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A list of all pages that have property "Bio" with value "Said to be a teacher from Kashmir, Amṛtākara wrote the ''Catuḥstavasamāsārtha'', a commentary on the ''Catuḥstava'' (Four Hymns) of Nāgārjuna.". Since there have been only a few results, also nearby values are displayed.

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  • Aranya, H.  + (Swami Hariharananda Aranya (1869–1947) wasSwami Hariharananda Aranya (1869–1947) was a yogi, author, and founder of Kapil Math in Madhupur, India, which is the only monastery in the world that actively teaches and practices Samkhya philosophy. His book, ''Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali with Bhasvati'', is considered to be one of the most authentic and authoritative classical Sanskrit commentaries on the Yoga Sutras. Hariharananda is also considered by some as one of the most important thinkers of early twentieth-century Bengal.</br></br>Hariharananda came from a wealthy Bengali family and after his scholastic education renounced wealth, position, and comfort in search of truth in his early life. The first part of his monastic life was spent in the Barabar Caves in Bihar, hollowed out of single granite boulders bearing the inscriptions of Emperor Ashoka and very far removed from human habitation. He then spent some years at Tribeni, in Bengal, at a small hermitage on the bank of the Ganges and several years at Haridwar, Rishikesh, and Kurseong.</br></br>His last years were spent at Madhupur in Bihar, where according to tradition, Hariharananda entered an artificial cave at Kapil Math on 14 May 1926 and remained there in study and meditation for last twenty-one years of his life. The only means of contact between him and his disciples was through a window opening. While living as a hermit, Hariharananda wrote numerous philosophical treatises. Some of Hariharananda's interpretations of Patañjali's Yoga system had elements in common with Buddhist mindfulness meditation. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Hariharananda_Aranya Source Accessed May 1, 2023])nanda_Aranya Source Accessed May 1, 2023]))
  • Dzogchen Ponlop, The 7th  + (The 7th Dzogchen Ponlop (Karma Sungrap NgeThe 7th Dzogchen Ponlop (Karma Sungrap Ngedön Tenpa Gyaltsen, born 1965) is an abbot of Dzogchen Monastery, founder and spiritual director of Nalandabodhi, founder of Nītārtha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, a leading Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and a meditation master. He is one of the highest tülkus in the Nyingma lineage and an accomplished Karma Kagyu lineage holder.</br></br>Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche was born in 1965 at Rumtek Monastery (Dharma Chakra Center) in Sikkim, India. His birth was prophesied by the supreme head of the Kagyu lineage, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, 16th Karmapa, to Ponlop Rinpoche's parents, Dhamchö Yongdu, the General Secretary of the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa, and his wife, Lekshey Drolma. Upon his birth, he was recognized by the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa as the seventh in the line of Dzogchen Ponlop incarnations and was formally enthroned as the Seventh Dzogchen Ponlop at Rumtek Monastery in 1968.[1]</br></br>After receiving Buddhist refuge and bodhisattva vows from the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa, Dzogchen Ponlop was ordained as a novice monk in 1974. He subsequently received full ordination and became a bhikṣu, although he later returned his vows and is now a lay teacher.</br></br>Rinpoche received teachings and empowerments from the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa, Dilgo Khyentse, Kalu Rinpoche, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche (chief Abbot of the Kagyu lineage), Alak Zenkar Rinpoche, and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, his root guru.</br></br>Ponlop Rinpoche began studying Buddhist philosophy at the primary school in Rumtek at age 12. In 1979 (when Rinpoche was fourteen), the 16th Karmapa proclaimed Ponlop Rinpoche to be a heart son of the Gyalwang Karmapa and a holder of his Karma Kagyu lineage. In 1980 on his first trip to the West, he accompanied the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa to Europe, United States, Canada, and Southeast Asia. While serving as the Karmapa's attendant, he also gave dharma teachings and assisted in ceremonial roles during these travels.[2]</br></br>In 1981, he entered the monastic college at Rumtek, Karma Shri Nalanda Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies where he studied the fields of Buddhist philosophy, psychology, logic, and debate. During his time at Rumtek, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche worked for the Students' Welfare Union, served as head librarian, and was the chief-editor of the Nalandakirti Journal, an annual publication which brings together Eastern and Western views on Buddhism. Rinpoche graduated in 1990 as Ka-rabjampa from Karma Shri Nalanda Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies in Rumtek Monastery. (Ka-rabjampa means "one with unobstructed knowledge of scriptures", the Kagyu equivalent of the Sakya and Gelug's geshe degree.) He simultaneously earned the degree of Acharya, or Master of Buddhist Philosophy, from Sampurnanant Sanskrit University. Dzogchen Ponlop has also completed studies in English and comparative religion at Columbia University in New York City. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen_Ponlop_Rinpoche Source Accessed Nov 19, 2019])</br></br>For further information about Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, visit his [https://dpr.info/ Official Website]t his [https://dpr.info/ Official Website])
  • Adeu Rinpoche  + (The Eighth Adeu Rinpoche was born on the fThe Eighth Adeu Rinpoche was born on the fourth day of the 12th Tibetan month in the Iron Horse year of the fifteenth calendrical cycle, in the middle of a freezing winter. As the 16th Karmapa and the Eighth Choegon Rinpoche recognized the child as the authentic reincarnation of the Seventh Adeu Rinpoche, he was taken to Tsechu Gompa for enthronement at the age of seven. Immediately after this, he began his traditional education in writing, calligraphy, poetry, astrology, mandala painting, spiritual practice and text recitation. At the same time, the young Adeu Rinpoche also received many teachings and pith-instructions based on the old and new traditions, but primarily on the Drukpa lineage from the Eighth Choegon Rinpoche, Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö and many other great masters. After this, Rinpoche entered into a seven-year retreat, during which he practised the sadhanas of different deities and trained in tsa-lung, following the Six Yogas of Naropa and the liberating Mahamudra mind-training practices. He also learnt philosophy. Adeu Rinpoche later wrote a precise commentary on the three sets of vows, the root of heart-essence of Nyingmapa lineage, and on the various mandala deities.</br></br>In 1958, all the sacred texts, statues and precious objects were completely destroyed, and Rinpoche was imprisoned for fifteen years. Although Adeu Rinpoche suffered a great deal, the period in prison gave him an opportunity to meet many accomplished masters, who had also been imprisoned, especially Khenpo Munsel from whom he received instructions on Dzogchen, and under whose guidance, he practised the rare and precious teachings of the aural lineage (Nyengyü) of the Nyingma school, and studied the various Nyingmapa terma teachings.</br></br>Adeu Rinpoche was an extremely important master of the Drukpa Kagyü lineage, especially following the Cultural Revolution, during which many great Drukpa lineage masters passed away. When teachings of the Drukpa lineage were faced with extinction, Adeu Rinpoche was the only remaining lineage holder of the Khampa tradition of the Drukpa lineage.</br></br>At the end of 1980, Adeu Rinpoche went to Tashi Jong in India to pass on the entire lineage of the Khampa Drukpa tradition to the present Khamtrul Rinpoche Dongyü Nyima, Choegon Rinpoche Choekyi Wangchuk and many other great tulkus of the Drukpa lineage.</br></br>In 1990, Adeu Rinpoche also gave the complete empowerments of the Drukpa lineage to the local tulkus in Nangchen. About 51 tulkus and 1600 monks and nuns were present to receive the empowerments and oral transmissions. In this way, Adeu Rinpoche became the main lineage master of the Khampa Drukpa tradition for all the Drukpa tulkus. Thereafter, Adeu Rinpoche went to Bhutan and exchanged initiations with Je Khenpo, Jigme Chodrak Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and many other enlightened masters, thus becoming a representative of the Drukpa lineage.</br></br>Adeu Rinpoche also took responsibility for restoring Tsechu Gompa, and at the same time collecting, correcting and editing all the Drukpa teachings, tantras and practices.</br></br>Adeu Rinpoche passed away in July 2007, in Nangchen, Tibet.</br></br>His reincarnation has recently been identified, in Tibet, by Choegon Rinpoche Chökyi Senge. (Source:[https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Adeu_Rinpoche])pawiki.org/index.php?title=Adeu_Rinpoche]))
  • Dhargyey, Ngawang  + (The Most Venerable Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey The Most Venerable Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey was born on the 13th of the fifth Tibetan month in the year of the Iron-Bird (1921) in the town of Yätsak (or Ya Chak) in the Trehor district of Tibet's eastern province Kham. He was soon enrolled in the large local Dhargyey Monastery of the Gelug tradition, where he took pre-novice ordination vows. Although he was enrolled there he studied mainly in the village Sakya monastery, Lona Gonpa where he received instruction in reading, writing, grammar etc, and learned numerous texts and practices by heart. His teachers there included two of his uncles, as well as Kushu Gonpä Rinpoche, who was a master of all the five major fields of learning.</br></br>Image of Gen RinpocheAt the age of eighteen Gen Rinpoche left his home country to further his spiritual education at Sera Monastery, the great monastic university in Lhasa. There he underwent extensive training in all the five divisions of Buddhist philosophical study: Logic, Perfection of Wisdom, the Middle View, Metaphysics, and Ethical Discipline. This was interspersed with periods of intensive retreat at some of the many hermitages near Sera. By the time he was nineteen he had already mastered his studies sufficiently to become a scriptural teacher, and he began to have many students of his own. At the age of 21, he took full ordination vows of a Bhikshu from the widely renowned Purchog Jamgön Rinpoche. He also received numerous teachings, initiations and commentaries from the great Lamas of that time such as Kyabje Trijang Dorje Chang (His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Tutor), Bakri Dorje Chang, Lhatsün Dorje Chang, Gönsar Dorje Chang and others. His monastic teachers were the great scholar- practitioners Gen Sherab Wangchuk, Gen Chöntse, and the now Gyume Kensur Ugyän Tseten.</br></br>He studied in Sera in Tibet for twenty years until, in 1959, Chinese oppression forced him to leave Tibet. Two years earlier he had been appointed tutor to two high incarnate lamas, Lhagön Rinpoche and Thupten Rinpoche. The three escaped from Chinese occupied Tibet together taking a long and dangerous journey of nine months under Chinese gunfire and snowstorms until they reached the Mustang region of Nepal. From Mustang it was a comparatively easy journey to India, where they joined His Holiness the Dalai Lama and some of Gen Rinpoche's other teachers.</br></br>In India, after a brief pilgrimage to the sacred Buddhist sites, he took up his studies once again, and for several continued tutoring the tulkus (incarnate lamas). In the mid 1960s, he was chosen along with fifty-five other scholars to attend an Acarya course at Mussourie (north of Delhi). During his year in Mussourie, he and the other scholars wrote textbooks for the Tibetan refugee schools being established in India at that time. He then returned to Dalhousie where, over various periods, he continued to teach another seven incarnate lamas. He also finished his Geshe studies and, in oral examinations held at the Buxador refugee camp in Assam in eastern India (the seat of Sera monastery at that time) he gained the highest grade (First Class) Lharampa Geshe.</br></br>In 1971 he was asked by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to start a teaching program for westerners at the newly constructed Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, northern India. Two of his incarnate lama disciples, Sharpa Rinpoche and Kamlung Rinpoche, acted as translators. He stayed there, teaching very extensively to thousands of Westerners, until 1984. During this time he himself received extensive and often exclusive teachings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and from both of the tutors, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche.</br></br>In 1982 he travelled to the West for the first time to take up a one-semester visiting professorship for at the University of Washington in Seattle. This was followed by a year-long extensive tour of Buddhist teaching centres all over North America, Europe and Australasia.</br></br>He spent six weeks in New Zealand during this tour, and at the end of the visit he was requested to establish a Buddhist centre here. In 1985 His Holiness advised Gen Rinpoche to come to New Zealand, initially for one and a half years, to establish a centre. After a six month tour of Australia, he arrived in Dunedin in mid 1985. Due to the success of the Buddhist centre he remained here, occasionally travelling to other parts of New Zealand and to Australia on teaching tours.</br></br>Gen Rinpoche was a wonderful teacher who loved to teach the great treatises, as well as experiential teachings which distilled their essence. He gave his last formal teaching in February 1995 in Dunedin. Gen Rinpoche entered into the death process on the 11th August 1995 (the 16th of the 6th Tibetan month) remaining in meditation for of three days.</br></br>His body was cremated with full traditional Tibetan funerary rites at Portobello, near Dunedin on 17th August (22nd of the 6th Tibetan month). Kushu Lhagön Rinpoche, one of Gen Rinpoche's tulku disciples, presided over the Great Offering to His Holy Body Ceremony at a specially built cremation stupa. ([https://dbc.dharmakara.net/GNDBiography.html Source Accessed Feb 24, 2023])graphy.html Source Accessed Feb 24, 2023]))
  • Losang, T.  + (Thubten Losang became interested in BuddhiThubten Losang became interested in Buddhism during the 1990s and sporadically read books on Buddhism and practiced sitting meditation. He first came to Sravasti Abbey in April 2013 for a Sharing the Dharma Day. After that, he began to visit the Abbey almost every month.</br></br>In the summer of 2014, he spent 10 days of every month at the Abbey to work in the forest and joined in the Exploring Monastic Life program. Receiving teachings from a qualified teacher (Ven. Chodron), being around other practitioners, being guided and inspired by the monastic community, and establishing a regular meditation schedule turned his sporadic and confused spiritual seeking into a serious and consistent practice.</br></br>Ven. Losang moved to the Abbey in December 2014 and took the anagarika precepts the following month. He received śrāmaṇera (novice) ordination on August 10, 2015. See his ordination photos. He received full ordination in Taiwan in 2017. ([https://sravastiabbey.org/community-member/sramanera-thubten-losang/ Source Accessed May 17, 2023])ten-losang/ Source Accessed May 17, 2023]))
  • Murti, T. R. V.  + (Tirupattur Ramaseshayyer Venkatachala MurtTirupattur Ramaseshayyer Venkatachala Murti (June 15, 1902 – March 1986) was an Indian academic, philosopher, writer and translator. He wrote several books on Oriental philosophy, particularly Indian philosophy and his works included commentaries and translations of Indian and Buddhist texts. He was an elected honorary member of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS), a society promoting scholarship in Buddhist studies. ''Studies in Indian Thought: Collected Papers'', ''The Central Philosophy of Buddhism'', and ''A Study of the Madhyamika System'' are some of his notable works. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1959, for his contributions to education and literature.</br></br>Murti dedicates his 1955 work, ''The Central Philosophy of Buddhism'', as follows: "To my revered teacher Professor S. Radhakrishnan". ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiruppattur_R._Venkatachala_Murti Source Accessed Nov 20, 2023])</br></br>T. R. V Murti was an original and leading thinker among the Indian philosophers of the twentieth century. He had a brilliant philosophical mind, a love of analysis and argument, and a respect for texts, especially the ones with which he disagreed, as seen in his most important book, ''The Central Philosophy of Buddhism''. With both traditional "Shastri" training and a Western style Ph.D., Murti was able to bring both strengths to his writing and teaching. Murti knew everything by heart, all the Sutra texts, the Upanisads and other philosophical classics, Panini's grammar, and Patanjali's "Great Commentary" and other core texts. Upon that foundation, he evaluated doctrines and ideas. Though a philosopher of the classical type, he was also alive to the latest philosophical currents of his day and effectively related the wisdom of traditional teaching to contemporary questions. It was this last quality that made him a most sought after teacher by students from around the globe. Murti spoke with such eloquence and authority that few would dare to interrupt him. He represented the best of the Indian philosophical tradition to the world through his teaching at places such as Oxford, Copenhagen, Harvard, Hawaii, and McMaster University in Canada. ([http://www.coronetbooks.com/books/t/trvm0775.htm Source Accessed Nov 20, 2023])rvm0775.htm Source Accessed Nov 20, 2023]))
  • Tsoknyi Rinpoche  + (Tsoknyi Rinpoche (Wylie: Tshogs gnyis rin Tsoknyi Rinpoche (Wylie: Tshogs gnyis rin po che), or Ngawang Tsoknyi Gyatso (born 13 March 1966), is a Nepalese Tibetan Buddhist teacher and author and the founder of the Pundarika Foundation. He is the third Tsoknyi Rinpoche, having been recognized by the 16th Karmapa as the reincarnation of Drubwang Tsoknyi Rinpoche. He is a tulku of the Drukpa Kagyü and Nyingma traditions and the holder of the Ratna Lingpa and Tsoknyi lineages.</br></br>He began his education at Khampagar Monastery at Tashi Jong in Himachal Pradesh, India, at the age of thirteen. His main teachers are Khamtrul Rinpoche Dongyu Nyima, his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, and Adeu Rinpoche.</br></br>Rinpoche has overseen the Tergar Osel Ling Monastery, founded in Kathmandu, Nepal, by his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. His brothers are Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, and Mingyur Rinpoche, and his nephews are Phakchok Rinpoche and the reincarnation of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, known popularly as Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche. He has overseen the monastery's operations and introduced studies for non-Tibetans. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsoknyi_Rinpoche Source Accessed November 18, 2019])npoche Source Accessed November 18, 2019]))
  • Pema Rigtsal  + (Tulku Pema Rigtsal Rinpoche is the SupremeTulku Pema Rigtsal Rinpoche is the Supreme Head of Namkha Khyung Dzong Monastery in Humla, Nepal ("upper Dudjom lineage" known as Namkha Khyung Dzong, formerly based at Mount Kailash in Tibet). At the age of three he was recognized by Dudjom Rinpoche as the reincarnation of “Chimed Rinpoche,” who is the emanation of the Great Indian Siddha “Dampa Sangye” and spiritual head of the renowned Shedphel Ling Monastery in Ngari, Tibet. In 1985 he reconstructed the Namkha Khyung Dzong Monastery in Humla, Nepal, and has taught the 13 major philosophical texts (Shungchen Chusum) for 24 years. His religious guidance has inspired hundreds of ascetics and other practitioners in Tibet.</br></br>Rinpoche has studied the Vajrayana tradition of the Nyingma lineage from renowned spiritual masters: Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Penor Rinpoche, Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, Trulshik Rinpoche, and Domang Yangthang Rinpoche. ([https://rubinmuseum.org/events/event/mindfulness-meditation-with-tulku-pema-rigtsal-rinpoche-02-22-24/ Source Accessed January 23, 2024])</br></br>According to Rigpa Wiki: Tulku Pema Rigtsal gives teachings on the Dudjom Tersar Ngöndro, the ''The Words of My Perfect Teacher'', ''Bodhicharyavatara'', and the Richö, Nang Jang, Neluk Rangjung, and other Dudjom Tersar teachings, to the people of Humla and those from the Ngari part of Tibet.</br></br>Tulku Pema Rigtsal also holds Summer and Winter Dharma Teaching sessions every year for more than five hundred practitioners including monks, ngakpas (yogis) and nuns residing in Humla and Ngari, Tibet. Hundreds of hermits are practising in caves and solitary locations in Humla, Nepal and Ngari, Tibet under his instruction and guidance.</br></br>Among his writings, there are:</br>:a commentary on the Calling The Lama From Afar of Dudjom Rinpoche</br>:a biography of the Degyal Rinpoche (the first).</br>:his first book in Tibetan, entitled “Semkyi Sangwa Ngontu Phyungwa” (translated and published in English as [[The Great Secret of Mind]]).cret of Mind]]).)
  • Samten, T.  + (Ven. Samten met Ven. Chodron in 1996 when Ven. Samten met Ven. Chodron in 1996 when the future Ven. Chonyi, took the future Ven. Samten to a Dharma talk at Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle. The talk on the kindness of others and the way it was presented is deeply etched in her mind. Four Cloud Mountain retreats with Ven. Chodron, eight months in India and Nepal studying the Dharma, one month of offering service at Sravasti Abbey, and a two month retreat at the Abbey in 2008 fueled the fire to ordain on August 26, 2010.</br></br>Ven. Samten’s full ordination took place in Taiwan in March 2012, when she became the Abbey’s sixth bhikshuni. </br></br>Right after finishing a Bachelor of Music degree, Ven. Samten moved to Edmonton, Canada to pursue training as a corporeal mime artist. Five years later, a return to university to obtain a Bachelor of Education degree opened the door to becoming a music teacher for the Edmonton Public School board. Concurrently, Ven. Samten became a founding member and performer with Kita No Taiko, Alberta’s first Japanese drum group.</br></br>Ven. Samten is responsible for thanking donors who make offerings online, assisting Ven. Tarpa with developing and facilitating the SAFE online learning courses, assisting with the forest thinning project, tracking down knapweed, maintaining the database, answering email questions, and photographing the amazing moments that are constantly happening at the Abbey. ([https://sravastiabbey.org/community-member/ven-thubten-samten/ Source Accessed May 17, 2023])ten-samten/ Source Accessed May 17, 2023]))
  • Chonyi, T.  + (Ven. Thubten Chonyi began attending classeVen. Thubten Chonyi began attending classes with Venerable Thubten Chodron at Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle in 1996 and has practiced steadily under Venerable’s guidance ever since.</br></br>She was a founder of Friends of Sravasti Abbey, which formed in 2003 to support Ven. Chodron’s dream to start a monastery. She moved to the Abbey in 2007 and took śrāmaṇerikā and śikṣamāṇā precepts in May 2008. See photos of her ordination.</br></br>Along with Ven. Jigme, Ven. Chonyi received bhikshuni (full) ordination at Fo Guang Shan temple in Taiwan in 2011. See the photos.</br></br>At the Abbey, Ven. Chonyi is involved with publicity and inviting generosity. She also shares Buddha’s teachings at the Abbey, online, and, occasionally, at Buddhist centers in the US and abroad. She has co-taught meditation and Buddhist ideas at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane for 13 years, and especially enjoys interfaith exchange and bringing Buddhist values into social justice issues.</br></br>Ven. Chonyi’s formal education was in theatre at Wesleyan College in Macon, GA. She worked for many years as a performer, publicist, fundraiser, and producer in the performing arts. As a Reiki teacher and practitioner for 19 years, she co-founded two Reiki centers and the Reiki AIDS Project, and led classes and workshops in Europe and North America. She was communications director for the international The Reiki Alliance and served eight years as Managing Editor for ''Reiki Magazine International''. ([https://sravastiabbey.org/community-member/thubten-chonyi/ Source Accessed May 16, 2023])ten-chonyi/ Source Accessed May 16, 2023]))
  • Chodrak, Tenzin  + (Venerable Geshe Tenzin Chodrak (Dadul NamgVenerable Geshe Tenzin Chodrak (Dadul Namgyal) is a prominent scholar in Tibetan Buddhism. He has a doctorate (Geshe Lharampa) in Buddhism and Philosophy from the Drepung Monastic University earned in 1992. He also holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from Panjab University in Chandigarh, India.</br></br>Author of several articles on Buddhism, Geshe-la was also a professor of Philosophy at Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies at Sarnath, Varanasi, India for seven years. In addition, he has been the Spiritual Director of LSLK Tibetan Buddhist Center, Knoxville, USA.</br></br>Due to his facility in both Tibetan and English, he has served as interpreter and speaker for numerous conferences exploring the interface of Buddhism with modern science, Western philosophy and psychology, and other religious traditions on both a national and international level. His language ability has also enabled him to serve as an English language translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama throughout the world.</br></br>As a published author and translator, Geshe-la’s credits include a Tibetan translation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s ''Power of Compassion'', a language manual, ''Learn English through Tibetan'', and a critical work on Tsongkhapa’s ''Speech of Gold''. He also serves as a Board Member for Tibet House, New York.</br></br>From 2010 until recently, he had served as Senior Resident Teacher at Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta. Around the same time, he began full-time position as Senior Translator/Interpreter with the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-based Ethics at Emory University, Atlanta. There he was working in producing a six-year bilingual (English and Tibetan) science curriculum and preparing additional research & pedagogy materials in Modern Science for use in Tibetan monasteries and nunneries.</br></br>Geshe-la visited several times, inspiring us with his passion for Madhyamaka philosophy and his sheer joy in sharing Buddha’s teachings. See photos of Geshe-la teaching at Sravasti Abbey in 2016.</br></br>The Sravasti Abbey community is delighted that Geshe-la is now a resident teacher at the Abbey. He brings his abundant knowledge, compassion, and humility and acts as an excellent role model for new monastics at the Abbey. Since joining our community, he has decided to go by his ordination name, Venerable Tenzin Chodrak. (Source: [https://sravastiabbey.org/advisory-member/geshe-dadul-namgyal/ sravastiabbey.org])mber/geshe-dadul-namgyal/ sravastiabbey.org]))
  • Jigme, T.  + (Venerable Jigme met Venerable Chodron in 1Venerable Jigme met Venerable Chodron in 1998 at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center. She took refuge in 1999 and attended Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle, where Ven. Chodron was the resident teacher. She moved to the Abbey in 2008 and took śrāmaṇerikā and śikṣamāṇā vows with Venerable Chodron as her preceptor in March 2009. In 2011, along with Ven. Chonyi, she received bhikshuni ordination at Fo Guang Shan in Taiwan.</br></br>Before moving to Sravasti Abbey, Venerable Jigme worked as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner in private practice in Seattle. In her career as a nurse, she worked in hospitals, clinics and educational settings.</br></br>At the Abbey, Ven. Jigme manages the prison outreach program and support the health of the community. In addition, she is a photographer, technical consultant, thanks donors, and creates flyers and other graphics. ([https://sravastiabbey.org/community-member/ven-thubten-jigme/ Source Accessed May 17, 2023])bten-jigme/ Source Accessed May 17, 2023]))
  • Lodro, Tsultrim  + (Venerable Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö is a renowVenerable Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö is a renowned contemporary Nyingma teacher of Tibetan Buddhism based at Larung Gar (formally known as the Serthar Larung Five Sciences Buddhist Institute), where he serves as a standing Vice Principal. He is a native of Draggo (Ch: Luhuo) County in Sichuan Province. He is an influential public intellectual. Read more [https://www.luminouswisdom.org/index.php/biography/biography-2 here].org/index.php/biography/biography-2 here].)
  • Tsepal, T.  + (Venerable Tenzin Tsepal was a student of VVenerable Tenzin Tsepal was a student of Venerable Chodron’s in Seattle from 1995 to 1999 and attended the Life as a Western Buddhist Nun conference in Bodhgaya as a lay supporter. Her interest in ordination surfaced after she completed a three-month Vajrasattva retreat in 1998.</br></br>She then lived in India for two years while continuing to explore monastic life. In 2001, Ven. Tsepal received sramanerika ordination from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She received bhikshuni ordination at Fu En Si Temple in Taiwan in 2019.</br></br>While Venerable Tsepal was in India, some Australian friends introduced her to the five-year Buddhist Studies Program at Chenrezig Institute (CI), an FPMT center north of Brisbane, Queensland where she subsequently lived and engaged in intensive residential study from 2002-2015. As the Western Teacher at CI, she tutored weekend teachings and retreats, and taught the Discovering Buddhism courses, but always had her eye on what was happening at the Abbey.</br></br>In January 2016, Venerable Tsepal returned to the U.S. to participate in Sravasti Abbey’s winter retreat, and subsequently joined the community the following September.</br></br>Prior to ordaining, Ven. Tsepal completed a degree in Dental Hygiene, and then pursued graduate school in hospital administration at the University of Washington. Not finding happiness in 60 hour work weeks, she was self-employed for 10 years as a Reiki teacher and practitioner.</br></br>At the Abbey, Venerable Tsepal leads the Guest Care team. She is also compiling and editing the many years of Venerable Chodron’s teachings on monastic training, and leads reviews of philosophical tenets for the community. She helps out with painting and forest work too. ([https://sravastiabbey.org/community-member/venerable-tenzin-tsepal/ Source Accessed May 16, 2023])zin-tsepal/ Source Accessed May 16, 2023]))
  • Vācaspatimiśra  + (Vācaspati Miśra was an extremely versatileVācaspati Miśra was an extremely versatile and influential Indian philosopher in the tenth century CE . As a follower of Advaita Vedānta, he wrote commentaries on the fundamental works of the two great masters of this tradition, Śaṅkarā and Maṇḍana Miśra. He also contributed to most of the orthodox (or Brahmanical) philosophical schools of Hinduism: he wrote on Mīmāṃsā and grammatical theory (in particular, on the holistic ''sphoṭa'' theory of meaning), and his commentaries on Nyāya, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga are all considered authoritative in these traditions. One of the two subschools of Śaṅkara's Advaita tradition follows and is named after Vācaspati's ''Bhāmatī'' ("Bright"), itself a commentary on Śaṅkara's ''Brahmasūtrabhāṣya'' ("Commentary on the aphorisms on ''brahman''"). ([https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119009924.eopr0400 Source Accessed Jan 22, 2024])24.eopr0400 Source Accessed Jan 22, 2024]))
  • Schubring, W.  + (Walter Schubring (10 December 1881 – 13 ApWalter Schubring (10 December 1881 – 13 April 1969) was a German Indologist who studied Jain canons written in Prakrit and wrote several major translations. Earlier western works on Jainism had mostly examined later texts in Sanskrit.</br></br>Schubring was born in Lübeck where his father Julius was headmaster of the Katharineum. He matriculated from the Katharineum in 1900. He discovered a dictionary of Sanskrit in the library of his father which imbued an early interest in oriental languages. He then went to Munich and Strassburg Universities, receiving a doctorate in 1904 under the supervision of Ernst Leumann with a dissertation on the Kalpasutra (rules for Jain monks). He then worked as a librarian at Berlin and habilitated in 1918 with a monograph on the Mahānisīha-Sutta. In 1920 he succeed Sten Konow as professor at the University of Hamburg. He cataloged Jain texts in European libraries, studied Śvetāmbara Jainism and wrote another work on the teaching of the Jainas in 1935 which was translated into English in 1962. Frank-Richard Hamm was one of his students. During World War II, he taught Sanskrit to Louis Dumont who was then a prisoner of war in Hamburg. Schubring edited the ''Journal of the German Oriental Society'' from 1922 and visited India in 1927-28 along with Heinrich Lüders spending time in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. He retired in 1951 but continued research until his death from an accident at Hamburg.</br></br>In 1933 he was one of the signatories to the Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State.</br></br>Writings<br></br>Schubring's works include:</br></br>*Mahaviras. Kritische Übersetzung aus dem Kanon der Jaina. Verlag Vandenhoeck & Rubrecht, Göttingen 1926.</br>*Die Jainas. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr 1927</br>*Die Lehre der Jainas: Nach den alten Quellen. Berlin, Leipzig: de Gruyter 1935</br>*The Doctrine of the Jainas: Described After the Old Sources. Translated from the revised German edition by Wolfgang Beurlen. Reprint. First published in 1962. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1995. ISBN 81-208-0933-5.</br>*Die Jaina-Handschriften der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek: Neuerwerbungen seit 1891. Leipzig: Harrassowitz 1944</br>*Der Jainismus. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1964</br>*The Religion of the Jainas. Transl. from the German by Amulyachandra Sen; T. C. Burke. Calcutta: Sanskrit College 1966. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Schubring Source Accessed Dec 7, 2023])wiki/Walther_Schubring Source Accessed Dec 7, 2023]))
  • Magee, W.  + (William Magee received a Ph.D. in History William Magee received a Ph.D. in History of Religions from the University of Virginia in 1998.</br></br>Magee was the author of several books and articles including ''The Nature of Things: Emptiness and Essence in the Geluk World'', and is co-author of ''Fluent Tibetan: A Proficiency-Oriented Learning System''. He was an Associate Professor at Dharma Drum Buddhist College in Jinshan, Taiwan. He is currently teaching at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon.</br></br>Magee served as Vice-President of the UMA Institute for Tibetan Studies. ([https://uma-tibet.org/author-magee.html Source Accessed April 1, 2020])</br></br>'''OBITUARY FROM 22 FEBRUARY, 2023''' (by Paul Hackett on H-Buddhism):</br></br>It is with great sadness that I must inform you that William Magee passed away at his home in Portland (OR) last night, peacefully, and in the company of his friends and family.</br></br>Known as “Bill” to his friends and colleagues alike, Bill Magee began his studies of the Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy in the mid-1980s with the ven. Geshe Jampel Thardo, for whom he subsequently served as translator. Shortly afterward, Bill entered the Ph.D. program of studies in Tibetan Buddhism at the University of Virginia under Jeffrey Hopkins, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1998, writing his dissertation on the subject of “nature” (svabhāva / prakṛti) in the thought of Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti, and Tsong-kha-pa. </br></br>Over the years, Bill taught at the Namgyal Institute in Ithaca, New York, at Dharma Drum Buddhist College in Jinshan, Taiwan, and at Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon. He is perhaps most well-known, however, for teaching the Summer Tibetan Language Intensive courses at the University of Virginia from 1988 to 2000, during which time he taught the fundamentals of the Tibetan language to hundreds of students, many of whom would go on to pursue advanced studies in the field.</br></br>Bill was renown for jovial disposition and his kindness and generosity toward others, routinely opening his home to students and monks alike, and with his wife, Rabia, generously cared for, fed, and housed any and all who appeared at their door.</br></br>Even after retiring from teaching the summer language intensives at UVa, throughout the years that followed, Bill’s passion for the Tibetan language remained, and during the COVID pandemic, Bill used his personal funds to revive the Dharma Farm institute (thedharmafarm.net) and began offering free classes online in Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy.</br></br>Bill continued to translate and publish research on Buddhist philosophy, authoring several works on the thought of Jamyang Shepa (1648-1721), and publishing them freely online under the auspices of Jeffrey Hopkins’s UMA Institute (uma-tibet.org).</br></br>Bill is survived by his wife (Rabia), his son (Tristan), and his daughter (Meri). He was 72 years old. his daughter (Meri). He was 72 years old.)
  • Chos brdzu mkhan  + (Wrote an interlinear commentary on the ''BWrote an interlinear commentary on the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'' titled ''Byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i rnam par bshad pa dam pa'i zhal lung rmongs pa'i mun sel''. His commentary on chapter 9 has a separate title called ''Shes rab le'u'i brjed byang dam pa'i zhal lung rmongs pa'i mun sel''. dam pa'i zhal lung rmongs pa'i mun sel''.)
  • Larson, Z.  + (Zach Larson is a practitioner in the LongcZach Larson is a practitioner in the Longchen Nyingthig lineage of the Nyingma School, who works as a translator, editor and author. He was born in 1978 in Wisconsin and received a BA in "Buddhism and Politics" at UW-Madison in 2001 after a year-long study-abroad program in Kathmandu, Nepal in which he met his first teacher, Changling Tulku Rinpoche of Shechen Monastery, with whom he studied the Longchen Nyinthig preliminaries for six months. While working on the research project "Nonviolence in Tibetan Culture: A glimpse at how Tibetans view and practice nonviolence in politics and daily life," he met and received profound blessings from Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche and offered to compile and translate teachings by him in the coming years. Chatral Rinpoche approved of the idea, and Larson returned to Wisconsin to study Tibetan language and Buddhism for three years at the UW-Madison Graduate School. He returned to Nepal in 2004 and compiled, edited, and translated Chatral Rinpoche's biography and teachings into the book ''Compassionate Action: The Teachings of Chatral Rinpoche'', which was published by Shechen Publications in New Delhi in 2005.</br></br>Larson attended the full Nyingma Kama Wang with Trulshik Rinpoche in the winter of 2004 in Boudha and received the Kunsang Lama'i Shelung empowerment from Tsetrul Rinpoche in January 2005.</br></br>Snow Lion Publications released an expanded and updated version of ''Compassionate Action'' in 2007. The book has since been translated into Spanish (2009), Indonesian (2009), and Russian (2010). ([https://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Zachary_Larson Source Accessed Nov 21, 2023])hary_Larson Source Accessed Nov 21, 2023]))
  • Goddard, V.  + (Zuisei is a writer and lay Zen teacher basZuisei is a writer and lay Zen teacher based in Playa del Carmen in the south of Mexico. Zuisei lived and trained full time at Zen Mountain Monastery from 1995 to 2018, and was a monk for fourteen of those years. In 2018 she received ''shiho'' or dharma transmission (empowerment to teach) from Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Roshi, and after a short stint in New York City, moved back to Mexico, where she is originally from, and began teaching virtually.</br></br>She has served as the Teachings Editor at the Buddhist journal ''Tricycle'', and her dharma writing has been featured there as well as in ''Lion's Roar'', ''Buddhadharma'', and ''Parabola''. Her books include ''Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion'' and the children's book ''Weather Any Storm''. </br></br>As Ocean Mind Sangha's Guiding Teacher, Zuisei continues to welcome students for group and private teaching. ([https://www.oceanmindsangha.org/zuisei-goddard Source Accessed April 25, 2024])i-goddard Source Accessed April 25, 2024]))
  • Patel, P.  + ([Prabhubhai Bhikhabhai Patel] belonged to [Prabhubhai Bhikhabhai Patel] belonged to a peasant family of Kunabi caste and was born at Sarpor-Pardi of the district of Surat in 1906. He had one sister and five brothers, he himself being the fourth. His father was Sri Bhikhabhai and mother Srimati Benabai. His education began at the village school of Satem and</br>thence he was sent with his nephew Sri Govindaji Bhulabhai Patel, now a Homeopathic Physician at</br>Navasari, to the Central Boarding School of Supa. It was a village middle school. </br></br>After his reading up to Matriculation came the call of Mahatma Gandhi for triple boycott of schools and colleges, Government Law Courts and foreign cloths. This was in 1919. Having given up school he joined a National School at Surat and from that time till his death he used to put on ''khaddar'' [homespun cotton cloth of India].</br></br>After two years in 1921 he went to the Gujarat Vidyapith, the National University founded by Mahatma Gandhi, and plunged deep in Congress ideology. There he came under the influence of such leaders and thinkers as Principal A. T. Gidwani, Acharya J. B. Kripalani, Kaka Kalelkar and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and</br>Prof. Dharmananda Kausambi. The last-named teacher impressed upon him the glory of the ancient lore of</br>India.</br></br>Prabhubhai then come to Visva-bharati, Santiniketan with some other students from that part of the country. Indeed, it was owing to his personal influence that at that time a good number of Gujarati students came to Santiniketan and joined the different departments of Visva-bharati. In due time Prabhubhai was admitted to the Yidya-bhavana, the Research Department of the institution of which I was then the Principal. I had there the good fortune of teaching students coming not only from the different parts of the country, but also from such distant lands as Japan and Germany.</br></br>As a student Prabhubhai endeared himself to all his teachers and inmates of the Asrama including our revered Gurudeva, Rabindranath. He was very intelligent and promising. In the Vidya-bhavana he was one of those students who studied under my personal guidance and I felt fortunate and proud to have him as a pupil. His subject of study here was Buddhism with special reference to its Tibetan and Chinese sources.</br></br>Here in Yisva-bharati he lived for more than seven years and made it almost his permanent home. Once again come the call from Mahatma Gandhi, and Prabhubhai left his studies for the time being in order to serve his motherland and courted arrest and was imprisoned. This proved too much for him, for after two years of jail life he came out a total wreck in health. His robust constitution broke down and he developed hemiplagia from a little strain in his spine. Best of India's doctors, physicians, surgeons and specialists in nature-cure could do no better than giving some temporary relief. He removed to the house of his nephew Dr. G. B. Patel, already referred to, at Navasari. He was now a complete invalid, crippled and confined to his wheel-chair and bed, but his mind was clear till the end which came on the 30th December, 1942. He was taken to his village home where he breathed his last after an agony of red sores and now lies buried in his family land. He remained unmarried after the divorce from his wife with whom he was married at a very tender age according to the social custom prevailing there at the time. (Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya, foreword to ''Cittavisuddhiprakarana of Aryadeva'', vi–vii)tavisuddhiprakarana of Aryadeva'', vi–vii))
  • Tshe mchog gling ye shes rgyal mtshan  + ([https://bo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%BD%A1%E[https://bo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%BD%A1%E0%BD%BC%E0%BD%84%E0%BD%A6%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%A0%E0%BD%9B%E0%BD%B2%E0%BD%93%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%A1%E0%BD%BA%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%A4%E0%BD%BA%E0%BD%A6%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%A2%E0%BE%92%E0%BE%B1%E0%BD%A3%E0%BC%8B%E0%BD%98%E0%BD%9A%E0%BD%93%E0%BC%8B You can read a short Tibetan biography on the Bo Wiki here]. </br></br>First Tsechokling Yongdzin Tulku, Yeshe Gyeltsen (yongs 'dzin ye shes rgyal mtshan, 1713-1793) was an important scholar of the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism and was a tutor of the 8th Dalai Lama Jampel Gyatsho (1758-1804).</br></br>He received his education in the monastery Trashilhünpo. In 1756 he founded the monastery Trashi Samtenling (bkra shis bsam gtan gling).</br></br>One of his most famous works is The Necklace of Clear Understanding, An Elucidation of Mind and Mental Factors (Tib. སེམས་དང་སེམས་བྱུང་གི་ཚུལ་གསལ་པར་སྟོན་པ་བློ་གསལ་མགུལ་རྒྱན་, Wyl. sems dang sems-byung gi tshul gsal-par ston-pa blo gsal mgul rgyan). A commentary on the Abhidharma topic of the mind and mental factors. This Tibetan text has been translated into English by Herbert Guenther & Leslie S. Kawamura, in a text entitled Mind in Buddhist Psychology. ([https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/wiki/Yongdzin_Yeshe_Gyeltsen Source: Encyclopedia of Buddhism])</br></br>Six printings of his collected works (each in 19 or 25 volumes, depending on the printing, and [[Yongs 'dzin ye shes rgyal mtshan gyi gsung 'bum|32 volumes in modern book print]]) are cataloged on [https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:WA1022 BDRC.org].ary.bdrc.io/show/bdr:WA1022 BDRC.org].)
  • Mkhan chen zla zer  + (he was from Rahor, a branch of Dzogchen mohe was from Rahor, a branch of Dzogchen monastery founded by the Third Dzogchen Rinpoche in Gyalrong near Dergé. He was a student of Pöpa Tulku. He escaped from Tibet together with his former classmate Rahor Khenpo Tupten and went together with him to Sikkim via Bhutan.</br></br>He taught at Namdroling in South India, where he also compiled a collection of prayers and liturgies used in Nyingma rituals, and eventually returned to Tibet, where he taught at the Shri Singha Shedra at Dzogchen Monastery. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Khenpo_Daw%C3%A9_%C3%96zer Source Accessed on January 24, 2024])</br></br>'''Read more: '''</br>:Marilyn Silverstone, 'Five Nyingmapa Lamas in Sikkim', Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies, 1973, vol. 1.1</br>:Nyoshul Khenpo, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems, Padma Publishing, 2005, p. 480</br></br>'''Writings:'''</br>*དོན་རྣམ་འགྲེལ་པ་ལུང་རིགས་དོ་ཤལ་, don rnam 'grel pa lung rigs do shal (Necklace of Scripture and Reasoning: A Commentary on Mipham Rinpoche's Sword of Wisdom for Thoroughly Ascertaining Reality, ཤེས་རབ་རལ་གྲི་དོན་རྣམ་ངེས) (composed in 1982): https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:MW1KG4451</br>*ཆོས་སྤྱོད་བསྡུས་པ་ཕན་བདེའི་དགའ་སྟོན་, chos spyod bsdus pa phan bde'i dga' ston (editor)yod bsdus pa phan bde'i dga' ston (editor))
  • Śaṃkarasvāmin  + (Śaṃkarasvāmin. (T. Bde byed bdag po; C. ShŚaṃkarasvāmin. (T. Bde byed bdag po; C. Shangjieluozhu; J. Shökarashu; K. Sanggallaju 商羯羅主) (c. sixth Century CE). Sanskrit proper name of an Indian philosopher and logician, who was a student of the Indian logician Dignāga. Śaṃkarasvāmin is credited with the authorship of the ''Nyāyapraveśa'', or "Primer on Logic," which became an important work in many Asian schools. Some have argued, based on the Tibetan tradition, that the ''Nyāyapraveśa'' was actually written by Śaṃkarasvāmin's teacher Dignāga, and that the recension translated into Chinese is a version that Śaṃkarasvāmin later edited. The ''Nyāyapraveśa'' provides an introduction to the logical system of Dignāga, covering such subjects as valid and invalid methods of proof, methods of refutation, perception, erroneous perception, inference, and erroneous inference. Although Śaṃkarasvāmin's work was not as extensive, detailed, or original Dignāga's, it proved to be popular within the tradition, as attested by its extensive commentarial literature, including exegeses by non-Buddhists. Large parts of the work survive in the original Sanskrit. (Source: "Śaṃkarasvāmin." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 755. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)tp://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.))
  • Ǔich'ǒn  + (Ǔich'ǒn. (C. Yitian) (1055-1101). Korean pǓich'ǒn. (C. Yitian) (1055-1101). Korean prince, monk, and bibliophile, and putative founder of the Ch’ōnt’ae chong (C. Tiantai zong) in Korea. Ǔich'ǒn was born the fourth son of the Koryǔ king Munjong (r. 1047-1082). In 1065, Ǔich'ǒn was ordained by the royal preceptor (wangsa) Kyǒngdǒk Nanwǒn (999-1066) at the royal monastery of Yǒngt’ongsa in the Koryǒ capital of Kaesǒng. Under Nanwǒn, Ǔich'ǒn studied</br>the teachings of the ''Avatamsakasūtra'' and its various commentaries. In 1067, at the age of twelve, Ǔich'ǒn was appointed 'saṃgha overseer' (K. sǔngt’ong; C. sengtong). Ǔich'ǒn is known on several occasions to have requested permission from his royal father to travel abroad to China, but the king consistently denied his request. Finally, in 1085, Ǔich'ǒn secretly boarded a Chinese trading ship and traveled to the mainland against his father’s wishes. Ǔich'ǒn is said to have spent about fourteen months abroad studying under various teachers. His father sent his friend and colleague Nakchin (1045-1114) after Ǔich'ǒn, but they ended up studying together with the Huayan teacher Jingyuan (1011-1088) of Huiyinsi in Hangzhou. Ǔich'ǒn and Nakchin returned to Korea in 1086 with numerous texts that Ǔich'ǒn acquired during his sojourn in China. While residing as the abbot of the new monastery of Hǔngwangsa in the capital, Ǔich'ǒn devoted his time to teaching his disciples and collecting works from across East Asia, including the Khitan Liao kingdom. He sent agents throughout the region to collect copies of the indigenous writings of East Asian Buddhists, which he considered to be the equal of works by the bodhisattva exegetes of the imported Indian scholastic tradition. A large monastic library known as Kyojang Togam was established at Hǔngwangsa to house the texts that Ǔich'ǒn collected. In 1090, Ǔich'ǒn published a bibliographical catalogue of the texts housed at Hǔngwangsa, entitled ''Sinp'yǒn chejong kyojang ch’ongnok'' ('Comprehensive Catalogue of the Doctrinal Repository of All the Schools'), which lists some 1,010 titles in 4,740 rolls. The Hǔngwangsa collection of texts was carved on woodblocks and titled the ''Koryǒ sokchanggyǒng'' ("Koryǒ Supplement to the Canon"), which was especially important for its inclusion of a broad cross section of the writings of East Asian Buddhist teachers. (The one exception was works associated with the Chan or Sǒn tradition, which Ǔich'ǒn refused to collect because of their "many heresies.") Unfortunately, the xylographs of the supplementary canon were burned during the Mongol invasion of Koryǒ in 1231, and many of the works included in the collection are now lost and known only</br>through their reference in Ǔich'ǒn’s catalogue. In 1097, Ǔich'ǒn was appointed the founding abbot of the new monastery of Kukch’ǒngsa (named after the renowned Chinese monastery of Guoqingsi on Mt. Tiantai). There, he began to teach Ch'ǒnt’ae thought and practice and is said to have attracted more than a</br>thousand students. Ǔich'ǒn seems to have seen the Tiantai/Ch’ǒnt’ae synthesis of meditation and doctrine as a possible means of reconciling the Sǒn and doctrinal (kyo) traditions in Korea. Ǔich'ǒn’s efforts have subsequently been regarded as the official foundation of the Ch’ǒnt’ae school in Korea; however, it seems Ǔich'ǒn was not actually attempting to start a new school, but merely to reestablish the study of Ch’ǒnt’ae texts in Korea. He was awarded the posthumous title of state preceptor (K. kuksa; C. Guoshi) Taegak (Great Enlightenment). (Source: "Ǔich'ǒn." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 935–36. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)tp://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.))
  • Amṛtākara  + (Said to be a teacher from Kashmir, Amṛtākara wrote the ''Catuḥstavasamāsārtha'', a commentary on the ''Catuḥstava'' (Four Hymns) of Nāgārjuna.)
  • Decleer, H.  + ('''In Memoriam: Hubert Decleer (1940–2021)'''In Memoriam: Hubert Decleer (1940–2021)'''</br>:by Andrew Quintman</br></br>With great sadness, we share news that our incomparable teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend Hubert Decleer passed away peacefully on Wednesday, August 25. He was at his home with his wife, the poet Nazneen Zafar, in Kathmandu, Nepal, near the Swayambhū Mahācaitya that had been his constant inspiration for nearly five decades. His health declined rapidly following a diagnosis of advanced-stage lung cancer in May, but he remained lucid and in high spirits and over the past weeks he was surrounded by family members and close friends. Through his final hours, he maintained his love of Himalayan scholarship and black coffee, and his deep and quiet commitment to Buddhist practice.</br></br>Hubert’s contributions to the study of Tibetan and Himalayan traditions are expansive, covering the religious, literary, and cultural histories of Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and India. For nearly thirty-five years he directed and advised the School for International Training’s program for Tibetan Studies, an undergraduate study-abroad program that has served as a starting point for scholars currently working in fields as diverse as Anthropology, Art History, Education, Conservation, History, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Public Policy. The countless scholars he inspired are connected by the undercurrent of Hubert's indelible "light touch" and all the subtle and formative lessons he imparted as a mentor and friend.</br></br>Hubert embodied a seemingly inexhaustible curiosity that spanned kaleidoscopic interests ranging from Chinese landscapes to Netherlandish still lifes, medieval Tibetan pilgrimage literature to French cinema, 1940s bebop to classical Hindustani vocal performance. With legendary hospitality, his home, informally dubbed “The Institute,” was an oasis for scholars, former students, artists, and musicians, who came to share a simple dinner of daal bhaat or a coffee on the terrace overlooking Swayambhū. The conversations that took place on that terrace often unearthed a text or image or reference that turned out to be the missing link in the visitor's current research project. When not discussing scholarship, Hubert inspired his friends to appreciate the intelligence and charm of animals—monkeys and crows especially—or to enjoy the marvels of a blossoming potted plum tree. His attentiveness to the world around him generated intense sensitivity and compassion. He was an accomplished painter and a captivating storyteller, ever ready with accounts of the artists’ scene in Europe or his numerous overland journeys to Asia. The stories from long ago flowed freely and very often revealed some important insight about the present moment, however discrete. </br></br>Hubert François Kamiel Decleer was born on August 22, 1940, in Ostend, Belgium. In 1946, he spent three months in Switzerland with a group of sixty children whose parents served in the Résistance. He completed his Latin-Greek Humaniora at the Royal Atheneum in Ostend in 1958, when he was awarded the Jacques Kets National Prize for biology by the Royal Zoo Society of Antwerp. He developed a keen interest in the arts, and during this period he also held his first exhibition of oil paintings and gouaches. In 1959 he finished his B.A. in History and Dutch Literature at the Regent School in Ghent. Between 1960 and 1963 he taught Dutch and History at the Hotel and Technical School in Ostend, punctuated by a period of military service near Köln, Germany in 1961–62. The highlight of his military career was the founding of a musical group (for which he played drums) that entertained officers’ balls with covers of Ray Charles and other hits of the day. </br></br>In 1963 Hubert made the first of his many trips to Asia, hitchhiking for thirteen months from Europe to India and through to Ceylon. Returning to Belgium in 1964, he then worked at the artists’ café La Chèvre Folle in Ostend, where he organized fortnightly exhibitions and occasional cultural events. For the following few years he worked fall and winter for a Belgian travel agency in Manchester and Liverpool, England, while spending summers as a tour guide in Italy, Central Europe, and Turkey. In 1967 he began working as a guide, lecturer, and interpreter for Penn Overland Tours, based in Hereford, England. In these roles he accompanied groups of British, American, Australian, and New Zealand tourists on luxury overland trips from London to Bombay, and later London to Calcutta—excursions that took two and a half months to complete. He made twenty-six overland journeys in the course of fourteen years, during which time he also organized and introduced local musical concerts in Turkey, Pakistan, India, and later Nepal. He likewise accompanied two month-long trips through Iran with specialized international groups as well as a number of overland trips through the USSR and Central Europe. In between his travels, Hubert wrote and presented radio scenarios for Belgian Radio and Television (including work on a prize-winning documentary on Nepal) and for the cultural program Woord. The experiences of hospitality and cultural translation that Hubert accumulated on his many journeys supported his work as a teacher and guide; he was always ready with a hint of how one might better navigate the awkward state of being a stranger in a new place. </br></br>With the birth of his daughter Cascia in 1972, Hubert’s travels paused for several years as he took a position tutoring at the Royal Atheneum in Ostend. He also worked as an art critic with a coastal weekly and lectured with concert tours of Nepalese classical musicians, cārya dancers, and the musicologist and performer Michel Dumont.</br></br>In 1975, during extended layovers between India journeys, Hubert began a two-year period of training in Buddhist Chinese at the University of Louvain with pioneering Indologist and scholar of Buddhist Studies Étienne Lamotte. He recalled being particularly moved by the Buddhist teachings on impermanence he encountered in his initial studies. He also worked as a bronze-caster apprentice and assistant to sculptor—and student of Lamotte—Roland Monteyne. He then resumed his overland journeying full time, leading trips from London to Kathmandu. These included annual three-month layovers in Nepal, where he began studying Tibetan and Sanskrit with local tutors. He was a participant in the first conference of the Seminar of Young Tibetologists held in Zürich in 1977. In 1980 he settled permanently in Kathmandu, where he continued his private studies for seven years. During this period he also taught French at the Alliance Française and briefly served as secretary to the Consul at the French Embassy in Kathmandu. </br></br>It was during the mid 1980s that Hubert began teaching American college students as a lecturer and fieldwork consultant for the Nepal Studies program of the School for International Training (then known as the Experiment in International Living) based in Kathmandu. In 1987 he was tasked with organizing SIT’s inaugural Tibetan Studies program, which ran in the fall of that year. Hubert served as the program’s academic director, a position he would hold for more than a decade. Under his direction, the Tibetan Studies program famously became SIT’s most nomadic college semester abroad, regularly traveling through India, Nepal, Bhutan, as well as western, central, and eastern Tibet. It was also during this period that Hubert produced some of his most memorable writings in the form of academic primers, assignments, and examinations. In 1999 Hubert stepped down as academic director to become the program’s senior faculty advisor, a position he held until his death.</br></br>Hubert taught and lectured across Europe and the United States in positions that included visiting lecturer at Middlebury College and Numata visiting faculty member at the University of Vienna. </br></br>Hubert’s writing covers broad swaths of geographical and historical territory, although he paid particular attention to the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and Nepal. His research focused on the transmission history of the Vajrabhairava tantras, traditional narrative accounts of the Swayambhū Purāṇa, the sacred geography of the Kathmandu Valley (his 2017 lecture on this topic, “Ambrosia for the Ears of Snowlanders,” is recorded here), and the biographies of the eleventh-century Bengali monk Atiśa. His style of presenting lectures was rooted in his work as a musician and lover of music—he prepared meticulously to be sure his talks were rhythmic, precise, and yet had an element of the spontaneous. One of his preferred mediums was the long-form book review, which incorporated new scholarship and original translations with erudite critiques of subjects ranging from Buddhist philosophy to art history and Tibetan music. His final publication, a forthcoming essay on an episode contained in the correspondence of the seventeenth-century Jesuit António de Andrade (translated by Michael Sweet and Leonard Zwilling in 2017), uses close readings of Tibetan historical sources and paintings to complicate and contextualize Andrade’s account of his mission to Tibet. This exemplifies the spirit and method of his review essays, which demonstrate his deep admiration of published scholarship through a meticulous consideration of the work and its sources, often leading to new discoveries. </br></br>In addition to Hubert’s published work, some of his most endearing and enduring writing has appeared informally, in the guise of photocopied packets intended for his students. Each new semester of the SIT Tibetan Studies program would traditionally begin with what is technically called “The Academic Director’s Introduction and Welcome Letter.” These documents would be mailed out to students several weeks prior to the program, and for most other programs they were intended to inform incoming participants of the basic travel itinerary, required readings, and how many pairs of socks to pack. The Tibetan Studies welcome letter began as a humble, one-page handwritten note, impeccably penned in Hubert’s unmistakable hand. </br></br>Hubert’s welcome letters evolved over the years, and they eventually morphed into collections of three or four original essays covering all manner of subjects related to Tibetan Studies, initial hints at how to approach cultural field studies, new research, and experiential education, as well as anecdotes from the previous semester illustrating major triumphs and minor disasters. The welcome letters became increasingly elaborate and in later years regularly reached fifty pages or more in length. The welcome letter for fall 1991, for example, included chapters titled “Scholarly Fever” and “The Field and the Armchair, and not ‘Stage-Struck’ in either.” By spring 1997, the welcome letter included original pieces of scholarship and translation, with a chapter on “The Case of the Royal Testaments” that presented innovative readings of the Maṇi bka’ ’bum. Only one element was missing from the welcome letter, a lacuna corrected in that same text of spring 1997, as noted by its title: Tibetan Studies Tales: An Academic Directors’ Welcome Letter—With Many Footnotes.</br></br>Hubert was adamant that even college students on a study-abroad program could undertake original and creative research, either for assignments in Dharamsala, in Kathmandu or the hilly regions of Nepal, or during independent-study projects themselves, which became the capstone of the semester. Expectations were high, sometimes seemingly impossibly high, but with just the right amount of background information and encouragement, the results were often triumphs. </br></br>Hubert regularly spent the months between semesters, or during the summer, producing another kind of SIT literature: the “assignment text.” These nearly always included extensive original translations of Tibetan materials and often extended background essays as well. They would usually end with a series of questions that would serve as the basis for a team research project. For fall 1994 there was “Cultural Neo-Colonialism in the Himalayas: The Politics of Enforced Religious Conversion”; later there was the assignment on the famous translator Rwa Lotsāwa called “The Melodious Drumsound All-Pervading: The Life and Complete Liberation of Majestic Lord Rwa Lotsāwa, the Yogin-Translator of Rwa, Mighty Lord in Magic Intervention.” There were extended translations of traditional pilgrimage guides for the Kathmandu Valley, including texts by the Fourth Khamtrul and the Sixth Zhamar hierarchs, for assignments where teams of students would race around the valley rim looking for an elusive footprint in stone or a guesthouse long in ruins that marked the turnoff of an old pilgrim’s trail. For many students these assignments were the first foray into field work methods, and Hubert's careful guidance helped them approach collaborations with local experts ethically and with deep respect for diverse forms of knowledge. </br></br>One semester there was a project titled “The Mystery of the IV Brother Images, ’Phags pa mched bzhi” focused on the famous set of statues in Tibet and Nepal and based on new Tibetan materials that had only just come to light. Another examined the “The Tibetan World ‘Translated’ in Western Comics.” Finally, there was a classic of the genre that examined the creative nonconformity of the Bhutanese mad yogin Drugpa Kunleg in light of the American iconoclast composer and musician Frank Zappa: “A Dose of Drugpa Kunleg for the post–1984 Era: Prolegomena to a Review Article of the Real Frank Zappa Book.”</br></br>Frank Zappa was, indeed, another of Hubert’s inspirations and his aforementioned review included the following passage: “If there’s one thing I do admire in FZ, it is precisely these ‘highest standards’ and utmost professional thoroughness that does not allow for any sloppiness (in the name of artistic freedom or spontaneous freedom)…. At the same time, each concert is really different, [and]…appears as a completely spontaneous event.” Hubert’s life as a scholar, teacher, and mentor was a consummate illustration of this highest ideal. </br></br>Hubert is survived by his wife Nazneen Zafar; his daughter Cascia Decleer, son-in-law Diarmuid Conaty, and grandsons Keanu and Kiran Conaty; his sister Annie Decleer and brother-in-law Patrick van Calenbergh; his brother Misjel Decleer and sister-in-law Martine Thomaere; his stepmother Agnès Decleer, and half-brother Luc Decleer. A traditional cremation ceremony at the Bijeśvarī Vajrayoginī temple near Swayambhū is planned for Friday.</br></br>Benjamin Bogin, Andrew Quintman, and Dominique Townsend</br></br>Portions of this biographical sketch draw on the introduction to [[Himalayan Passages]]: Newar and Tibetan Studies in Honor of Hubert Decleer (Wisdom Publications, 2014))
  • Sperling, E.  + ('''Obituary: Elliot Sperling (1951-2017)'''''Obituary: Elliot Sperling (1951-2017)''' by Tenzin Dorjee. (''HIMALAYA''. Volume 37, Number 1, pp 149-150)</br></br>Professor Elliot Sperling’s death was a colossal tragedy by</br>every measure. He was only 66 years old, and he exuded</br>life, health, and purpose—the antithesis of death. After</br>retiring from a long professorship at Indiana University</br>in 2015, where he was director of the Tibetan Studies</br>program at the department of Central Eurasian Studies,</br>Sperling moved back to his native New York. He bought an</br>apartment in Jackson Heights, where he converted every</br>wall into meticulously arranged bookshelves—only the</br>windows were spared. He was clearly looking forward to</br>a busy retirement, living in what was basically a library</br>pretending to be an apartment.</br>Sperling was the world’s foremost authority on historical</br>Sino-Tibetan relations. For his landmark work “on the political, religious, cultural, and economic relations between</br>Tibet and China from the fourteenth through seventeenth</br>centuries,” he was awarded a MacArthur genius grant at</br>the age of 33.1</br></br>He accumulated a compact but enduring body of work that defined and shaped Tibetan studies</br>over the last three decades. No less important, he was also</br>a phenomenal teacher, storyteller, entertainer, whiskey connoisseur (he delighted in teaching us how to enjoy</br>the peaty Scotch whiskies), and a passionate advocate for</br>Tibetan and Uyghur causes.</br>Through his seminal writings on Tibet’s relations with</br>China during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, he</br>became arguably the first historian to use both Chinese</br>language archives and Tibetan language sources extensively, bringing to light the separation and independence that</br>characterized the relationship between the two nations.</br>Until he came along, most Western academics viewed</br>Tibet through Chinese eyes, largely because they could</br>not access Tibetan sources. Sperling, fluent in Tibetan as</br>well as Chinese, upended the old Sino-centric narrative</br>and transformed the field. Roberto Vitali, who organized a</br>festschrift for Sperling in 2014, writes that Sperling’s work</br>“will stay as milestones” in Tibetan studies.2 His writings</br>have become so central to the field that any scholar who</br>writes a paper about historical Sino-Tibetan relations cannot do so without paying homage to Sperling’s work. He is,</br>so to speak, the Hegel of Sino-Tibetan history.</br></br>One can imagine the joy many of us felt when Professor</br>Sperling chose to make his home in Jackson Heights, the</br>second (if unofficial) capital of the exile Tibetan world—</br>after Dharamsala, India. We saw him at demonstrations at</br>the Chinese consulate, art openings at Tibet House, poetry</br>nights at Little Tibet restaurant, and sometimes at dinner</br>parties in the neighborhood. At every gathering, he held</br>court as the intellectual life of the party. His friends and</br>students bombarded him with questions on topics ranging</br>from art to politics to linguistics, for his erudition was</br>not limited to history alone. Unfailingly generous and</br>eloquent, he supplied the most intriguing, insightful and</br>exhaustive answers to every question. Each conversation</br>with him was a scholarly seminar. Among the circle of</br>Tibetan activists and artists living in New York City,</br>Sperling quickly fell into a sort of second professorship, an</br>underground tenure without the trappings of university.</br>We weren’t about to let him retire so easily.</br>Some of Professor Sperling’s most influential early works</br>include: The 5th Karma-pa and Some Aspects of the Relationship</br>Between Tibet and the Early Ming (1980); The 1413 Ming</br>Embassy to Tsong-ka-pa and the Arrival of Byams-chen chos-rje</br>Shakya ye-shes at the Ming Court (1982); Did the Early Ming</br>Emperors Attempt to Implement a ‘Divide and Rule’ Policy in</br>Tibet? (1983); and The Ho Clan of Ho-chou: A Tibetan Family in</br>Service to the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (1990) among others.</br>One of my personal favorites in his corpus is The 5th Karmapa and Some Aspects of the Relationship Between Tibet and the</br>Early Ming. In this text, Sperling argues that in the early</br>years following the collapse of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in</br>1367, the Ming rulers of China adopted a non-expansionist</br>foreign policy, displaying greater interest in drawing clear</br>boundaries to keep the ‘barbarians’ out of China than</br>in expanding its boundaries to encroach into non-Ming</br>territories. Ming China was initially conceived more as</br>an inward-looking state than an outward-looking empire,</br>partly in critique of the ruthless expansionism of their</br>predecessors, the Mongol Yuan rulers. In fact, Sperling</br>quotes from the very proclamation carried by the first</br>mission that Ming Taitsu, or the Hongwu Emperor, sent to</br>Tibet:</br></br>:Formerly, the hu people [i.e. the Mongols] usurped</br>:authority in China. For over a hundred years caps</br>:and sandals were in reversed positions. Of all</br>:hearts, which did not give rise to anger? In recent</br>:years, the hu rulers lost hold of the government….</br>:Your Tibetan state is located in the western lands.</br>:China is now united, but I am afraid that you have</br>:still not heard about this. Therefore this proclamation [is sent].3</br> </br>Sperling goes on to write that this “first mission is acknowledged by Chinese records to have met with no</br>success,” and that necessitated the dispatching of a second</br>mission.4</br></br>In ''Did the Early Ming Emperors Attempt to Implement a “Divide and Rule” Policy in Tibet?''5</br>Sperling defies decades of conventional wisdom with a bold argument when he writes:</br>:The Chinese court was never, in fact, able to mount</br>:a military expedition beyond the Sino-Tibetan</br>:frontier regions. This fact becomes strikingly</br>:obvious as one glances through both Tibetan and</br>:Chinese sources for the period in question…. Unable</br>:to protect its embassies or even to retaliate against</br>:attacks on them, China was hardly in a position to</br>:manifest the kind of power needed to implement a</br>:policy of “divide and rule” in Tibet.</br></br>For many Tibetans who care about seemingly inconsequential details of the murky Sino-Tibetan relations from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, a historical period that has become a domain of highly charged information battles between Dharamsala and Beijing, Sperling’s writings are like a constellation of bright lamps illuminating the tangled web of Sino-Tibetan history. He excavated critical pieces of Tibet’s deep past from the forbidding archives of antiquity, arranged them in a coherent narrative, and virtually placed in our hands several centuries of our own history.</br></br>Elliot Sperling’s academic stature would have allowed</br>him to be an ivory tower intellectual. Instead, he chose</br>to be a true ally of the Tibetan people and an unwavering</br>champion of Tibetan freedom. While he studied with</br>Taktser Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, he</br>maintained lifelong friendships with the people he met</br>in Dharamsala: Tashi Tsering (the preeminent Tibetan</br>historian), Jamyang Norbu (the rebel intellectual and</br>award-winning author), Peter Brown (the ‘American</br>Khampa’ and a brother in the Tibetan struggle). Sperling</br>joined many of us in the trenches of activism, always</br>encouraging us to embark on bigger and bolder advocacy</br>campaigns for Tibet. Speaking in his Bronx-accented</br>Tibetan, he told us that if only Tibetans studied our history</br>more seriously, we would be able to believe that Tibet will</br>be free again.</br></br>A sharp and fearless critic of Beijing, Sperling neither</br>minced his words nor censored his writings under fear of</br>being banned from China. Even when he taught in Beijing</br>for a semester, where he developed a close friendship with</br>the Tibetan poet Woeser, he successfully avoided the trap</br>of self-censorship that has neutered so many scholars in </br>our time.6</br></br>While railing against Beijing’s atrocities in Tibet, he managed to be critical of Dharamsala’s excessively conciliatory stance toward Beijing.7</br></br>His provocative critiques of the Tibetan leadership sometimes made us uncomfortable, but that was exactly the impact he was seeking as a teacher who cared deeply about Tibet: to awaken and educate us by pushing us into our discomfort zone. “Having a teacher like Sperling was a bit like having access to a genius, a father, and some sort of bodhi all in one,” says Sara Conrad, a doctoral student at Indiana University who studied with Sperling for many years. “A walking encyclopedia, I felt I could learn a lot just being near him—and he took every opportunity to teach me. I benefited learning from him about Tibet and Tibetan of course, but also about parenthood and morality, music and comedy. In terms of academia he told me I must be able to live with myself after I write, and therefore it is always best to be honest.”</br></br>In recent years, Sperling took up the case of Ilham Tohti,</br>the Uyghur intellectual sentenced to life imprisonment</br>by Beijing. He played a key role in raising Tohti’s profile</br>as a prisoner of conscience, nominating him for human</br>rights awards. He took Tohti’s daughter, Jewher, under</br>his wing and oversaw her wellbeing and education. In</br>Jewher’s own words, Elliot Sperling became “like a second</br>father” to her. His friendship with Ilahm Tohti and Jewher</br>exemplified the compassion and generosity with which he</br>treated everyone. Sure, he made his mark in this world as a</br>scholar, but his monumental intellect was matched by his</br>unbounded kindness, altruism, and humanity.</br></br>“Professor Sperling was the moral compass of Tibetan studies,” said fellow historian Carole McGranahan at Sperling’s March 11 memorial in New York. His untimely death</br>has left an abyss in our hearts and a chasm in the world of Tibetology. Christophe Besuchet, a fellow activist, remarked that it is “as if a whole library had burned down.”</br></br>Even so, it is worth remembering that Sperling has already done far more than his fair share of good in the world, and he deserves a rest (or a break, if you consider it from a Buddhist perspective). In the course of 66 years, he lived multiple lifetimes—as a taxi driver, hippie, scholar, mentor, activist, father—each one more productive and meaningful than the last. He has engraved his spirit so deeply in the lives of so many of us that, in a way, he is still alive. And while one library has burned down, there are thousands of libraries where his words still live and breathe.</br></br>''Endnotes''<br> </br>1. MacArthur Foundation, <https://www.macfound.org/</br>fellows/236/> (accessed 6 March 2017).</br></br>2. Roberto Vitali, “For Elliot from a Friend,” International</br>Association for Tibetan Studies. Also see Trails of the Tibetan</br>Tradition: Papers for Elliot Sperling, edited by Roberto Vitali</br>(Amnye Machen Institute: 2014).</br></br>3. Elliot Sperling, “5th Karmapa and Some Aspects of</br>the Relationship Between Tibet and the Early Ming,” in</br>Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi, eds., Tibetans Studies</br>in Honour of Hugh Richardson, Warminster, 1980 (published</br>in translation as Shiboling, “Wushi Gamaba yiji Xizang</br>he Mingchu de guanxi yaolue,” in Guowai Zangxue yanjiu</br>yiwenji, vol. 2, Lhasa, 1987), pp.279-289.</br></br>4. Ibid.</br></br>5. Elliot Sperling, “Divide and Rule Policy in Tibet,” in</br>Ernst Steinkellner, ed., Contributions on Tibetan Language,</br>History and Culture. Proceedings of the Csoma de Koros</br>Symposium Held at Velm-Vienna, Austria, 13-19 September</br>1981, Vienna, 1983, pp.339-356.</br></br>6. See Tsering Woeser, “A Chronicle of Elliot Sperling,”</br>in Trails of the Tibetan Tradition: Papers for Elliot Sperling,</br>Roberto Vitali eds., (published by Amnye Machen Institute,</br>2014).</br></br>7. He has criticized the Dalai Lama’s ‘Middle Way</br>Approach’ to dealing with China as too conciliatory. See</br>his article Self-Delusion, <http://info-buddhism.com/SelfDelusion_Middle-Way-Approach_Dalai-Lama_Exile_CTA_</br>Sperling.html#f1>.</br></br>'''Tenzin Dorjee''' is a writer, activist, and a researcher at Tibet</br>Action Institute. His monograph The Tibetan Nonviolent</br>Struggle: A Strategic and Historical Analysis was published</br>in 2015 by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.</br>His writings have been published in various forums including</br>Global Post, Courier International, Tibetan Review, Tibet</br>Times, and the CNN blog. He is a regular commentator</br>on Tibet-related issues for Radio Free Asia, Voice of</br>America, and Voice of Tibet. He served as the Executive</br>Director of Students for a Free Tibet from 2009 to 2013.</br>An earlier version of this obituary was published in the</br>Huffington Post <https://www.huffpost.com/entry/remembering-elliot-sperling-personal-reflections-on_b_5899c990e4b0985224db59cb>.t-sperling-personal-reflections-on_b_5899c990e4b0985224db59cb>.)
  • Sarvajñamitra  + (''Sarvajñamitra'' was a famous Buddhist mo''Sarvajñamitra'' was a famous Buddhist monk of Kashmir, described by ''Kalhaṇa'' as one 'who set himself as another ''Jina'' (''Buddha'')'. He lived in a monastery, called ''Kayyavihāra'', founded by ''Kayya'', the king of ''Lāta'' owing allegiance to king ''Lalitāditya'' of Kashmir (701–738 A.D.)[31]. Thus, ''Sarvajñamitra'' would appear to have lived in the later half of the 8th century. He was a worshipper of ''Tārā'' and was known for his generousness. ''Tārānātha'' gives the following biographical account of ''Sarvajñamitra'':</br></br>He was an extra-(marital) son of a king of Kashmir (probably the contemporary of king ''Lalitāditya'' or his predecessor). When still a baby he was carried away by a vulture when his mother had left him on the terrace, herself having gone to pluck flowers. The baby was taken to a peek of Mount ''Gandhola'' in Nalanda. There he was received by some ''Pandits'' under whose protection he grew-up and became a monk well-versed in the ''Piṭakas''. He propitiated the goddess ''Tārā'' by whose favour he received enormous wealth which he distributed among the needy. At last when he had nothing left to donate he left towards the South fearing that he would have to send the suppliants back without giving alms to them which would be against his wishes. On his journey to the South he met an old blind ''brāhmaṇa'' led by his son. He was going to Nalanda to implore aid from ''Sarvajñāmitra'', about whose generosity he had heard a lot.</br></br>''Sarvajñāmitra'' told him that he was the same person but had exhausted all his wealth. Hearing this the ''brāhmaṇa'' heaved an afflictive sigh with which ''Sarvajñāmitra'' felt boundless compassion for him and decided to get money for him anyhow. While searching for money he found a king named ''Saraṇa'' who was passionately attached to false views. This king wanted to purchase 108 men for offering them to sacrificial fire. He had already procured 107 men and was in search of one more. ''Sarvajñāmitra'' sold himself for the gold equal to the weight of his body. He gave this gold to the ''brāhmaṇa'' who returned happy.</br></br>''Sarvajñāmitra'' was put in the royal prison. The other prisoners were overpowered by grief seeing that the number was complete and their death was quire [quite?] near. When fire was kindled, they started wailing. Again. the great ''Ācārya'' felt boundless compassion and he earnestly prayed to the goddess ''Tārā''. The goddess flowed a stream of nectar over the fire and people could see rains coming down only on the fire. When the fire was extinguished the place turned to be a lake. Seeing this wonderful event, the king was filled with admiration for the ''Ācārya''. The prisoners were released with rewards.</br></br>The ''Ācārya'' after the lapse of a long time, wished to be at his birth place. So he prayed to the goddess. He was asked to catch hold of the corner of her clothes and shut the eyes. When he re-opened his eyes he found himself in a beautiful land in front of a magnificent palace. He could not recognise this place and asked the goddess why she had not taken him to Nalanda. She told him that this was his real birth place. He stayed in Kahemir [Kashmir?] and founded a big temple of goddess ''Tārā''. ''Tārānātha'' further states that he was a disciple of ''Süryagupta'' or ''Ravigupta''[32]. The same tradition is found with minor variations in the commentary on the ''Sragdharāstotra'' by ''Jinarakṣita''[33].</br></br>''Sragdharāstotra'' is a hymn containing 37 verses which ''Sarvajñamitra'' wrote in praise of goddess ''Tārā''. '' 'Sragdharā' '' is an epithet of ''Tārā'' which means 'wearer of the wreath' or 'the garland bringer' and it is also the name of the metre in which the hymn was written. ''Bstan—'gyur'' contains three translations of the text. The hymn, with its commentary and two Tibetan versions, is edited by S. C. Vidyabhusana in ''Bibliotheca'' series, 1908.</br></br>Besides '' 'Sragdharāstotra' '' other texts attributed to ''Sarvajñamitra'' are all in praise of goddess ''Tārā'', viz.,<br></br>1. ''Devītarākuvākyādhyesana nāma stotra''<br></br>2. ''Āryatārāsādhanā'', and<br></br>3. ''Aṣṭabhayatrānatārosādhanā''[34]. (Kaul, ''Buddhist Savants of Kashmir'', 19–21)ādhanā''[34]. (Kaul, ''Buddhist Savants of Kashmir'', 19–21))
  • Tilakakalaśa  + (''Tilakakalaśa'': ''Tilakakalśa'' or ''Til''Tilakakalaśa'': ''Tilakakalśa'' or ''Tilakalaśa'' is known in Tibetan as ''Thig-le bum-pā''. The name is sometimes rendered as ''Bindukalaśa''. He occupied himself mostly in the Mādhyamika philosophy, and composed four hymns. He collaborated with ''Ñi-ma grags'' and ''Blo-ldan śes-rab''.</br></br>Before going to Tibet, he translated in Kashmir, with ''Ñi-ma grags'' the ''Mādhyamakāvatāra'' of ''Candrakīrti'' and the self-commentary in 3550 [?] ''ślokas''. Together, both re-arranged the translation of the ''Mādhyamakāvatārakārikā'' done by ''Kṛṣṇapāda'' and ''Chul-kḥrims rgyal-pa''. They also translated ''Śrīguḥyasāmājamaṇḍalopāyikāviṃśavidhi'' of ''Nāgabodhi''. The work is attached to the school of the ''Guhyasamāja'' of ''Nāgārjuna''.</br></br>In collaboration with ''Blo-ldan śes-rab'', ''Tilakakalaśa'' reviewed the interpretation of the ''Śikṣāsamuccaya'' of ''Śāntideva'' done by ''Dānaśīla'', ''Jinamitra'' and ''Ye-śes sde'' during the 9th century. Together they also translated two texts dealing with the ''Prajñāpāramitā'' ('Perfection of Wisdom') in 8000 stanzas. The texts include: ''Āryaprajñāpāramitāsaṃgrahakārikā'' of ''Dignāga'', also known as ''Aṣṭasāhasrikāpinḍārtha'', and its commentary in 540 ''ṣlokas'' by ''Triratnadāsa''. He also translated the following fifteen hymns:<br></br></br>1. The ''Vāgiśvarastotra,<br></br>2. The ''Āryamañjuśrīstotra'',<br></br>3. The Āryavāgiśvarastotra'',<br></br>4. The ''Lokeśvarasiṃhanāda nāma stora [stotra?]'',<br></br>5. ''Prajñāpāramitastotra''<br></br>6. ''Acintyastava'', <br></br>7. ''Stutyatītastava'',<br></br>8. ''Niruttarastava'',<br></br>9. ''Āryabhattārakamañjuśrīparmārhastuti'',<br></br>10. ''Āryamañjuśrībhattārakakarunāstotra'',<br></br>11. ''Aṣṭamahāsthanacaityastotra'',<br></br>12. ''Aṣṭamahāsthanacaityastotra'' [Listed 2x in source as nos. 11 and 12]<br></br>13. ''Dvādaśakāranayastotra'',<br></br>14. ''Vandanāstotra'', and<br></br>15. ''Narakoddhāra''.<br></br></br>Of these, the first four are attributed to ''Tilakakalaśa'' himself and the rest to ''Nāgārjuna''. (Kaul, ''Buddhist Savants of Kashmir'', 47–48)e, the first four are attributed to ''Tilakakalaśa'' himself and the rest to ''Nāgārjuna''. (Kaul, ''Buddhist Savants of Kashmir'', 47–48))
  • Yin Shun  + ((Master) Yin Shun (印順導師, Yìnshùn Dǎoshī) ((Master) Yin Shun (印順導師, Yìnshùn Dǎoshī) (5 April 1906 – 4 June 2005) was a well-known Buddhist monk and scholar in the tradition of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism. Though he was particularly trained in the Three Treatise school, he was an advocate of the One Vehicle (or Ekayāna) as the ultimate and universal perspective of Buddhahood for all, and as such included all schools of Buddha Dharma, including the Five Vehicles and the Three Vehicles, within the meaning of the Mahāyāna as the One Vehicle. Yin Shun's research helped bring forth the ideal of "Humanistic" (human-realm) Buddhism, a leading mainstream Buddhist philosophy studied and upheld by many practitioners. His work also regenerated the interests in the long-ignored Āgamas among Chinese Buddhist society and his ideas are echoed by Theravadin teacher Bhikkhu Bodhi. As a contemporary master, he was most popularly known as the mentor of Cheng Yen (Pinyin: Zhengyan), the founder of Tzu-Chi Buddhist Foundation, as well as the teacher to several other prominent monastics.<br>      Although Master Yin Shun is closely associated with the Tzu-Chi Foundation, he has had a decisive influence on others of the new generation of Buddhist monks such as Sheng-yen of Dharma Drum Mountain and Hsing Yun of Fo Guang Shan, who are active in humanitarian aid, social work, environmentalism and academic research as well. He is considered to be one of the most influential figures of Taiwanese Buddhism, having influenced many of the leading Buddhist figures in modern Taiwan. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_Shun Source Accessed July 10, 2020])ed July 10, 2020]))
  • Zhiyan  + (A Chinese priest who was active as a transA Chinese priest who was active as a translator from the fourth through the fifth century. Chih-yen went to Kashmir to seek Buddhist scriptures and study Buddhist doctrines. He returned to Ch'ang-an with Buddhabhadra and translated fourteen sutras. Later he went again to India, where he died. ([https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/dic/Content/C/45 Source Accessed Sep 1, 2021])Content/C/45 Source Accessed Sep 1, 2021]))
  • Śaṅkara  + (A highly influential Vedāntic thinker and A highly influential Vedāntic thinker and exegete. Now credited with the founding of the Advaita Vedānta tradition, he has been promoted by many, particularly in the modern era, as the greatest Hindu philosopher. Nothing is known of his life beyond the hagiographies; these portray him as a brahmin from the small village of Kālati in Kerala who became a saṃnyāsin at the age of seven. According to the tradition, his guru was called Govindapāda and his paramaguru (his teacher's teacher) was Gauḍapāda. (Gauḍapāda was the reputed author of the earliest identifiable Advaita text, the Gauḍapādīya Kārikā, the basis of a commentary attributed to Śaṅkara.) The boy Śaṅkara moved to Vārāṇasī, where he acquired his own pupils, including Padmapāda and Sureśvara. Moving again, to Badrinātha, he composed the earliest surviving commentary on the Brahmasūtras, supposedly while still only twelve years old. Thereafter, he led the life of a peripatetic debater and teacher, before dying at the age of 32 in the Himālayas. During his period of wandering he is supposed to have founded an India-wide network of Advaitin monasteries, each with its associated order of saṃnyāsins, later identified as the Daśanāmis. There is some evidence, however, that these maṭhas may have been established much later in the history of Advaita, and it should be noted that while the Daśanāmis have a markedly Śaiva affiliation, it is likely that Śaṅkara himself was born into a smārta Vaiṣṇava family. Nevertheless, by around the 10th century ce, through the advocacy of his pupils, and various subcommentators, and the critical response of rival schools, Śaṅkara had become established as the major proponent of Advaita, and a large number of works, both philosophical and devotional began to be attributed to him. Most scholars now agree that only a small proportion of these texts should be unreservedly accepted as the work of the 8th-century Śaṅkara. Apart from one independent text, the Upadeśasāhasrī (‘Thousand Teachings’), these are all commentaries (bhāṣyas), namely: the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (also known as the Śārīrakabhāṣya), bhāṣyas on the Bṛhadāraṅyaka and Taittirīya Upaniṣads, and (probably) the Bhagavadgītā, as well as the commentary on the Gauḍapādīya Kārikā (itself a commentary on the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad). Some scholars also regard commentaries on the other major Upaniṣads (with the possible exception of the Śvetāśvatara) as genuine. ([https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100440958 Source Accessed Mar 4, 2022])803100440958 Source Accessed Mar 4, 2022]))
  • LaFleur, W.  + (A native of Patterson, New Jersey, LaFleurA native of Patterson, New Jersey, LaFleur received his BA from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He earned two master’s degrees, one in comparative literature from the University of Michigan and another in the history of religions from the University of Chicago. He also completed his doctoral work at the University of Chicago, where he studied with Joseph Kitagawa and Mircea Eliade. After completing his PhD in 1973, LaFleur taught at Princeton University; University of California, Los Angeles; Sophia University, Tokyo; and University of Pennsylvania, where he was the E. Dale Saunders Professor of Japanese Studies. </br></br>LaFleur was a groundbreaking figure in the interdisciplinary study of Buddhism and culture in Japan and trained two generations of graduate students in these fields. His seminal work ''The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan'' (University of California Press, 1986) broke away from a traditional focus on specific Buddhist figures and lineages and instead approached Buddhism as the “cognitive map” by which medieval Japanese of all Buddhist schools and social levels made sense of their world. He also uncovered an intimate relation between the Japanese Buddhist episteme and medieval literary arts. The innovative studies now emerging from a generation of younger scholars working at the intersections of Buddhism and literature owe much to LaFleur’s influence.</br></br>A scholar of far-reaching interests and expertise, LaFleur refused to be confined by any single research area, historical period, or method of approach. In addition to his work on Buddhist cosmology and the “mind” of medieval Japan, he was a gifted translator and interpreter of poetry and published two volumes on the medieval monk-poet Saigyō. He was deeply interested in Zen, especially as a resource for contemporary thought. He wrote and edited several books and essays, introducing to Western readers the work of the thirteenth century Zen master Dōgen, the Kyoto-school figure Masao Abé, and the twentieth century philosopher and cultural historian Watsuji Tetsurō. In 1989, he became the first non-Japanese to win the Watsuji Tetsurō Cultural Prize.</br></br>LaFleur’s ''Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan'' (Princeton University Press, 1994) expanded his earlier attention to Buddhist notions of the body and catalyzed his growing interest in comparative public philosophy and social ethics. In his later career, while continuing to study medieval Japanese religion and literature, he produced pioneering studies of Japanese bioethics, highlighting contrasts with Western approaches to such issues as abortion, organ transplants, and medical definitions of death. Altogether, he wrote or edited nine books. He left several other projects still in progress; some of which will be published posthumously. ([http://rsnonline.org/index7696.html?option=com_content Source Accessed Jan 16, 2020])com_content Source Accessed Jan 16, 2020]))
  • Chodron, T.  + (A native of the U.S., Ven. Chodron, whose A native of the U.S., Ven. Chodron, whose Chinese Dharma name is De Lin, is particularly qualified to teach Western monastics. She trained in Asia for many years, receiving novice ordination from Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in 1977 and full ordination in Taiwan in 1986. Her teachers include His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and Lama Thubten Yeshe and many others.</br></br>In addition to founding Sravasti Abbey, Ven. Chodron is a well-known author and teacher. She has published many books on Buddhist philosophy and meditation, including four volumes (so far) in The Library of Wisdom and Compassion, co-authored with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with whom she has studied for nearly forty years. Find info on the first four volumes in the series here: Volume 1, ''Approaching the Buddhist Path''; Volume 2, ''The Foundation of Buddhist Practice''; Volume 3, ''Samsara, Nirvana, & Buddha Nature'', and Volume 4, ''Following in the Buddha’s Footsteps''.</br></br>Ven. Chodron teaches worldwide and is known for her practical (and humorous!) explanations of how to apply Buddhist teachings in daily life. She was resident teacher at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore and Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle. Ven. Chodron is also actively involved in prison outreach and interfaith dialogue. ([https://sravastiabbey.org/community-member/thubten-chodron/ Source Accessed Nov 1, 2021])thubten-chodron/ Source Accessed Nov 1, 2021]))
  • Ware, J.  + (A specialist in the study of pre-Tang BuddA specialist in the study of pre-Tang Buddhism and Daoism, James Ware was the first student to receive a Ph.D. at Harvard in the field of Chinese studies. He completed his dissertation in 1932, on the representation of Buddhism in the historical chronicle of the Wei dynasty known as the Weishu. He then taught courses in the Chinese language and Chinese history at Harvard, and was, together with Serge Elisséeff, one of the founding faculty members of the Department of Far Eastern Languages. In this capacity, he supervised the Chinese language program for much of the 1930s and 40s.</br></br>Much of the material for Ware’s early studies was drawn from the Weishu. He wrote on problems relating to the Toba rulers of the Wei, the history of Buddhism and Daoism in the Northern Dynasties, and the textual history of the ''Fanwang jing'' and other scriptures from the Buddhist canon. In the same years, he also published selected translations from several Buddhist sutras. He worked together with Serge Eliseeff to establish the ''Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies'' in 1936, and contributed numerous articles and book reviews to the journal over the course of the next decade. He also developed a series of Chinese language textbooks and wrote on aspects of modern Chinese linguistics.</br></br>In the latter years of his career, Ware turned his attention his attention to translating, primarily for a non-specialist audience. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he published selections from the Analects, Zhuangzi, and Mencius. His final significant work was a complete translation of Ge Hong’s fourth century ''Baopuzi'' (1967). ([https://ealc.fas.harvard.edu/james-ware Source Accessed July 28, 2021])james-ware Source Accessed July 28, 2021]))
  • Pāramiti  + (According to the account in the Chinese caAccording to the account in the Chinese cataloguer Zhisheng's ''Xu gujin yijing tuji'', the ''Śūraṃgamasūtra'' was brought to China by a śramaṇa named Pāramiti. Because the ''Śūraṃgamasūtra'' had been proclaimed a national treasure, the Indian king had forbidden anyone to take the sūtra out of the country. In order to transmit this scripture to China, Pāramiti wrote the sūtra out in minute letters on extremely fine silk, then he cut open his arm and hid the small scroll inside his flesh. With the sūtra safely hidden away, Pāramiti set out for China and eventually arrived in Guangdong province. There, he happened to meet the exiled Prime Minister Fangrong, who invited him to reside at the monastery of Zhizhisi, where he translated the sūtra in 705 CE. Apart from Pāramiti's putative connection to the ''Śūraṃgamasūtra'', however, nothing more is known about him and he has no biography in the ''Gaoseng zhuan'' ("Biographies of Eminent Monks"). (Source: "*Śūraṃgamasūtra." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 873–74. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)tp://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.))
  • Bower, E.  + (Acharya Emily Bower started meditating andAcharya Emily Bower started meditating and studying with the Shambhala community in 1987 in Berkeley, California. She went on to live on staff at Karme Chöling for three years, and then moved to Boston, Massachusetts to work as a book editor specializing in Buddhism, yoga, and other spiritual traditions.</br></br>She worked for Shambhala Publications for a total of ten years. She is fortunate to have been able to work on books with many spiritual teachers, including Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.</br></br>She lives and works now in Los Angeles as a book editor and publishing consultant, and is a co-founder of Dharma Spring, a curated online Buddhist bookshop, launching in 2017. She is an editor for 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, an international non-profit initiative to translate all of the Buddha’s words into modern languages and to make them available to everyone, free of charge.</br></br>In her service as a senior teacher in the Shambhala community, she leads both extended retreats and weekend programs. She especially enjoys presenting on themes that bring practical application to our wisdom traditions. ([https://shambhalaonline.org/acharya-emily-bower/ Source Accessed Mar 18, 2022])mily-bower/ Source Accessed Mar 18, 2022]))
  • Gyaltsen, Tenpa  + (Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen is core facultAcharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen is core faculty at Nitartha Institute and recently retired from [https://www.naropa.edu/faculty/acharya-gyaltsen.php Naropa University].</br></br>Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen was born in Trakar, Nepal, near the Tibetan border. He completed 10 years of traditional scholastic training at [http://www.rumtek.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=400&Itemid=612&lang=en Karma Shri Nalanda Institute] at Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim, India, graduating as acharya with honours (graduated in the same class as [[Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche]]). This was followed by traditional yogic training in the first three-year retreat to be conducted at Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche's monastery in Pullahari, Nepal. </br></br>Following the advice of [[Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche]], Lama Tenpa taught at various Kagyu centers in Europe (Teksum Tashi Choling in Hamburg, Germany), at Nitartha, and centers in Canada. In 2004 he moved to Boulder, CO and began teaching at Naropa University. He retired from Naropa in 2020. </br></br>Learn more about Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen on the [https://nitarthainstitute.org/about/nitartha-faculty/ Nitartha faculty page] and at [https://nalandabodhi.org/teacher/acharya-lama-tenpa-gyaltsen/ Nalandabodhi].hi.org/teacher/acharya-lama-tenpa-gyaltsen/ Nalandabodhi].)
  • A 'dzoms rgyal sras rig 'dzin 'gyur me rdo rje  + (Adzom Gyalse Gyurme Dorje (Tib. ཨ་འཛོམ་རྒྱAdzom Gyalse Gyurme Dorje (Tib. ཨ་འཛོམ་རྒྱལ་སྲས་འགྱུར་མེད་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Wyl. a 'dzom rgyal sras 'gyur med rdo rje) aka Agyur Rinpoche (Wyl. a 'gyur rin po che) (1895-1969) — the third son and student of Adzom Drukpa. He was recognized by Jamgön Kongtrul as an emanation of Orgyen Terdak Lingpa.</br></br>Adzom Gyalse Gyurme Dorje was the third son and student of Adzom Drukpa Drodul Pawo Dorje. His mother was Tashi Lhamo (Tib. bkra shis lha mo), the daughter of a popular merchant named Budo (Tib. bum dos), who became Adzom Drukpa’s spiritual wife at the recommendation of Jamgön Kongtrul. While regarded as the incarnation of several eminent master, Adzom Gyalse was recognised as the incarnation of Minling Terchen Gyurme Dorje. Adzom Drukpa oversaw the spiritual education of Adzom Gyalse and transmitted to him especially his own terma treasures and the teachings of the Great Perfection such as the Longchen Nyingtik and the Chetsün Nyingtik. These in turn became also the main focus of Adzom Gyalse’s study and practice. Thus Adzom Gyalse rose to become of the main holders of the lineage and transmission of the Great Perfection teachings.</br></br>Adzom Gyalse took over the legacy of his father and became responsible for, the by his father in 1886 established, Adzom Gar (Tib. A ’dzom gar).[2] Unlike his father, Adzom Gyalse took monastic ordination and remained a monk throughout his entire life. He further developed and expanded Adzom Gar and became its main teacher and holder. While Adzom Gyalse had the potential to become a great tertön he decided to focused instead on the preservation and continuation of existing practices and teachings.</br></br>In 1958, Adzom Gyalse was arrested and put in prison where he gave teachings to his fellow inmates. He passed away in 1969 with many miraculous signs, and left a letter predicting the date and place of his future rebirth and the names of his future parents. In accordance with this letter, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche recognised a child born in Bhutan in 1980 as the reincarnation of Adzom Gyalse Gyurme Dorje. This child became a monk at Shechen Monastery and received numerous teachings and initiations from Khyentse Rinpoche. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Adzom_Gyalse_Gyurme_Dorje Source Accessed Sep 30, 2022])yurme_Dorje Source Accessed Sep 30, 2022]))
  • Sattizahn, E.  + (After meeting Suzuki Roshi in 1970, Rinso After meeting Suzuki Roshi in 1970, Rinso Ed Sattizahn lived at Tassajara from 1973 to 1977. He spent the next five years at City Center, serving as Zen Center's Vice President and President. From 1983 to 2000 Ed held various executive positions in the microcomputer software industry and developed familiarity with how the world works. In 2003, he served as Shuso (Head Student) at Green Gulch Farm, and in the same year co-founded Vimala Sangha in Mill Valley with Lew Richmond. Vimala Sangha is named after Vimalakirti, the famous householder disciple of the Buddha, and is dedicated to the practice of householder Zen in the tradition of Suzuki Roshi. Ed received Lay Entrustment in 2005, was ordained as a Zen priest in 2010, and received Dharma Transmission in 2012, all from Lew Richmond. Ed previously served on the Zen Center Board for six years (2006-2011) and as board chair for three years (2009-2011). In March 2014, Ed became Abiding Abbot at City Center, and in March 2019 stepped into the role of Central Abbot. He remains the guiding teacher at Vimala Sangha Mill Valley. ([https://www.sfzc.org/teachers/rinso-ed-sattizahn Source Accessed August 13, 2020])attizahn Source Accessed August 13, 2020]))
  • Fox, A.  + (Alan Fox is an Professor of Asian and CompAlan Fox is an Professor of Asian and Comparative Philosophy and Religion in the Philosophy Department at the University of Delaware. He earned his Ph.D. in Religion from Temple University in 1988, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan in 1986-87. He came to the University in 1990. He received the University of Delaware’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 1995 and 2006, and the College of Arts and Sciences’ Outstanding Teacher Award in 1999. In 2006 he was named Delaware Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 2008 he was named a finalist for the National Inspiring Integrity Award, and in 2012 he was named a Teaching Fellow by the American Association of Philosophy Teachers. He is a former director of both the University Honors Program and the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, as well as advisor to the undergraduate Religious Studies Minor. He has also served as President of the Faculty Senate at both the College and University levels. He has published on Buddhism and Chinese Philosophy. His research is currently focused on Philosophical Daoism. ([https://udel.edu/~afox/ Source Accessed May 18, 2021]).edu/~afox/ Source Accessed May 18, 2021]))
  • Berzin, A.  + (Alexander Berzin (born 1944) grew up in NeAlexander Berzin (born 1944) grew up in New Jersey, USA. He began his study of Buddhism in 1962 at Rutgers and then Princeton Universities, and received his PhD in 1972 from Harvard University jointly between the Departments of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and Far Eastern Languages (Chinese). Inspired by the process through which Buddhism was transmitted from one Asian civilization to another and how it was translated and adopted, his focus has been, ever since, on bridging traditional Buddhist and modern Western cultures.</br></br>Dr. Berzin was resident in India for 29 years, first as a Fulbright Scholar and then with the Translation Bureau, which he helped to found, at the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives in Dharamsala. While in India, he furthered his studies with masters from all four Tibetan Buddhist traditions; however, his main teachers have been His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. Practicing under their supervision, he completed the major meditation retreats of the Gelug tradition.</br></br>For nine years, he was the principal interpreter for Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, accompanying him on his foreign tours and training under him to be a Buddhist teacher in his own right. He has served as occasional interpreter for H.H. the Dalai Lama and has organized several international projects for him. These have included Tibetan medical aid for victims of the Chernobyl radiation disaster; preparation of basic Buddhist texts in colloquial Mongolian to help with the revival of Buddhism in Mongolia; and initiation of a Buddhist-Muslim dialogue in universities in the Islamic world.</br></br>Since 1980, Dr. Berzin has traveled the world, lecturing on Buddhism in universities and Buddhist centers in over 70 countries. He was one of the first to teach Buddhism in most of the communist world, throughout Latin America and large parts of Africa. Throughout his travels, he has consistently tried to demystify Buddhism and show the practical application of its teachings in daily life.</br></br>A prolific author and translator, Dr. Berzin has published 17 books, including Relating to a Spiritual Teacher, Taking the Kalachakra Initiation, Developing Balanced Sensitivity, and with H.H. the Dalai Lama, The Gelug-Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra.</br></br>At the end of 1998, Dr. Berzin returned to the West with about 30,000 pages of unpublished manuscripts of books, articles, and translations he had prepared, transcriptions of teachings of the great masters that he had translated, and notes from all the teachings he had received from these masters. Convinced of the benefit of this material for others and determined that it not be lost, he named it the “Berzin Archives” and settled in Berlin, Germany. There, with the encouragement of H. H. the Dalai Lama, he set out to make this vast material freely available to the world on the Internet, in as many languages as possible.</br></br>Thus, the Berzin Archives website went online in December 2001. It has expanded to include Dr. Berzin’s ongoing lectures and is now available in 21 languages. For many of them, especially the six Islamic world languages, it is the pioneering work in the field. The present version of the [https://studybuddhism.com/ website] is the next step in Dr. Berzin’s lifelong commitment to building a bridge between the traditional Buddhist and modern worlds. By guiding the teachings across the bridge and showing their relevance to modern life, his vision has been that they would help to bring emotional balance to the world.</br>([https://studybuddhism.com/en/dr-alexander-berzin Source Accessed Dec 4, 2019])</br></br>Click here for a list of Alexander Berzin's [https://studybuddhism.com/en/dr-alexander-berzin/published-works-of-dr-berzin publications]zin/published-works-of-dr-berzin publications])
  • Lokos, A.  + (Allan Lokos is the founder and guiding teaAllan Lokos is the founder and guiding teacher of the Community Meditation Center located on New York City's upper west side. He is the author of ''Pocket Peace: Effective Practices for Enlightened Living'', ''Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living'', and ''Through the Flames: Overcoming Disaster Through Compassion, Patience, and Determination''. His writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, Tricycle magazine, Beliefnet, and several anthologies.</br></br>Among the places he has taught are Columbia University Teachers College, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Marymount Manhattan College, The Rubin Museum of Art Brainwave Series, BuddhaFest, NY Insight Meditation Center, The NY Open Center, Tibet House US, and Insight Meditation Community of Washington. Lokos has practiced meditation since the mid-nineties and studied with such renowned teachers as Sharon Salzberg, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Joseph Goldstein, Andrew Olendzki, and Stephen Batchelor.</br></br>Earlier in this life Lokos enjoyed a successful career as a professional singer. He was in the original Broadway companies of Oliver!, Pickwick (musical), and the Stratford Festival/Broadway production of The Pirates of Penzance. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Lokos Source Accessed May 25, 2021])Allan_Lokos Source Accessed May 25, 2021]))
  • Carus, P.  + (An early supporter of Buddhism in America An early supporter of Buddhism in America and the proponent of the "religion of science": a faith that claimed to be purified of all superstition and irrationality and that, in harmony with science, would bring about solutions to the world's problems. Carus was born in Ilsenberg in Harz, Germany. He immigrated to America in 1884, settling in LaSalle, Illinois, where he assumed the editorship of the Open Court Publishing Company. He attended the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and became friends with several of the Buddhist delegates, including Dharmapāla and Shaku Sōen, who were among the first to promote his writing.Later, Shaku Sōen's student, Daisetz Teitaro Susuki, woudld spend eleven years working with and for Carus in LaSalle. In 1894, Carus published ''The Gospel of Buddha according to Old Records'', an anthology of passages from Buddhist texts drawn from contemporary translations in English, French, and German, making particular use of translations from the Pāli by Thomas W. Rhys Davids, as well as translations of the life of the Buddha from Chinese and Tibetan sources. Second only to Edwin Arnold's ''Light of Asia'' in intellectual influence at the time, ''The Gospel'' was arranged like the Bible, with numbered chapters and verses and a table at the end that listed parallel passages from the New Testament. ''The Gospel'' was intended to highlight the many agreements between Buddhism and Christianity, thereby bringing out "that nobler Christianity which aspires to the cosmic religion of universal truth." Carus was free in his manipulation of his sources, writing in the preface that he had rearranged, retranslated, and added emendations and elaborations in order to make them more accessible to a Western audience; for this reason, the translated sources are not always easy to trace back to the original literature. He also makes it clear in the preface that his ultimate goal is to lead his readers to the Religion of Science. He believed that both Buddhism and Christianity, when understood correctly, would point the way to the Religion of Science. Although remembered today for his ''Gospel'', Carus wrote some seventy books and more than a thousand articles. His books include studies of Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Chinese thought. (Source: The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 2014, 168)inceton Dictionary of Buddhism, 2014, 168))
  • Chédel, A.  + (André Chédel, born in Neuchâtel in 1915 anAndré Chédel, born in Neuchâtel in 1915 and died in Le Locle in 1984, was a self-taught Swiss philosopher and researcher, writer, orientalist and journalist.</br></br>The only child of a family from Le Locle, he had a great interest in Eastern languages and civilizations from a very young age. He first studied as an autodidact and then in Paris at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, at the School of Oriental Languages and at the Sorbonne between 1936 and 1939.</br></br>Fascinated by the East and interested in philosophical, spiritual and religious ideas, in 1944 he composed an anthology of Eastern religious and sacred texts, then several essays, in particular ''Judaism and Christianity: the bases of an agreement between Jews and Christians, towards a spiritualist religion'' (1951), ''For a secular humanism'' (1963), ''On the threshold of Solomon's temple: reflections on Freemasonry'' (1977) and finally ''The absolute, this research: analysis of monotheistic religions'' (1980). His literary activity is rich, varied and accessible. Among other things, he also wrote a novel, ''The Rise to Carmel'' (1958), a collection of short stories ''Contes et portraits'' (1958), a set of short texts ''Vagabondages: evocations and reflections'' (1974), as well as various travel stories.</br></br>At the same time, he translated numerous texts into French, in particular works in Russian (''La Russie face à l'Occident'' by Dostoyevsky in 1945, ''Les Nouvelles'' by Anton Chekhov in 1959), in ancient Greek (''Les Perses d' Eschyle'' in 1946), in Arabic (''Choice of Tales from the Arabian Nights'' in 1949), in Sanskrit (''Bhagavad-Gîtâ'' in 1971 ). In addition, he wrote several prefaces.</br></br>In addition to his abundant publications, André Chédel was also a freelance journalist and collaborated with numerous daily newspapers and reviews: the Journal de Genève, the Gazette de Lausanne, L'Essor (of which he was the head from 1950 to 1952), L'Impartial, La Revue de Suisse, La Vie protestante, and others.</br></br>André Chédel was a Freemason, a member of the Swiss Grand Lodge Alpina.</br></br>He finally received several prizes and distinctions, he is notably Doctor of Letters Honoris Causa from the University of Neuchâtel in 1962. From the French Academy, he received the Louis-Paul-Miller Prize in 1972 for his book ''Vers l'Universalité''. ([https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Ch%C3%A9del Source Accessed Apr 7, 2022])_Ch%C3%A9del Source Accessed Apr 7, 2022]))
  • Burchardi, A.  + (Anne Burchardi took refuge with Ven. Kalu Anne Burchardi took refuge with Ven. Kalu Rinpoche in 1976. </br>In 1978 she became a student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and started her education as a Tibetan translator with him. </br></br>1978–1980 she was the secretary of Center for Tibetan Buddhism, Karma Drub Djy Ling, Copenhagen, Denmark. </br>1978-1979 she was secretary at The Ethnographical Department of The National Museum, Copenhagen. </br>In 1980 she became a member of The Translating Board of Kagyu Tekchen Shedra, International Educational Institute of Higher Learning, Bruxelles, Belgium. </br></br>She lived in Kathmandu from 1984–1992 and in 1986 she became Teacher at Marpa Institute for Translation, Kathmandu, Nepal. 1988–1991 she was secretary and course coordinator at Marpa Institute for Translation. From 1986 to 2015 she was interpreter for various Tibetan Lamas of the Kagyu, Nyingma, and Gelukpa lineages teaching Buddhism mainly in Europe and Asia, and occasionally in the USA and Canada.</br></br>1997–2002 she was Teaching Assistant in Tibetan Language Studies, at The Asian Insitute, University of Copenhagen. </br>1999–2015 she was Associate Professor in Tibetology, Department of Asian Studies, Institute of Cross Cultural & Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. </br>1999-2007 she was Research Librarian and Curator, Tibetan Section, Department of Orientalia & Judaica, The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen. </br></br>2000 She was Consultant for Tibet, International Development Partners, DANIDA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Lhasa and Denmark.</br>2001-2015 she was Lecturer on Buddhism and Tibetan Culture at The Public University, Copenhagen & Aarhus.</br>2002–2010 she was Researcher and Consultant at The Twinning Library Project, between The National Library of Bhutan, Thimphu and The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen.</br>2004–2005 she was Visiting Professor at Deparmnet of Religion, Naropa University, Boulder, CO.</br></br>2005–2015 she was Lecturer on Buddhism at Pende Ling, Center for Tibetan Buddhism, Copenhagen.</br>2007–2015 she was Lecturer on Buddhist Studies, The Buddhist University, Pende Ling, Copenhagen.</br></br>2010 She was for Consultant for Liason Office of Denmark, Thimphu, Bhutan, DANIDA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen.</br>2011-2013 She was a Culture Guide in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet for Cramon Travels and for Kipling Travels.</br>2012–2020 She was a translator for the 84000 project.</br>(Source: Anne Burchardi Email, Jan 18, 2021.)project. (Source: Anne Burchardi Email, Jan 18, 2021.))
  • Drolma, C.  + (Anne Holland (Pema Chonyi Drolma), TibetanAnne Holland (Pema Chonyi Drolma), Tibetan Buddhist priest, translator, meditation guide and teacher.</br></br>Chönyi Drolma completed six years of retreat under the direction of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche and Lama Tharchin Rinpoché in 2012 at Pema Osel Ling. She translated the autobiography of Traktung Dudjom Lingpa into English, published as [[A Clear Mirror]], as well as the secret biography of [[Yeshe Tsogyal]] as [[The Life and Visions of Yeshe Tsogyal]]. She currently lives in Montreal where she continues to translate and take her lamas’ instructions to heart.</br></br>[http://www.jnanasukha.org/news-blog/translation-secret-biography Source Accessed 16 March, 2016]-biography Source Accessed 16 March, 2016])
  • Jack, A.  + (Anthony Abraham Jack (Ph.D., Harvard UniveAnthony Abraham Jack (Ph.D., Harvard University, 2016) is a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and an assistant professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He holds the Shutzer Assistant Professorship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.</br></br>His research documents the overlooked diversity among lower-income undergraduates: the ''Doubly Disadvantaged'' — those who enter college from local, typically distressed public high schools — and ''Privileged Poor'' — those who do so from boarding, day, and preparatory high schools. His scholarship appears in the ''Common Reader'', ''Du Bois Review'', ''Sociological Forum'', and ''Sociology of Education'' and has earned awards from the American Educational Studies Association, American Sociological Association, Association for the Study of Higher Education, Eastern Sociological Society, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Jack held fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation and was a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow. The National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan named him an Emerging Diversity Scholar. In May 2020, Muhlenberg College will award him an honorary doctorate for his work in transforming higher education.</br></br>The ''New York Times'', ''Boston Globe'', ''The Atlantic'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', ''The Huffington Post'', ''The Nation'', ''American Conservative Magazine'', ''The National Review'', ''Commentary Magazine'', ''The Washington Post'', ''Financial Times'', ''Times Higher Education'', ''Vice'', ''Vox'', and ''NPR'' have featured his research and writing as well as biographical profiles of his experiences as a first-generation college student. ''The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students'' is his first book. ([https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/anthony-jack Source Accessed Mar 22, 2021])nthony-jack Source Accessed Mar 22, 2021]))
  • Goldfield, A.  + (Ari Goldfield is a Buddhist teacher. He haAri Goldfield is a Buddhist teacher. He had the unique experience of being continuously in the training and service of his own teacher, Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, for eleven years. From 1998-2009, Ari served as Khenpo Rinpoche’s translator and secretary, accompanying Rinpoche on seven round-the-world teaching tours. Ari received extensive instruction from Rinpoche in Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and teaching methods, and meditated under Rinpoche’s guidance in numerous retreats. In 2006, Khenpo Rinpoche sent Ari on his own tour to teach philosophy, meditation, and yogic exercise in Europe, North America, and Asia. In 2007, Ari moved with Rinpoche to Seattle, where he served and helped care for him until Rinpoche moved back to Nepal in 2009. Ari now teaches in Rinpoche’s Karma Kagyu lineage, with the blessings of the head of the lineage, H.H. the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, and of Khenpo Rinpoche.</br></br>Ari is also a published translator and author of books, articles, and numerous songs of realization and texts on Buddhist philosophy and meditation. These include Khenpo Rinpoche’s books ''Stars of Wisdom'', ''The Sun of Wisdom'', and Rinpoche’s ''Song of the Eight Flashing Lances'' teaching, which appeared in ''The Best Buddhist Writing'' 2007. He is a contributing author of ''Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind: Writings on the Connections Between Yoga and Buddhism''.</br></br>Ari studied Buddhist texts in Tibetan and Sanskrit at Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and India, and at the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in India. In addition to translating for Khenpo Rinpoche, he has also served as translator for H.H. Karmapa, Tenga Rinpoche, and many other Tibetan teachers. From 2007–11, Ari served as president of the Marpa Foundation, a nonprofit organization initiated by Khenpo Rinpoche that supports Buddhist translation, nunneries in Bhutan and Nepal, and other Buddhist activities. Ari holds a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Harvard Law School, both with honors. ([https://insightla.org/teacher/ari-goldfield-2/ Source Accessed July 22, 2020])ldfield-2/ Source Accessed July 22, 2020]))
  • Waley, A.  + (Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David SchlArthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 1889 – 27 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were the CBE in 1952, the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1953, and he was invested as a Companion of Honour in 1956.</br></br>Although highly learned, Waley avoided academic posts and most often wrote for a general audience. He chose not to be a specialist but to translate a wide and personal range of classical literature. Starting in the 1910s and continuing steadily almost until his death in 1966, these translations started with poetry, such as ''A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems'' (1918) and ''Japanese Poetry: The Uta'' (1919), then an equally wide range of novels, such as ''The Tale of Genji'' (1925–26), an 11th-century Japanese work, and ''Monkey'', from 16th-century China. Waley also presented and translated Chinese philosophy, wrote biographies of literary figures, and maintained a lifelong interest in both Asian and Western paintings.</br></br>A recent evaluation called Waley "the great transmitter of the high literary cultures of China and Japan to the English-reading general public; the ambassador from East to West in the first half of the 20th century", and went on to say that he was "self-taught, but reached remarkable levels of fluency, even erudition, in both languages. It was a unique achievement, possible (as he himself later noted) only in that time, and unlikely to be repeated. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waley Source Accessed Apr 22, 2020])rthur_Waley Source Accessed Apr 22, 2020]))