville, TN to care for his elderly mother for several years. He came back to Boulder in 2008 where he lived at Canyon Pointe."
