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  • Thomas Cleary  + (Thomas Cleary passed away on June 20, 2021Thomas Cleary passed away on June 20, 2021. https://www.shambhala.com/remembering-thomas-cleary </br>:Of his passing, renowned Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman wrote on Facebook:</br>::“There is no doubt in my mind that Thomas Cleary is the greatest translator of Buddhist texts from Chinese or Japanese into English of our generation, and that he will be so known by grateful Buddhist practitioners and scholars in future centuries. Single-handedly he has gone a long way toward building the beginnings of a Buddhist canon in English.”</br></br>Cleary became interested in Buddhism when he was a teenager; his researches into Buddhist thought began with a desire to learn during this time of his life. When he began translating, he chose either untranslated works or—as in the case of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War''—books whose extant translations were "too limited".</br></br>Cleary earned a Ph.D in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and a JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Since completing his doctoral studies, Cleary has had little involvement with the academic world. In a rare interview, Cleary stated: "There is too much oppression in a university setting . . . I want to stay independent and reach those who want to learn directly through my books."</br></br>Cleary's brother Jonathon also completed his doctoral work in EALC at Harvard. The two brothers worked together to translate the koan collection ''The Blue Cliff Record''; Shambhala published the translation in 1977.</br></br>Thomas Cleary's most widely disseminated translation has been of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War'' (''Sunzi Bingfa'').</br></br>He also translated the monumental ''Avatamsaka Sutra'' (also called ''Huayan Jing'', or the ''Flower Ornament Scripture'').</br></br>Another major translation was of the commentaries of the 18th century Taoist sage Liu Yiming, who explains the metaphoric coding of the main Taoist texts dealing with the transformation of consciousness, and the fusion of the human mind with the mind of Tao.</br></br>In 2000, Cleary's various translations of Taoist texts were collected into four volumes by Shambhala Publications as ''The Taoist Classics''. Following the success of these publications, a five-volume collection of Buddhist translations was collected as ''Classics of Buddhism and Zen''. Another translation from the Muslim wisdom tradition is ''Living and Dying with Grace''. In 1993 Cleary published a translation of Miyamoto Musashi's ''Book of Five Rings''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cleary Source Accessed Sept 18, 2020])mas_Cleary Source Accessed Sept 18, 2020]))
  • Thomas Doctor  + (Thomas Doctor received his BA and MA degreThomas Doctor received his BA and MA degrees in Tibetan Studies from the University of Copenhagen and his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Lausanne. He has studied Buddhist philosophy at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery since the late 1980s and serves as a senior translator for the lamas and scholars there. Thomas’ main research interests are the pāramitā and mantra views and practices of Buddhism in India and Tibet. He has translated several classics of Buddhist philosophy, including Speech of Delight (Ju Mipham's commentary to the Madhyamakālaṃkāra) and Ornament of Reason (Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü's commentary to the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā). Thomas contributes to the 84000, an ongoing project to translate the Tibetan collection of the Buddha's words and associated treaties into English. He is currently teaching several courses on the MA program at RYI. (Source: [http://www.ryi.org/faculty Rangjung Yeshe Institute])ryi.org/faculty Rangjung Yeshe Institute]))
  • Thomas Zachmeier  +
  • Thupten Jinpa  + (Thupten Jinpa Langri (b. 1958) is a formerThupten Jinpa Langri (b. 1958) is a former Tibetan monk and a Geshe Lharampa with B.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in religious studies, both from Cambridge University. Since 1985, he has been the principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama and has translated and edited numerous books by the Dalai Lama, including the New York Times Bestsellers ''Ethics for the New Millennium'' and ''The Art of Happiness''. Jinpa’s own publications include works in Tibetan, English translations as well as books, the latest being ''Tsongkhapa: A Buddha in the Land of Snows'' and ''Illuminating the Intent'', a translation of Je Tsongkhapa's commentary on ''Entering the Middle Way''. Jinpa is the general series editor of the 32-volume ''Bod kyi tsug lag gces btus'' series, whose translations are published in English as [https://tibetanclassics.org/ The Library of Tibetan Classics]. His current projects include the editing of classical Indian Buddhist texts from Tengyur for a special anthology known as Rgya gzhung gnad che bdam bsgrigs (Selected Indian Buddhist treaties). He is the main author of CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training), an eight-week formal program developed at Stanford University, and co-founder and president of the Compassion Institute. He is the Chair of Mind and Life Institute, founder of the Institute of Tibetan Classics, and an adjunct professor at the School of Religious Studies at McGill University. Jinpa lives in Montreal and is married with two daughters. (Source: Thupten Jinpa)ith two daughters. (Source: Thupten Jinpa))
  • Toni Huber  + (Toni Huber has been Professor of Tibetan SToni Huber has been Professor of Tibetan Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, since 2003. His research interests and published oeuvre focus on ethnography and cultural history of Tibetan Plateau and eastern Himalayan highland societies, environment and society, ritual and religion, and nomadic pastoralism. His major monographs include ''Source of Life. Revitalisation Rites and Bon Shamans in Bhutan and the Eastern Himalayas'' (Vienna, In Press), ''The Holy Land Reborn. Pilgrimage and the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India'' (Chicago, 2008), and ''The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain. Popular Pilgrimage & Visionary Landscape in Southeast Tibet'' (New York & Oxford, 1999). ([https://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/news/2019-khyentse-lecture-toni-huber-humboldt-university-berlin-recently-discovered-ancient-tibetan Source Accessed Nov 21, 2023])red-ancient-tibetan Source Accessed Nov 21, 2023]))
  • Tsering Gyalpo  + (Tsering Gyalpo (Tibetan: ཚེ་རིང་རྒྱལ་པོ, WTsering Gyalpo (Tibetan: ཚེ་རིང་རྒྱལ་པོ, Wylie: tshe ring rgyal po, Tsering Gyalpo), born April 12, 1961 in Langchu district, Gar county, Ngari prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region and died on Saturday June 27, 2015 in Berlin, was a Tibetologist. He was director of the religion department of the Tibet Autonomous Region Academy of Social Sciences from 2000 to 2015.</br></br>Tsering Gyalpo was born into a nomadic family in western Tibet, the fourth of nine children. His parents sent him to Lhasa for his education. From there he was sent to Beijing, where he studied at the Minority University and the Department of Ethnology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. From 1994, he held a leading position at the Tibet Autonomous Region Academy of Social Sciences (TASS) in Lhasa, where for the last 15 years he was director of the religions section. He strongly influenced the research work of this institute. ([https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsering_Gyalpo Adapted from Source Nov 5, 2025])g_Gyalpo Adapted from Source Nov 5, 2025]))
  • Tulku Orgyen Topgyal  + (Tulku Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche (o rgyan stoTulku Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche (o rgyan stobs rgyal rin po che, b. 1951) is the elder son of the 3rd Neten Chokling Rinpoche. He is considered to be an incarnation of Taksham Nuden Dorje. After the death of his father, he took care of Pema Ewam Chogar Gyurme Ling Monastery in Bir, India, for many years before handing it over to the 4th Neten Chokling Rinpoche. He is a disciple of Dzongsar Khyentse Chokyi Lodro and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Renowned for his vast memory of the lives of past teachers, he recounted The Life of Chokgyur Lingpa to Erik Pema Kunsang. (Source: Enlightened Vagabond)ma Kunsang. (Source: Enlightened Vagabond))
  • Tulku Thondup  + (Tulku Thondup Rinpoche was born in Golok iTulku Thondup Rinpoche was born in Golok in 1936 and trained from childhood at Dodrupchen Monastery, after having been recognized as the reincarnation of Khenpo Konchog Dronme (1859-1936). He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he writes and translates under the auspices of the Buddhayana Foundation. A few of his books in English are ''Masters of Meditation and Miracles''; ''Enlightened Living''; ''The Healing Power of Mind''; ''Peaceful Death'', ''Joyful Rebirth''; and ''The Heart of Unconditional Love''. (Source: Enlightened Vagabond)nal Love''. (Source: Enlightened Vagabond))
  • Tulku Yeshi Gyatso  + (Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche is a Dzogchen master Tulku Yeshi Rinpoche is a Dzogchen master and the reincarnation of Dzogchen Gyaltsab Thodo Rinpoche. He was recognized by Kyabje Trulshig Rinpoche. He has received teachings from over forty masters representing all five schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, Gelug and Shiji (or Chod). Tulku Yeshi has authored fifteen books on subjects of Tibetan Buddhism and culture. He also writes novels, poetry for mind training and how to enjoy life.</br></br>Currently he lives at Sakya Monastery and works on Dharma activities both here in Seattle and across the US. He has dedicated himself in service of H.H. Dagchen Rinpoche, Sakya Monastery and Phuntsok Phodrang. (Source: [https://84000.co/about-translators-html/ 84000])//84000.co/about-translators-html/ 84000]))
  • Tarthang Tulku  + (Twenty-Four Years of Traditional Training Twenty-Four Years of Traditional Training in Tibet</br></br>Dharma Publishing was founded by Tarthang Rinpoche, commonly known as Tarthang Tulku. Rinpoche was born in in the mountains of Golok in the far northeast of Tibet as the son of Sogpo Tulku, Pema Gawey Dorje (b 1894), a highly respected physician and holder of the Nyingma Vidyadhara lineage. Before Rinpoche was two years old, he was recognized and given the name Kunga Gellek by the Sutrayana and Mantrayana master Tragyelung Tsultrim Dargye (b. 1866), who made predictions about Rinpoche’s future mission as a servant of the Dharma, and instructed his parents in the special treatment of young tulkus.</br></br>Rinpoche’s training began at a very early age, and his first teachers were his father and private tutors. After the age of nine, he resided at Tarthang Monastery where he was initiated into the teachings of the Palyul tradition by Tarthang Choktrul and given instruction in Mahayana view, meditation, and conduct by various expert khenpos. At the age of fifteen in the iron tiger year of 1950, Rinpoche departed from Tarthang Monastery to travel to the major monasteries of Kham in eastern Tibet. There he received blessings, teachings, and initiations from the greatest masters of the 20th century: Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro, Zhechen Kongtrul, Adzom Gyelsey, Bodpa Tulku, and others, altogether thirty-one teachers. For the next ten years, until the age of 24, Rinpoche was given intensive training in the three Inner Yogas of Maha, Anu, and Ati.</br></br>Nine Years of Retreat, Research, and Publishing in India</br></br>In 1958 Rinpoche departed from his homeland, traveling through Bhutan into Sikkim following in the footsteps of his root guru, Khyentse Chokyi Lodro. The next several years were devoted to pilgrimage and retreat at holy places in India. In 1963 he was appointed by Dudjom Rinpoche as the representative of the Nyingma tradition and given the position of research fellow at Sanskrit University in Benares. In that same year, he set up one of the first Tibetan printing presses in exile and began his life’s work of preserving sacred art and texts. After six years at Sanskrit University and some twenty publications, Rinpoche decided that this was not enough, and departed for America to bring Dharma to the West.</br></br>Forty-three Years of Dharma Work in the West</br></br>Arriving in America in late 1968, Rinpoche chose California as his headquarters, and established the Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center in early 1969. One of the first learned Tibetan exiles to take up residence in the West, he has lived continuously in America for over forty years. With the full support and blessings of Dudjom Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Tarthang Tulku began in the 1970s to unfold a vision of wisdom in action that would eventually encompass over twenty different organizations and make a significant impact on the transmission of Dharma to the West and the restoration of Dharma in Asia.</br></br>([http://dharmapublishing.com/about/our-founder/ Source Accessed August 26, 2015])founder/ Source Accessed August 26, 2015]))
  • Ulrike Roesler  + (Ulrike Roesler received her PhD in Indian Ulrike Roesler received her PhD in Indian Studies from the University of Münster (Germany) with a thesis on the notion of "light" in the Vedas. For more than a decade she has been teaching Indian and Tibetan Studies as well as Buddhist Studies at the universities of Marburg, Freiburg, and Oxford. Her research interests include Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, the history of the Tibetan Kadam school, and Tibetan biographical and narrative literature. Her German translation and study of Potowa Rinchen Sal's ''Dharma Exemplified (Dpe chos)'' was published by Reichert Verlag (Weisbaden) in 2011. With Linda Covill and Sarah Shaw, she coedited ''Lives Lived, Lives Imagined: Biography in the Buddhist Traditions'' (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2010). (Source: [https://books.google.com/books?id=B68aCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT918&lpg=PT918&dq=Ulrike+Roesler+received+her+PhD+in+Indian+Studies+from+the+University+of+M%C3%BCnster+(Germany)+with+a+thesis+on+the+notion+of+%22light%22+in+the+Vedas.&source=bl&ots=MWXJJre-DW&sig=ACfU3U0oqRUrOgdcIk9dgYb82jAVXyqQdQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjSs6jojd3rAhWomeAKHTpUCPkQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Ulrike%20Roesler%20received%20her%20PhD%20in%20Indian%20Studies%20from%20the%20University%20of%20M%C3%BCnster%20(Germany)%20with%20a%20thesis%20on%20the%20notion%20of%20%22light%22%20in%20the%20Vedas.&f=false "About the Contributors," ''Stages of the Buddha's Teachings: Three Key Texts'', Wisdom Publications, 2015])s," ''Stages of the Buddha's Teachings: Three Key Texts'', Wisdom Publications, 2015]))
  • Vasily Radlov  + (Vasily Vasilievich Radlov or Friedrich WilVasily Vasilievich Radlov or Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff (Russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Ра́длов; 17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1837 in Berlin – 12 May 1918 in Petrograd) was a German-born Russian founder of Turkology, a scientific study of Turkic peoples. According to Turkologist Johan Vandewalle; he knew all the Turkic languages and dialects as well as German, French, Russian, Greek, Latin, Manchu, Mongolian, Chinese, Arabic, Persian and Hebrew.</br></br>Working as a schoolteacher in Barnaul, Radlov became interested in the native peoples of Siberia and published his ethnographic findings in the influential monograph From Siberia (1884). From 1866 to 1907, he translated and released a number of monuments of Turkic folklore. Most importantly, he was the first to publish the Orhon inscriptions. Four volumes of his comparative dictionary of Turkic languages followed in 1893 to 1911. Radlov helped establish the Russian Museum of Ethnography and was in charge of the Asiatic Museum in St. Petersburg from 1884 to 1894.</br></br>Radlov assisted Grigory Potanin on his glossary of Salar language, Western Yugur language, and Eastern Yugur language in Potanin's 1893 Russian language book The Tangut-Tibetan Borderlands of China and Central Mongolia.</br></br>During the Stalinist repressions of the late 1930s, the NKVD and state science apparatus accused the late (ethnically German) Radlov of Panturkism. A perceived connection with the long-dead Radlov was treated as incriminating evidence against Orientalists and Turkologists, some of whom were executed, including Alexander Samoylovich in 1938. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Radlov Source Accessed May 6, 2022])asily_Radlov Source Accessed May 6, 2022]))
  • Venerable Sarah Thresher  + (Venerable Sarah Thresher (Tenzin Yiwong) wVenerable Sarah Thresher (Tenzin Yiwong) was born in London, England in 1960, and earned her Bachelor's degree in 1982. Shortly afterwards, she met the Buddha's teachings at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, where she took refuge with Lama Thubten Yeshe. Since then, she has studied with many great masters and was ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986.</br></br>After working as an editor for Wisdom Publications for nine years, she began teaching in 1992 and since then has taught in countries around the world. More recently, as Resident Teacher of Land of Medicine Buddha, she helped organize the highly successful visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Mountain View, California in 2001. At the request of her teacher, Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche, she now travels and teaches full-time throughout the world.</br></br>Ven. Sarah's experiential way of presenting the Buddhist path stimulates inward reflection and introduces new ways of perceiving that can guite literally revolutionize our lives. The goal is a deepening of wisdom and compassion, a relaxed open heart, a peaceful mind, and a more realistic view of ourselves.</br></br>Ven. Sarah is currently teaching in Mongolia. ([https://lamrim.com/vensarah/ultimatehealing.html Source Accessed Jan 16, 2025])ealing.html Source Accessed Jan 16, 2025]))
  • Ven. Tenzin Chogkyi  + (Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi is a Buddhist nunVenerable Tenzin Chogkyi is a Buddhist nun who first became interested in meditation and Buddhism in the early 1970s, and became a student of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist teachers in early 1991. Venerable Tenzin took novice ordination in 2004 with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and completed several long meditation retreats over a six year period. Venerable Tenzin teaches Buddhist philosophy and meditation within the FPMT network, and also teaches Cultivating Emotional Balance (a secular program developed by Alan Wallace and Paul Ekman). She is passionate about social justice and interfaith work in addition to her Buddhist practice, and has been teaching in prisons for the last 13 years. ([https://www.compassioninstitute.com/teachers/tenzin-chogkyi/ Source Accessed Oct 29, 2021])in-chogkyi/ Source Accessed Oct 29, 2021]))
  • Walther Schubring  + (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]))
  • Walther Heissig  + (Walther Heissig (December 5, 1913 – SeptemWalther Heissig (December 5, 1913 – September 5, 2005) was an Austrian Mongolist. Heissig was born in Vienna. He studied prehistory, ethnology, historical geography, sinology and Mongolian in Berlin and Vienna, and got his doctoral degree in 1941 in Vienna. Afterwards he traveled to China, worked at the Fu-jen University in Beijing and visited China's Inner Mongolia region. In 1945/46 he had to leave China in an affair about alleged espionage for Japan by German nationals. In 1951 he obtained his habilitation at Göttingen, but, on failing to obtain a position there, he undertook to pursue his second habilitation at the Bonn in 1957. In 1964, he was appointed the Chair of the Central Asian seminar at Bonn University.<br><br></br></br>His major fields of study were Mongolian history, literature, and also Mongolian maps. He not only made a number of invaluable contributions in the academic field, but also edited several popular books on Mongolian history and culture, for example ''Ein Volk sucht seine Geschichte''. He also published several books on Mongolian epics, proverbs, and folk tales.<br><br></br></br>He worked extensively on the Epic of King Gesar and other epics circulating in Mongolia. In 1978, he initiated a project for the study of epics. Also, with the help of Heissig, the five-volume series "Folklore mongol" by B. Rinchen was published between 1960–1972, followed by a 13-volume series of epics, ''Mongolische Epen'' by Nicholas Poppe. His scientific research work has been acknowledged by elections into various learned societies i.a. he was elected foreign member of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences which is the highest scientific honour in Mongolia. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Heissig Source Accessed Apr 2, 2021])n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Heissig Source Accessed Apr 2, 2021]))
  • Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche  + (Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (born 1975) is a TYongey Mingyur Rinpoche (born 1975) is a Tibetan teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. He has authored two best-selling books and oversees the Tergar Meditation Community, an international network of Buddhist meditation centers.</br></br>As the head of the Tergar Meditation Community, Mingyur Rinpoche supports groups of students in more than thirty countries, leading workshops around the world for new and returning students every year. [https://tergar.org/about/mingyur-rinpoche/ Learn more at https://tergar.org/]</br></br>Mingyur Rinpoche was born in Nepal in 1975, the youngest of four brothers. His mother is Sönam Chödrön, a descendant of the two Tibetan kings Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Deutsen. His brothers are Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and his nephews are Phakchok Rinpoche and the reincarnation of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, known popularly as Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche. From the age of nine, his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, taught him meditation, passing on to him the most essential instructions of the Dzogchen and Mahamudra traditions.</br></br>At the age of eleven, Mingyur Rinpoche began studies at Sherab Ling Monastery in northern India, the seat of Tai Situ Rinpoche. Two years later, Mingyur Rinpoche began a traditional three-year retreat at Sherab Ling. At age twenty, Mingyur Rinpoche became the functioning abbot of Sherab Ling. At twenty-three, he received full monastic ordination. During this time, Mingyur Rinpoche received important Dzogchen transmissions from Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche. At the age of nineteen, he enrolled at Dzongsar Institute, where, under the tutelage of the renowned Khenpo Kunga Wangchuk, he studied the primary topics of the Buddhist academic tradition, including Middle Way philosophy and Buddhist logic.</br></br>In 2007, Mingyur Rinpoche completed the construction of Tergar Monastery in Bodhgaya, India, which will serve large numbers of people attending Buddhist events at this sacred pilgrimage site, serve as an annual site for month-long Karma Kagyu scholastic debates, and serve as an international study institute for the Sangha and laity. The institute will also have a medical clinic for local people.</br></br>Mingyur Rinpoche has overseen the Kathmandu Tergar Osel Ling Monastery, founded by his father, since 2010. He also opened a shedra (monastic college) at the monastery.</br></br>In June 2011, Mingyur Rinpoche left his monastery in Bodhgaya to begin a period of extended retreat. Rinpoche left in the middle of the night, taking nothing with him, but leaving a farewell letter. He spent four years as a wandering yogi... After continuing with his retreat for four years, he later returned to his position as abbot. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongey_Mingyur_Rinpoche Source Accessed June 27, 2022])r_Rinpoche Source Accessed June 27, 2022]))
  • Yunmen Wenyan  + (Yúnmén Wényǎn (Chinese: 雲門文偃; Pinyin: YúnmYúnmén Wényǎn (Chinese: 雲門文偃; Pinyin: Yúnmén Wényǎn; Romanji: Ummon Bun'en; 862 or 864 – 949 CE), was a major Chinese Chan master in Tang-era China. He was a dharma-heir of Xuefeng Yicun.</br></br>Yunmen founded the Yunmen school, one of the five major schools of Chán (Chinese Zen). The name is derived from Yunmen monastery of Shaozhou where Yunmen was abbot. The Yunmen school flourished into the early Song Dynasty, with particular influence on the upper classes, and eventually culminating in the compilation and writing of the ''Blue Cliff Record''.</br></br>The school would eventually be absorbed by the Linji school later in the Song. The lineage still lives on to this day through Chan Master Hsu Yun (1840–1959). ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunmen_Wenyan Source Accessed July 15, 2021])men_Wenyan Source Accessed July 15, 2021]))
  • Zach Larson  + (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]))
  • Zachary Beer  + (Zack leads and coordinates translation teaZack leads and coordinates translation teams and manages team processes, workloads, and schedules for the Khyentse Vision Project.</br></br>Zack became interested in Buddhist meditation as a teenager. He attended Stanford University, where he completed a BA in Religious Studies focusing on Buddhism, with a minor in creative writing. He then spent eleven years based in the Tibetan community of Boudhanath, Nepal. There, he first studied and earned an MA at Rangjung Yeshe Institute before eventually working at RYI for four years as a teacher and interpreter. </br></br>Under the umbrella of Dharmachakra Translation Committee, he has published a number of translations, including works on development-stage practice by Shechen Gyaltsab (in ''Deity, Mantra, and Wisdom'' and ''A Practice of Padmasambhava'', both published by Snow Lion) and several sūtras for 84000. In 2014, he began his PhD studies at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is currently completing a dissertation on the topic of secrecy in early Tibetan Buddhism. </br></br>Zack lives in California and spends his free time baking bread and watching birds.free time baking bread and watching birds.)
  • Zara Houshmand  + (Zara Houshmand is an Iranian American writer, editor, and literary translator whose work crosses boundaries and cultural divides. She lives in the mountains of California.)
  • Peter Zieme  + (Zieme Peter (19.04.1942, Berlin), an experZieme Peter (19.04.1942, Berlin), an expert in Turkic studies, Buddhology and Old Uyghur literature. In 1965 [he] graduated from Humboldt University of Berlin; from 1965 to 1969 [he] was a PhD student at the same University. After defending a PhD thesis (Linguistic and literature research of Turkic Manichean texts found in Turfan), he started his career as an academic researcher at the Institute of Oriental Research of the German Democratic Republic in 1969. In 1984 he received the Habilitation degree at the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic for the dissertation Die Stabreim Texte der Uiguren von Turfan und Dunhuang: Studien zur alttürkischen Dichtung.</br></br>From 1993, [he became] a member of The Turfanforschung (Turfan Studies) at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities; Honored professor of Free University of Berlin (1994); member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1999); honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2000); honorary member of Turkish Language Society (Türk Dil Kurumu, 2012); [and a] member of the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences (2019). </br></br>Professor Zieme’s contribution to Old Uyghur studies could not be overestimated. Being an author of 14 books and more than 200 articles, the chief editor of multiple works dedicated to Central Asian literature and paleography, he continues to conduct research of Old Uyghur Turfan texts. ([http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_personalities&Itemid=74&person=700 Adapted from Source Mar 15, 2021])&person=700 Adapted from Source Mar 15, 2021]))
  • Norman Fischer  + (Zoketsu Norman Fischer is an American poetZoketsu Norman Fischer is an American poet, writer, and Soto Zen priest, teaching and practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission in 1988. Fischer served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center from 1995–2000, after which he founded the Everyday Zen Foundation in 2000, a network of Buddhist practice group and related projects in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Fischer has published more than twenty-five books of poetry and non-fiction, as well as numerous poems, essays and articles in Buddhist magazines and poetry journals. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoketsu_Norman_Fischer Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020])man_Fischer Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]))
  • Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu  + (Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu (born Osbert John S. MoorÑāṇamoli Bhikkhu (born Osbert John S. Moore; 25 June 1905 – 8 March 1960) was a British Theravada Buddhist monk and translator of Pali literature.</br></br>Born in Cambridge, Osbert was the only child of biologist John Edmund Sharrock Moore and Heloise Moore (née Salvin). He was named after Heloise's father, the naturalist Osbert Salvin. He studied modern languages at Exeter College, Oxford. He helped a friend to run an antiques shop before joining the army at the outbreak of World War II, joining the anti-aircraft regiment before being transferred to the Intelligence Corps officer-cadet training camp. He was posted to a camp on the Isle of Man to help oversee Italian internees.</br></br>In 1944 he was posted to Italy serving as an intelligence officer interrogating spies and saboteurs. During this period he discovered Buddhism via Julius Evola's ''The Doctrine of Awakening'', a Nietzschean interpretation of Buddhism. This work had been translated by his friend Harold Edward Musson, also an intelligence officer serving in Italy.</br></br>After the war Moore joined the Italian section of the BBC. Moore and Musson, who shared a flat in London, were quite disillusioned with their lives and left to Sri Lanka in 1949 to become Buddhist monks. On 24 April 1949 they received the novice (samanera) ordination or going forth, ''pabbajjā'', from Ñāṇatiloka at the Island Hermitage. In 1950 they received their bhikkhu ordination at Vajirarama Temple Colombo. Ñāṇamoli spent almost his entire monk life of eleven years at the Island Hermitage.</br></br>After having been taught the basics of Pali by Nyanatiloka Mahathera, Ñāṇamoli acquired a remarkable command of the Pali language and a wide knowledge of the canonical scriptures within a comparatively short time. He is remembered for his reliable translations from the Pali into English, mostly of abstruse texts such as the Nettippakaraṇa which are considered difficult to translate. He also wrote essays on aspects of Buddhism. By 1956 he had translated ''Visuddhimagga'' into English and got it published as ''The Path of Purification''. He also compiled ''The Life of the Buddha'', a reliable and popular biography of the Buddha based on authentic records in the Pali Canon. His notes with his philosophical thoughts were compiled by Nyanaponika Thera and published as ''A Thinker's Note Book''.</br></br>His handwritten draft translation of the Majjhima Nikaya was typed out after his death and edited by Bhikkhu Khantipalo, and partly published as ''A Treasury of the Buddha's Discourses'' and then edited again by Bhikkhu Bodhi and published as ''Middle Length Discourse of the Buddha'' and published by Wisdom Publications in 1995. Other draft translations, edited and published after his death, are ''The Path of Discrimination'' (''Paṭisambhidāmagga'') and ''Dispeller of Delusion'' (''Sammohavinodanī''). ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%91%C4%81%E1%B9%87amoli_Bhikkhu Source Accessed May 18, 2021])oli_Bhikkhu Source Accessed May 18, 2021]))
  • Ösel Tendzin  + (Ösel Tendzin (Thomas F. Rich) was Vajra ReÖsel Tendzin (Thomas F. Rich) was Vajra Regent and dharma heir of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. As such, he was the first American accepted as a lineage holder of the Kagyu tradition of vajrayana Buddhism. Osel Tendzin was co-founder of Shambhala Training and author of Buddha in the Palm of Your Hand. Following Trungpa Rinpoche’s death in 1987, he was President of Vajradhatu and the Nalanda Foundation until his own death in 1990. ([https://www.lionsroar.com/author/osel-tendzin/ Source Accessed Oct 2, 2024])sel-tendzin/ Source Accessed Oct 2, 2024]))
  • Thomas Zachmeier  + (Thomas Zachmeier is a filmmaker at Conscious Action Network. He lives in Berlin.)
  • Elliot Sperling  + ('''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>.)
  • Akester, M.  + ('''SIT BIO: Matthew Akester, Lecturer and '''SIT BIO: Matthew Akester, Lecturer and Faculty Advisor'''<br></br>Matthew is a translator of classical and modern literary Tibetan with 25 years of fieldwork experience as an independent researcher throughout the Tibetan world. His discipline is history, both religious and political history, which corresponds with the program’s double specialization. Matthew's special interests include the history of Lhasa, the life and times of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, historical geography of central Tibet, and history and memoir in occupied Tibet. His published book-length translations include [[The Life of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo]] by Jamgon Kongtrul ([[Shechen Publications]] 2012); [[Memories of Life in Lhasa Under Chinese Rule]] by Tubten Khetsun ([[Columbia University Press]] 2008, Penguin India 2009); and [[The Temples of Lhasa]] (with [[Andre Alexander]], [[Serindia Publications]] 2005). In addition, he has worked as active consultant and contributor for the Tibet Information Network, Human Rights Watch, Tibet Heritage Fund, and [[Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center]]; as translator, editor, and advisor for countless publications on Tibet in English, French, and Tibetan; and as lecturer on contemporary Tibet for student programs including SIT in Nepal and India. ([http://www.sit.edu/studyabroad/faculty_npt.cfm SOURCE])www.sit.edu/studyabroad/faculty_npt.cfm SOURCE]))
  • 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]))
  • Nicolas Sihlé  + (A social anthropologist by training (PhD PA social anthropologist by training (PhD Paris-Nanterre University 2001), Nicolas Sihlé first taught at the Department of anthropology at the University of Virginia (USA) from 2002 to 2010, before joining the Centre for Himalayan Studies. He is a specialist of Tibetan society and religion, and of Buddhist societies more generally. His work focuses in particular on religious specialists called tantrists (''ngakpa''), key figures of the non-monastic side of Tibetan Buddhism, generally characterized by their practice of tantric rituals involving occasionally strong ritual power and even ritual violence, as in violent exorcisms. He has carried out extended fieldwork in the Mustang district (northern Nepal) as well as in the Repkong district in northeast Tibet (Amdo/Qinghai), but also shorter periods of research in Ladakh (northern India), Dolpo (NW Nepal), Nyemo (central Tibet), and Bhutan.</br></br>His first book, based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in culturally Tibetan areas in the north of Nepal, appeared in 2013, under the title ''Rituels bouddhiques de pouvoir et de violence : La figure du tantriste tibétain'' [Buddhist rituals of power and violence: The figure of the Tibetan tantrist]. It analyzed the striking features of this type of Buddhist specialist: a highly ritualistic orientation (with a strong magical component); the practice of tantric rituals involving strong ritual power and even ritual violence (which shows here, comparatively speaking, quite a paradoxical centrality in a Buddhist context); the association between ritual legitimacy and power on the one hand and hereditary lineage on the other; and the relative absence of references to renunciation. The analysis of the monk vs. tantrist duality is more broadly relevant for thinking about religious fields that are organized around values such as ritual power/violence vs. ritual/ethical purity. This work has also involved thinking about written texts (such as a local corpus of manual rituals) as objects in need of a fully ethnographic analysis that takes into account their materiality, their partaking in a social and political economy, but also their particular status, at the juncture between a local universe of meanings and practices and a wider (e.g., Buddhist or Tibetan) cultural world.</br></br>His current major research project focuses on the large communities of Buddhist and Bönpo tantrists of the Repkong district in northeast Tibet (Chinese Qinghai province), where is has been conducting fieldwork since 2003. The focus is here (i) on very large-scale collective rituals and their place, among others, in the constitution of supra-local collectivities and the negotiation of identities, as well as (ii) on the vicissitudes of the religious sphere, and in particular of ritual, in the context of the transformations of the moral, intellectual, social and political universe of post-Mao Amdo.</br></br>These projects all contribute to a comparative anthropology of Buddhism—a major emphasis in his research activity. He is thus involved for instance in the coordination of a network of scholars (with several years of workshops and seminars) engaging in the comparative anthropology of Buddhism. In this context, he has co-edited a special issue on the Buddhist gift (''Religion Compass'' 2015).</br></br>He is also the main editor of the collective research blog ''The Himalayas and Beyond'' (http://himalayas.hypotheses.org/). ([https://himalaya.cnrs.fr/spip3/spip.php?article135&lang=en Source Accessed Nov 14, 2023])135&lang=en Source Accessed Nov 14, 2023]))
  • A. Charles Muller  + (A. Charles Muller (born September 19, 1953A. Charles Muller (born September 19, 1953) is an academic specializing in Korean Buddhism and East Asian Yogacara, having published numerous books and articles on these topics. He is a resident of Japan, currently teaching at Musashino University. He is one of the earliest and most prolific developers of online research resources for the field of Buddhist Studies, being the founder and managing editor of the online Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, the CJKV-English Dictionary, and the H-Buddhism Scholars Information Network, along with having digitized and published numerous reference works.</br></br>Muller's academic study of Buddhism began as an undergraduate at Stony Brook University, where he majored in Religious Studies under the guidance of Sung Bae Park, a specialist in Seon and Korean Buddhism. After graduating, he spent two years studying in Japan, after which he spent one year in the graduate program in Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. In 1988, he left UVa to return to Stony Brook, where he completed a PhD in Comparative literature, once again with Sung Bae Park as his principal advisor. He also studied Christian Theology with Peter Manchester, Islam with William Chittick, and Postmodern literary criticism with Michael Sprinker and Hugh Silverman. His dissertation, "Hamhŏ Kihwa: A Study of His Major Works," was accepted in 1993, after which he spent six months in Korea as a research associate at the Academy of Korean Studies, before taking up an academic position in Japan, at Toyo Gakuen University.</br></br>From 1994 to 2008, Muller taught courses in philosophy and religion at Toyo Gakuen University, during which time he published numerous books and articles on Korean Buddhism, Zen, East Asian Yogacara, and Confucianism. While active in numerous academic organizations such as the American Academy of Religion and the Japanese Association for Indian and Buddhist Studies, he also became known as one of leading figures in the creation of online research resources. In 1995, he set up his web site called Resources for East Asian Language and Thought (still in active service today), featuring online lexicons, indexes, bibliographies, and translations of classical texts. In 1996, he started the Budschol listserv for the academic study of Buddhism, which would, in 2000, become part of H-Net, under the name of H-Buddhism, the central internet organ for communication among scholars of Buddhism. He also initiated two major dictionary projects, the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and the CJKV-E Dictionary, which have become basic reference works for the field of Buddhist and East Asian studies, subscribed to by universities around the world. His work in the area of online reference works and digitization led him into the field of Digital Humanities, with his principal area of expertise lying in the handling of literary documents using XML and XSLT. In 2008, Muller was invited to join the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Tokyo, where he taught courses in Digital Humanities, Chinese Philosophy, and Korean Philosophy and Religion. He retired from UTokyo in March 2019 and moved to Musashino University, where he is director of the Institute of Buddhist culture and teaches courses in Buddhist Studies. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Charles_Muller Source Accessed July 21, 2021])les_Muller Source Accessed July 21, 2021]))
  • Aaron Schultz  + (Aaron Schultz is a Ph.D. candidate at BingAaron Schultz is a Ph.D. candidate at Binghamton University. He specializes in Buddhist philosophy and the problem of punishment. He has a passion for teaching and strives to show his students how to think critically and analytically about all things, so that they can better navigate through their lives. ([https://www.aaronjschultz.com/ Source Accessed Jan 18, 2021])chultz.com/ Source Accessed Jan 18, 2021]))
  • Abhayadatta  + (Abhayadatta Sri (also known as AbhayadattaAbhayadatta Sri (also known as Abhayadattaśrī or Abhayadāna) was a 12th-century Indian Buddhist monk notable for composing the ''Caturaśītisiddhapravrtti'' (''The Lives of the Eighty-Four Mahāsiddhas'') which detailed the backgrounds of the mahāsiddhas who were tantric masters. His work was later translated into Tibetan. His story on the lives of the mahāsiddhas was influential in showing their highly unconventional paths to achieving realization.</br></br>He was a native of Campara which has been identified with modern day Champaran district in Bihar, India. He was also a disciple of Vajrasana who was one of the last great siddhas of the eleventh century. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhayadatta_Sri Source Accessed Oct 17, 2024])yadatta_Sri Source Accessed Oct 17, 2024]))
  • Emily Bower  + (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]))
  • Ary, E.  + (Adjunct Professor chez ESSEC Business SchoAdjunct Professor chez ESSEC Business School. Geshe Khunawa, recognized by the 14th Dalai Lama; Discovered by Geshe Pema Gyaltsen. </br>Elijah Sacvan Ary was born in Vancouver, Canada. In 1979, at age seven, he was recognized as the reincarnation, or tulku, of a Tibetan scholar and spent his teenage years as a monk at Sera Monastery in South India. He went on to study at the University of Quebec in Montreal and the National Institute for Eastern Languages and Civilizations (Inalco) in Paris, and he earned his PhD in the Study of Religion from Harvard University. His writings have appeared in the books Little Buddhas: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Texts and Traditions, Oxford Bibliographies Online: Buddhism, Contemporary Visions in Tibetan Studies, and Blue Jean Buddha: Voices of Young Buddhists. He lives in Paris with his wife and teaches Buddhism and Tibetan religious history at several institutions. [http://www.wisdompubs.org/author/elijah-s-ary Source Accessed Jun 12, 2015]elijah-s-ary Source Accessed Jun 12, 2015])
  • Müller, R.  + (After graduating from Humboldt University After graduating from Humboldt University Berlin and following (post-)doctoral research in Munich, Zurich and Kyoto, I am currently a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy at Hildesheim University (Germany), which specializes in Asian and World philosophy.</br></br>My research focuses on the philosophy of language and culture, particularly based on the works of Ernst Cassirer and Wilhelm von Humboldt. My interests also encompass regional philosophies including pre-modern Buddhist and modern Japanese philosophy. I have published widely in various languages and translated seminal philosophical works from Japanese into German and English.</br></br>Throughout my career, I have been engaged in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research activities inside and outside of academia. I am the founding member of the research network »Morphology as Scientific Paradigm« (funded by the German Research Council, DFG) and have co-curated (as »Konzeptbegleiter«) the new permanent exhibit »Play of culture/s« (»Spiel der Kultur/en«) at Historisches und Völkerkundemuseum in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland. ([http://ralfmueller.eu Source Accessed May 14, 2020])fmueller.eu Source Accessed May 14, 2020]))
  • Albert Grünwedel  + (Albert Grünwedel (31 July 1856 – 28 OctobeAlbert Grünwedel (31 July 1856 – 28 October 1935) was a German Indologist, Tibetologist, archaeologist, and explorer of Central Asia. He was one of the first scholars to study the Lepcha language.</br></br>Grünwedel was born in Munich in 1856, the son of a painter. He studied art history and Asian languages, including Avestan, and in 1883 earned his doctorate at the University of Munich. In 1881 he began work as an assistant at the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin and in 1883 he was appointed deputy director of the ethnographic collection. Grünwedel won accolades for his numerous publications on Buddhist art, archaeology Central Asia, and Himalayan languages. Two notable works were'' Buddhist art in India'' (1893) and ''Mythology of Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia'' (1900), which concerned the Greek origins of the Gandharan Greco-Buddhist artistic style and its development in Central Asia.</br></br>In 1899 Grünwedel was invited to join a Russian archaeological research expedition led by Vasily Radlov into the north of Xinjiang province, China. In the same year he was appointed a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. In 1902-1903 Grünwedel led the first German expedition to Turpan, in Xinjiang, becoming the first modern European to study the massive ruins near Gaochang. He recorded the events of this expedition in his book ''Report on Archaeological work in Idikutschahri and Surrounding areas in Winter 1902-1903'' (1905). The next expedition was led by Albert von Le Coq, who became famous for removing large numbers of frescos from sites across Xinjiang. Grünwedel himself headed the third German Turfan expedition in 1905–1907, the results of which were published in ''Ancient Buddhist Religion in Chinese Turkistan'' (1912). Grünwedel's expeditions were largely funded by the Krupp family. Grünwedel was joined by Heinrich Lüders who made major contributions to the epigraphical analysis of the Turpan-Expedition findings after being called to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University Berlin as Professor for oriental languages in 1909.</br></br>Grünwedel retired in 1921, and in 1923 moved to Bavaria, where his spent his last years at Bad Tölz writing a number of scientific papers. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gr%C3%BCnwedel Source Accessed Jan 15, 2024])C3%BCnwedel Source Accessed Jan 15, 2024]))
  • Alex Trisoglio  + (Alex is an executive coach and life coach Alex is an executive coach and life coach to senior business executives, including two CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, as well as movie stars and rock musicians. He also serves the global Performance Leadership practice at McKinsey & Company, helping the world’s leading companies build performance cultures that are aligned with their strategic objectives, and coaching executives and managers through personal transformations that support business goals and also bring greater meaning and purpose to their lives. He is currently serving clients on four continents. Alex was formerly a Professor of Business Administration in London and Copenhagen, teaching leadership on MBA programs. He holds a Ph.D. in Strategy and Organizational Behaviour from London University and an M.A. in Theoretical Physics from Cambridge University. He has been awarded a Natwest Fellowship to the London Business School and a Fulbright Fellowship to the Harvard Business School. Alex has transcribed and edited Khyentse Rinpoche’s Madhyamakavatara teachings given in France from 1996-2000, and organized them into Khyentse Foundation’s first publication, the Madhyamakavatara Commentary. He is now editing Rinpoche’s cycle of ''Uttaratantra'' teachings. Alex serves as a teaching assistant at select Khyentse Rinpoche teachings. (Source: [https://khyentsefoundation.org/project/alex-trisoglio/ Khyentse Foundation])/project/alex-trisoglio/ Khyentse Foundation]))
  • Alexander Berzin  + (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])
  • Alex Gardner  + (Alexander Gardner is the Director and ChieAlexander Gardner is the Director and Chief Editor of the Treasury of Lives, an online biographical encyclopedia of Tibet and the Himalayan Region. He completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan in 2007. From 2007 to 2016 he worked at the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, serving as their Executive Director from 2013 to 2016. His research interests are in Tibetan life writing and the cultural history of Kham in the nineteenth century. He is the author of ''The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great'', published by Shambhala in 2019. Alex served as the writer-in-residence for Tsadra Foundation's Buddha-Nature Project from 2017-2019.dation's Buddha-Nature Project from 2017-2019.)
  • Alexander Yiannopoulos  + (Alexander holds a dual BA in Linguistics aAlexander holds a dual BA in Linguistics and Philosophy from Boston College, an MA in Buddhist Philosophy and Himalayan Languages from the Rangjung Yeshe Institute at Kathmandu University in Boudhanath, Nepal, and a PhD in Religion from Emory University completed under Drs. Sara McClintock and John Dunne. He has been studying and practicing Buddhadharma since 2005, when he took refuge under the Bodhi Tree with Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche during a semester spent studying abroad in Nepal. After graduating ''magna cum laude'' from Boston College, he returned to Kathmandu on his first Fulbright research fellowship. Alexander remained in Nepal for the next six years, studying the foundational texts of Tibetan Buddhist scholastic philosophy. During that time, apart from his formal studies at RYI, he was also fortunate to receive teaching and empowerment from the lamas of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling, as well as many other teachers, including Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, Kyabgon Gongma Trichen Rinpoche, and Lama Tsering Wangdu Rinpoche. During his second Fulbright research fellowship in Sarnath, India, Alexander was similarly fortunate to receive instruction in Sanskrit Buddhist philosophy from Drs. Ram Shankar Tripathi and Pradeep Gokhale.</br></br>To date, Alexander’s research has focused primarily on “luminosity” (''<i>’</i>od gsal'' or ''gsal ba'') as this key term is presented in Indian Buddhist epistemological literature. His Master’s thesis translates and examines a pithy presentation of luminosity by Ratnākaraśānti, also known as the Mahāsiddha Śāntipa, who was a teacher of Maitripāda and one of four debate-masters at Vikramaśīla Mahāvihāra. Alexander’s doctoral dissertation, a partial translation and commentary on the Perception Chapter of Dharmakīrti’s ''Pramāṇavārttika'', places a particular emphasis on the closely-related technical term 'reflexive awareness" (''rang rig'') as this term is developed in Dharmakīrti’s epistemology.</br></br>Alexander lives in his hometown of New Orleans, where he enjoys walks along the Mississippi with his wife and their two sons. ([https://www.khyentsevision.org/team/alexander-yiannopoulos/ Source Accessed June 5, 2023])alexander-yiannopoulos/ Source Accessed June 5, 2023]))
  • Alice Collett  + (Alice Collett is the author of [[Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns]]Alice Collett is the author of [[Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns]]: Biographies as History and editor of [[Women in Early Indian Buddhism]]: Comparative Textual Studies and [[Translating Buddhism: Historical and Contextual Perspectives]]. </br></br>Alice Collett is an academic who specializes in ancient Indian religious history, and most of her publications to date concentrate on women in early South Asia. Alice's most recent book is I Hear Her Words: An Introduction to Women in Buddhism (2021). This book is intended for the general reader, students, practitioners and anyone with an interest. The second part of the book is a history of the many female practitioners of the past - from around the world - who have helped to shape Buddhism and make it what it is today.ape Buddhism and make it what it is today.)
  • Allison Choying Zangmo  + (Allison Choying Zangmo is Anyen Rinpoche'sAllison Choying Zangmo is Anyen Rinpoche's personal translator and a longtime student of both Rinpoche and his root lama, Kyabje Tsara Dharmakirti. She has either translated or collaborated with Rinpoche on all of his books. She lives in Denver, Colorado.</br></br>She has received empowerments, transmissions and upadesha instructions in the Longchen Nyingthig tradition from Khenchen Tsara Dharmakirti Rinpoche, as well as others of his main students, such as Khenpo Tashi from Do Kham Shedrup Ling. She also received an unusually direct lineage of Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje’s chod from the realized chodpa Lama Damphel.</br></br>After moving to the US with Anyen Rinpoche, she received many other empowerments, transmissions and upadesha instructions in the Secret Mantryana tradition from eminent masters such as Taklong Tsetrul Rinpoche, Padma Dunbo, Yangtang Rinpoche, Khenpo Namdrol, Denpai Wangchuk, and Tulku Rolpai Dorje.</br></br>Allison Choying Zangmo works diligently for both Orgyen Khamdroling and the Phowa Foundation, as well as composing books and translations of traditional texts & sadhanas with Anyen Rinpoche, and spending a portion of each year in retreat. Although she never had any wish to teach Dharma in the west, based on encouragement by Anyen Rinpoche, Tulku Rolpai Dorje and Khenpo Tashi, she began teaching the dharma under Anyen Rinpoche's guidance in 2017. ([https://orgyenkhamdroling.org/rinpoche/allison Source: Orgyen Khamdroling])/rinpoche/allison Source: Orgyen Khamdroling]))
  • Adhe Tapontsang  + (Ama Adhe Tapontsang is a native of the KhaAma Adhe Tapontsang is a native of the Kham region of eastern Tibet, where she spent a happy childhood, and is an activist dedicated to securing the much-needed freedom of her country. Imprisoned for twenty-seven years for her resistance activities following the invasion of her country by the Chinese Communists in the 1950s, she faced inhuman torture and deprivation. Following her release, she left in 1987 for India, where she now lives in Dharamsala. The Voice That Remembers is the story of her life. (Source: [https://wisdomexperience.org/product/voice-remembers/ Wisdom Publications])uct/voice-remembers/ Wisdom Publications]))
  • Amber Carpenter  + (Amber Carpenter is Associate Professor at Amber Carpenter is Associate Professor at Yale-NUS College, and supervises doctoral students at the University of York. Dr. Carpenter specializes in Ancient Greek philosophy and Indian Buddhist philosophy. She is particularly concerned with the place of reason in a well-lived life— what might reason be that it could be ethically relevant, or even required? Addressing this question opens up lines of inquiry in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical psychology.</br></br>Dr. Carpenter’s work considers the intersections of these areas of inquiry. In both Greece and India, metaphysics and epistemology mattered. Debates over them were parts of wider disputes about the nature and domain of the moral. Dr. Carpenter’s work in Ancient Greek philosophy focuses on Plato’s metaphysical ethics and related epistemological issues— including the intelligence of plants. Her book, Indian Buddhist Philosophy, appeared in 2014, and her study of the pudgalavādins can be found in The Moon Points Back (2015). In her current work, she creates a conversation between these two philosophical traditions, under the rubric ‘Metaphysics and Epistemology as Ethics’, as for instance in ‘Ethics of Substance’.</br></br>She recently held a fellowship with the Beacon Project, exploring “Ethical Ambitions and Their Formation of Character”.</br></br>Dr. Carpenter is currently Rector of Elm College, Yale-NUS. From 2015 to 2017, she was Head of Philosophy at Yale-NUS, where she initiated the Ancient Worlds Research Group. She was a co-founder of the Yorkshire Ancient Philosophy Network; and collaborates with Rachael Wiseman on the Integrity Project.</br></br>[https://integrityproject.org/amber-carpenter/ Read more at the Integrity Project]enter/ Read more at the Integrity Project])
  • Paul Carus  + (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))
  • Andy Wistreich  + (Andy was born in England in 1950. Now retiAndy was born in England in 1950. Now retired from paid employment, he spent most of his career as a teacher in further education in England. He gained a masters degree in education in 2000 and went on to work for the UK higher and further education funding councils providing support services for the educational use of the Internet. In 1980 he began to practise Buddhism, taking refuge, lay vows and bodhisattva vows with Geshe Jampa Tekchog.</br></br>During the eighties, Andy was spiritual programme coordinator at Manjushri London Centre (now Jamyang), taking teachings from Geshe Wangchen, Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and others. He began to teach Buddhism and lead short retreats at the centre in 1982. He took a series of empowerments and undertook some short solitary retreats during that period. After moving to Somerset, England in 1989, Andy continued teaching on ''Bodhicaryavatara'', Gom Rim, Lo Rig, Śamatha, Introduction to Tantra and Discovering Buddhism modules at Jamyang Leeds.</br></br>Having first taken the Kalacakra Empowerment in Madison, Wisconsin, USA in 1981, Andy developed an ongoing enthusiasm for study and practice of Kalacakra, with a strong wish to support Kalacakra practitioners with materials, teachings, retreats etc. In 1998 he and David Reigle set up the International Kalacakra Network for that purpose, and the network has become a major source of information, and support for practice by means of the internet.</br></br>Since retiring in July 2007, Andy has undertaken a year of retreats in two FPMT retreat centres. Having now emerged from those retreats he plans to dedicate the rest of his life to studying, practising and teaching the Dharma. He is available to teach a wide range of texts and topics from sutra and tantra, as well as to lead retreats. ([https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/teachers/touring/pdf/Andy_Wistreich_bio.pdf Apadted from Source Mar 26, 2025])bio.pdf Apadted from Source Mar 26, 2025]))
  • Annabella Pitkin  + (Annabella Pitkin is associate professor ofAnnabella Pitkin is associate professor of Buddhism/East Asian religions and director of the Asian Studies Program at Lehigh University. Pitkin’s wide-ranging research spans classical and contemporary Tibetan Buddhism, East Asian religion and pop culture, and Buddhist social and ecological movements. Her research focuses on Tibetan Buddhist modernity, Buddhist ideals of renunciation, miracle narratives, and Buddhist biographies. She is on the editorial committee of the online database Treasury of Lives: A Biographical Encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalaya. Pitkin is a member of the review committee for the Rubin Institute. ([https://rubinmuseum.org/people/annabella-pitkin/ Source Accessed Dec 21, 2024])lla-pitkin/ Source Accessed Dec 21, 2024]))
  • 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])
  • Anyen Rinpoche  + (Anyen Rinpoche is a recognized tulku of thAnyen Rinpoche is a recognized tulku of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage within the Nyingma tradition. Born and raised in Amdo, Tibet, he trained extensively in Dzogchen meditation and Buddhist scholarship under his root teacher Kyabje Tsara Dharmakirti Rinpoche. Founder of the Orgyen Khamdroling Dharma Center in Denver, Colorado, Anyen Rinpoche is known for his deep spiritual insight and accessible teaching style. He is the author of many books, often in collaboration with his wife and translator, Allison Choying Zangmo, including Union of Dzogchen and Bodhichitta, Stop Biting the Tail You’re Chasing, and The Tibetan Yoga of Breath. He is also founder of the Phowa Foundation, which focuses on helping people prepare for a peaceful and conscious death. ([https://www.shambhala.com/union-of-dzogchen-and-bodhichitta-2437.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqTTg31y7KvxSrGgI0DcB72m3sIoVK9LsUivwv86LaEw5Indg6u Source Accessed Jan 24, 2025])LaEw5Indg6u Source Accessed Jan 24, 2025]))
  • Arne Schelling  + (Arne Schelling studied Western and ChineseArne Schelling studied Western and Chinese medicine in Germany and China and now works as a physician in Berlin. From 1995 to 2001 he worked to develop the Kagyu Centers Theksum Tashi Chöling in Hamburg and Kamalashila-Institute in Langenfeld, Germany. He frequently translates (from English to German) for masters of all the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, in Germany and Switzerland. In 2001 Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche appointed Arne as president of Siddhartha’s Intent Europe, and he later became a country representative for Khyentse Foundation in Germany. Since 2002 he has directed the film project "Heart Advice," which aims to preserve the essence of the teachings of Tibetan masters. He also gives instruction at several Buddhist centers in Germany.on at several Buddhist centers in Germany.)