Search by property

This page provides a simple browsing interface for finding entities described by a property and a named value. Other available search interfaces include the page property search, and the ask query builder.

List of results

Okumura, S. + (Shohaku Okumura was born in Osaka, Japan i … Shohaku Okumura was born in Osaka, Japan in 1948. He is an ordained priest and Dharma successor of Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi in the lineage of Kōdō Sawaki Roshi. He is a graduate of Komazawa University and has practiced at Antaiji with Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi, Zuioji with Narasaki Ikkō Roshi in Japan, and Pioneer Valley Zendo in Massachusetts. He taught at Kyoto Sōtō Zen Center in Japan and Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis. He was the director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center (previously called Soto Zen Education Center) in San Francisco from 1997 to 2010.His previously published books of translation include ''Dōgen’s Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Kōroku''; ''Shikantaza: An Introduction to Zazen''; ''Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki: Sayings of Eihei Dōgen Zenji''; ''Heart of Zen: Practice without Gaining-mind'' (previously titled ''Dōgen Zen''); ''Zen Teachings of "Homeless" Kōdō''; ''Opening the Hand of Thought''; ''The Whole Hearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dōgen’s Bendōwa with Commentary by Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi''; and ''Dōgen’s Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation of Eihei Shingi''. Okumura is also the editor of ''Dōgen Zen and Its Relevance for Our Time''; ''Soto Zen: An Introduction to Zazen''; and ''Nothing is Hidden: Essays on Zen Master Dōgen’s Instructions for the Cook''.He is the founding teacher of the Sanshin Zen Community, based in Bloomington, Indiana, where he lives with his family. (''Realizing Genjokoan'', about the author)''Realizing Genjokoan'', about the author))
Thrangu Rinpoche + (Short Biography of the Ninth Khenchen Thra … Short Biography of the Ninth Khenchen Thrangu Tulku, Karma Lodrö Lungrik Maway Senge: The Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche was born in Kham, Tibet, in 1933. At the age of five, he was formally recognized by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa and Tai Situpa as the ninth incarnation of the great Thrangu tulku. He entered Thrangu monastery, where, from the ages of seven to sixteen, he studied reading, writing, grammar, poetry, and astrology, memorized ritual texts, and completed two preliminary retreats. At sixteen, under the direction of Khenpo Lodro Rabsel, he began the study of the three vehicles of Buddhism while in retreat. At twenty-three he received full ordination from the Karmapa.Because of the Chinese military takeover of Tibet, Thrangu Rinpoche, then twenty-seven, was forced to flee to India in 1959. He was called to Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, where the Karmapa has his seat in exile. Because of his great scholarship and unending diligence, he was given the task of preserving the teachings of the Kagyu lineage; the lineage of Marpa, Milarepa, and Gampopa, so that one thousand years of profound Buddhist teachings would not be lost.He continued his studies in exile, and at the age of thirty-five he took the geshe examination before 1500 monks at Buxador monastic refugee camp in Bengal and was awarded the degree of Geshe Lharampa. Upon his return to Rumtek, he was awarded the highest Khenchen degree. Because many of the Buddhist texts in Tibet were destroyed, Thrangu Rinpoche helped in beginning the recovery of these texts from Tibetan monasteries outside of Tibet. He was named Abbot of Rumtek monastery and the Nalanda Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies at Rumtek. Thrangu Rinpoche, along with Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, was one of the principal teachers at the Institute, training all the younger tulkus of the lineage, including The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, who was in the first class. He was also the personal tutor of the four principal Karma Kagyu tulkus: Shamar Rinpoche, Situ Rinpoche, Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, and Gyaltsab Rinpoche. Thrangu Rinpoche established the fundamental curriculum of the Karma Kagyu lineage taught at Rumtek. In addition, he taught with Khenpo Karthar, who had been a teacher at Thrangu Rinpoche's monastery in Tibet before 1959, and who is now head of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in Woodstock, New York, the seat of His Holiness Karmapa in North America.After twenty years at Rumtek, in 1976 Thrangu Rinpoche founded the small monastery of Thrangu Tashi Choling in Boudhanath, Kathmandu, Nepal. Since then, he has founded a retreat center and college at Namo Buddha, east of the Kathmandu Valley, and has established a school in Boudhanath for the general education of Tibetan lay children and young monks in Western subjects as well as in Buddhist studies. In Kathmandu, he built Tara Abbey, which offers a full dharma education for Tibetan nuns, training them to become khenpos or teachers. He has also established a free medical clinic in an impoverished area of Nepal.Thrangu Rinpoche recently completed a large, beautiful monastery in Sarnath, India, overlooking the Deer Park where the Buddha gave his first teaching on the Four Noble Truths. This monastery is named Vajra Vidya after the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, and it is now the seat for the annual Kagyu conference led by His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa. In January of this year, His Holiness the Dalai Lama came to Sarnath to perform a ceremony in the Deer Park with the Karmapa, Thrangu Rinpoche, and other high lamas.Around 1976, Thrangu Rinpoche began giving authentic Buddhist teachings in the West. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. In 1984 he spent several months in Tibet where he ordained over one hundred monks and nuns and visited several monasteries. In the United States, Thrangu Rinpoche has centers in Maine and California, and is currently building the Vajra Vidya Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. Highly qualified monks and nuns from Thrangu Rinpoche's monastery will give retreatants instruction in various intensive practices. He often visits and gives teachings in centers in New York, Connecticut, and Seattle, Washington. In Canada, he gives teachings in Vancouver and has a center in Edmonton. He is the Abbot of Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia. He conducts yearly Namo Buddha seminars in the United States, Canada, and Europe, which are also part of a meditation retreat.Rinpoche has now taught in over twenty-five countries and has seventeen centers in twelve countries. He is especially known for making complex teachings accessible to Western students. Thrangu Rinpoche is a recognized master of Mahamudra meditation.Because of his vast knowledge of the Dharma and his skill as a teacher, he was appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to be the personal tutor for His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa.(Source: [http://www.rinpoche.com/bio1.htm Rinpoche.com, Official Site of the 9th Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche])For ''The Life of Thrangu Rinpoche with Pictures'' [http://www.rinpoche.com/life_of_TR_11_11_2015.pdf Click here].com/life_of_TR_11_11_2015.pdf Click here])
Bsod nams dpal dren + (Sonam Peldren (bsod nam dpal 'dren) was bo … Sonam Peldren (bsod nam dpal 'dren) was born on the seventeenth day of the tenth month of the earth male-dragon year (either 1268 or 1328). Her mother was named Nezang Chotso (gnas bzang chos mtsho); her father was named Yondak Ngoli (yon bdag sngo li) and was a descendent of the Tong (stong) clan. She was born in a place called Tashipa Janggyab (bkra shis pa byang rgyab) in Dam Sho ('dam shod), in the Nol (snol) district of U (dbus), near the Nyenchen Tanglha mountain range (gnyen chen thang lha). Her birth name was Gego (ge god); sometime after her marriage at age seventeen she was renamed Sonam Peldren. She was the youngest of four children: she had two elder brothers named Azang (a 'zang) and Kunchog Gyab (dkon mchog skyabs), and one elder sister named Chokyi (chos skyid.)Little is known of the years between Sonam Peldren's birth and her marriage at age sixteen other than that her mother passed away, her father remarried, and that she was a calm child liked by all. When Sonam Peldren was seventeen years old, her father arranged her marriage, choosing from among three available suitors: Chakdor Kyab (phyag dor skyabs), described simply as a nomad from Kham, and who is more commonly known by the name Rinchen Pel; Ga Yar ('ga' yar), also described only as a nomad from Kham; and Pelek (dpal legs), described as the chief scribe (dpon yig) from a wealthy local family in central Tibet. Sonam Peldren's father, with the strong approval of his wife and extended family, betrothed Sonam Peldren to the scribe Pelek.Sonam Peldren, however, refused to marry the groom of her family's choice, and instead insisted that she marry Rinchen Pel, claiming that her union with Rinchen Pel was karmically predestined. Sonam Peldren's father, step-mother, sister, brothers, and several other relatives questioned Sonam Peldren's refusal to marry a wealthy man from central Tibet to marry instead a landless man from the "miserable region" (sdugs sa, sic) of Kham. Sonam Peldren's fiancé himself was appalled by the adamant refusal of his betrothed to follow her father's wishes, and eventually withdrew his offer of marriage. Sonam Peldren's family reluctantly returned the gifts received from the scribe and his family; after Rinchen Pel supplied his own gifts, the two were considered married. Following her death it was Rinchen Pel who would promote her teachings and visions, in part with a written narrative of her life.The biography of Sonam Peldren records only general stories about the events in Sonam Peldren's life between her marriage at age sixteen and the final months of her life before her death at age forty-four. Sonam Peldren lived as a nomad and traveled with her husband and fellow nomads, first in the central Tibetan region of U-Tsang (dbus gtsang) until she was thirty years old, and then in the "eight valley" region (brgyad shod) of eastern Tibet until her death. Sonam Peldren and Rinchen Pel had four children: two sons named Sonam Dondrub (bsod nams don 'grub) and Tsukdor Gyab (gtsug tor skyabs) and two daughters named Gumril or Gumrim (gum ril/m) and Sonam Kyi (bsod nams skyid) The birth order of these children, and Sonam Peldren's age at their birth, is not known.These years of travel are described in the biography as punctuated by Sonam Peldren's miracles and acts of generosity. For example, her biography recounts that Sonam Peldren gave nearly all of her clothing to beggars, opting to live in a simple cotton piece of clothing without shoes; it was said that while other members of her group developed frostbite underneath their thick clothing, Sonam Peldren, barefoot and wearing only a cotton tunic, walked unimpeded through the snow, melting it with her feet. Other examples of miracles attributed to Sonam Peldren include the following: when traveling over a snowy mountain pass, she dug a tunnel through the snow covering the mountain pass and traveled straight through to the other side, shocking the other nomads who traveled around the peak by reaching their destination first; she broke up a knife fight by grabbing four men in each of her hands and holding them apart until they ceased quarreling; when a bandit stole most of the nomadic group's horses in the middle of the night, she leapt onto the nearest remaining horse, raced down the road after the fleeing animals, and, grabbing the animals' manes with her left and right hands, led them back to camp; she carried the carcass of a fallen yak up a steep mountainside and back to her nomad encampment for their consumption; when the ice over a river broke beneath the feet of a pack animal, she yanked the yak out of the freezing water by its tail, pulling it to safety; she flung a load of barley off the back of one pack animal and onto another when the animal became lodged in a narrow pass; when a pack animal stumbled and fell over a rocky cliff, she reached down and pulled it up to safety.Without exception, the biography describes these episodes ending with Sonam Peldren glibly attributing her accomplishments to luck or fortuitous circumstances; for example, she explained that a huge wave had actually lifted the yak out of the freezing river. Also without exception, the biography records that her fellow nomads somehow failed to recognize Sonam Peldren's abilities.In the final year of her life, when she and her fellow nomads were traveling in a Ya Nga near what is now the city of Chamda (bya / lcam mda') in today's Driru ('bri ru) county in the Tibet Autonomous Region, Sonam Peldren gave increasingly explicit religious interpretations of her actions to Rinchen Pel, and described her dreams, visions, and premonitions of death.In particular, Sonam Peldren described recurring dreams and waking visions in which unnamed various female figures, each with their own retinue, appeared before her. Explaining that a plague would erupt in the nomad community if Sonam Peldren did not accompany them by the fifth month of that year, the female figures demanded that Sonam Peldren leave her nomad group and travel with them. Sonam Peldren interpreted these dreams and visions to mean that she would die in the fifth month.Following these visions and for the next several months, Sonam Peldren claimed to experience visions, gave increasingly lengthy teachings to Rinchen Pel about the religious nature of her identity and daily activities, and continued to express a conviction that her death was imminent and that relics would be found in her cremation ashes. Many of her teachings, which took the form of spontaneous songs (mgur), focused on basic Buddhist doctrines of impermanence, non-attachment, and so forth. Other speeches made reference to esoteric Buddhist practices and philosophies, such as the Mahāmudrā and other doctrines typically associated with the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. These teachings were noteworthy given the absence of any religious training or practice up to that point, a topic which Sonam Peldren's husband, family, and community returned to repeatedly in their criticisms of her claims.On the predicted day of the fifth month of the water mouse year, Sonam Peldren declared that she was ready to die. According to her husband's account, she first claimed to see multi-colored maṇḍalas of dākinīs and tutelary deities in the sky, then conducted an offering ritual, and declared that she was ready "to go." Crying "Heek!" her body was said to have shot into the sky, then to have come down and bounced five times, each time higher. Finally, her corpse glowed with white light; gods and goddesses of light poured from her body, and accompanied her consciousness as it departed for a Buddha realm. The corpse descended slowly to earth and landed in a seated posture on the ground. A red drop appeared in the right nostril and a white drop in the left; when Rinchen Pel wiped the drops away with a flat rock, images of a red sow and a deity wearing a tiger skin appeared on the surface of the stone. Rainbows were seen, and that night visions of palaces and various mandalas filled the sky.The date of her death given in her biography is the twenty-third day of the fifth month of the water male-mouse year (1312 or 1372), meaning she would have been about forty-four years old.Upon cremation Sonam Peldren's skeleton was said to be found covered with images: ḍākinīs and dharma protectors; multiple images of Vajravārahī (known as Dorje Pakmo in Tibetan), Vajrāpaṇī, the Buddha Śākyamuni, Tārā, Vairocana, Cakrasaṃvara, Vajrasattva, Ratnasambhava, Amitābha, Maitreya, Vajrayoginī, Dīpaṃkara and Vajradhara. Also said to be visible were the thirty-two print and cursive letters of the Tibetan alphabet; multiple and variously-colored sows; an elephant, vajra, conch shell, fish, and bell; and the letter "Ah" as well as the syllable "Tam". On her pelvic bone were signs of the secret wisdom ḍākinī, a triangle, the syllable "Bam," a flower, two ḍākinīs, and three circles of mantras.For Rinchen Pel, Sonam Peldren's miraculous death vindicated her claims of religious authority; others in her community were not convinced. Beginning seven months after her passing, Rinchen Pel claimed to experience nine posthumous encounters with Sonam Peldren. The nature of these encounters varied. In some, Rinchen Pel asked questions, such as why Sonam Peldren's body had been ugly, inferior, and female during her lifetime; what he was supposed to do with the vast quantity of relics produced from her corpse; how Sonam Peldren had accrued religious knowledge in her lifetime despite no visible study or practice of religion; and what the meaning had been of Sonam Peldren's strange dreams, visions, songs and religious pronouncements in the last months of her life.In another posthumous vision, when Rinchen Pel retreated to a mountainside to petition Sonam Peldren for guidance about whether he should ordain as a monk, Sonam Peldren appeared and sang a verse about emptiness and the nature of mind. In two other visions, Sonam Peldren chastised Rinchen Pel for neglecting her relics, using them to get material gain for himself, and for letting others' doubts about the authenticity of the relics affect his presentation and explanation of them, an accusation which Rinchen Pel denied. In yet other visions, Sonam Peldren simply appeared in the form of Dorje Pakmo before Rinchen Pel, along with rainbows, ḍākinīs, unusual birds, Sanskrit letters on mountain peaks.Today Sonam Peldren is remembered as an exemplary female practitioner. A nunnery in Driru named Ya Nga Chamda Ganden Khacho Ling Nunnery (ya nga bya mda' btsun dgon dga' ldan mkha' phyod gling), called either Khacho Ling or Ganden Khacho Ling for short, stands on her death site; this nunnery contains a large wall mural depicting events from the lives of both Sonam Peldren and Rinchen Pel. Resident nuns perform and offering ritual to Sonam Peldren three times a month.Her legacy was strong enough that by the sixteenth or seventeenth century a text describing the history of Tibet's only female reincarnation lineage, the Samding Dorje Pakmo (bsam lding rdo rje phag mo), could name her as an early figure in the lineage, both an incarnation of Dorje Pakmo and a pre-incarnation of Chokyi Drolma, the First Samding Dorje Pakmo (bsam sdings rdo rje phag mo 01 chos kyi sgron ma, 1422-1467/1468). However, it is worthwhile to point out that at Ganden Khacho Ling she is not regarded as belonging to the Samding Dorje Pakmo incarnation line, nor is she considered to have been an incarnation of Dorje Pakmo.At least one twentieth-century woman claimed to be an incarnation of Sonam Peldren: Khandro Kunsang (mkha' 'gro kun bzang, d. 2004), a woman affiliated with the Kagyu tradition who gained great regional fame as a tantric practitioner and healer.Source [http://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/bsod-nam-dpal-dren//13196]iographies/view/bsod-nam-dpal-dren//13196])
Srong btsan sgam po + (Songtsen Gampo was the first of Tibet's th … Songtsen Gampo was the first of Tibet's three great religious kings and was an emanation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. It was during his reign that the first Buddhist temples in Tibet, the Rasa Trulnang (future Jokhang) and the Ramoche, were built. He married the Nepalese princess Bhrikuti and the Chinese princess Wencheng. (Source: [https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Songtsen_Gampo Rigpa Wiki])ndex.php?title=Songtsen_Gampo Rigpa Wiki]))
Gethin, S. + (Stephen Gethin studied veterinary medicine … Stephen Gethin studied veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, where he was also awarded a choral exhibition. After a number of years in professional practice, he spent much of the 1980s undertaking two three-year retreats in France, where he now lives and, as a founding member of the Padmakara Translation Group, continues to translate. He became a Tsadra Foundation Translation Fellow in 2005. His published translations include Nagarjuna’s ''Letter to a Friend'', ''Zurchungpa’s Testament'', Dudjom Rinpoche’s ''A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom'', and Jamgön Mipham’s commentaries on Padmasambhava’s ''Garland of Views'' and the ''Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra''. He is currently working on a detailed preliminary practice commentary by Shechen Gyaltsap and on a volume of Jamgön Kongtrul’s ''Treasury of Precious Instructions''. ([https://www.colorado.edu/event/lotsawa/presenters/stephen-gethin Source Accessed Sept 18, 2020])hen-gethin Source Accessed Sept 18, 2020]))
Manshu, S. + (Su Manshu (traditional Chinese: 蘇曼殊; simpl … Su Manshu (traditional Chinese: 蘇曼殊; simplified Chinese: 苏曼殊; pinyin: Sū Mànshū, 1884–1918) was a Chinese writer, poet, painter, revolutionist, and translator. His original name was Su Xuanying (Chinese: 蘇玄瑛; pinyin: Sū Xuányīng), Su had been named as a writer of poetry and romantic love stories in the history of early modern Chinese literature. But he was most commonly known as a Buddhist monk, a poetry monk, "the monk of sentiment" (pinyin: qing seng; simplified Chinese: 情僧), and "the revolutionary monk" (pinyin: gem-ing seng; simplified Chinese: 革命僧). Su was born out of wedlock in Yokohama, Japan in 1884. His father was a Cantonese merchant, and his mother was his father's Japanese maid. His ancestral home was in Zhongshan city, Guangdong Province, China. He died at the age of 34 due to a stomach disease in Shanghai. Su had a good master of painting and language. He mastered many languages — English, French, Japanese and Sanskrit. In 1896, he went to Shanghai with his uncle and aunt to study in the British con-cession when he was thirteen years old. Later, in 1898, he went to Japan to study at the School of Universal Harmony (Da Tong School 大同學校) in Yokohama, Japan. In 1902, he continued to study in the special program for Chinese students at Waseda University ( 早稻田大學 ).He became a Buddhist monk three times during his life; once at the age of 12 in 1895, later in 1899, and again in 1903, and adopted Su Manshu as a Buddhist name. He studied in Japan and traveled to many Buddhist countries including India, and Java. In 1895, Su fell ill and nearly died due to neglect of care from his family, which resulted in him resorting Buddhism. However, Su did not follow the rules of Buddhism so he was expelled. In 1898, Su suffered a serious setback in his romantic relationship with a Japanese girl named Jingzi. Jinzi's family forced her to leave Su, but she could not bear the great pressure and soon died. After facing the suffering, Su resorted to Buddhism again as a spiritual consolation for a short period. In 1913, Su felt disappointed about the political and social status, which the Qing government perpetually banned anti-government remarks in the revolutionary newspaper. So he returned to the temple in Guangdong for the rest of his life.Su was the most famous prose translator and his masterworks include Selected poems of Byron and ''Les Miserables''. In 1903, he serialized his incomplete translation of ''Les Miserable World'' in ''The China National Gazette (國民日日報)'' and then published it in 1904. Su also translated quite a few poems by foreign romantic poets from Lord Byron and then published a collection of the translations entitled ''Selected Poems of Byron (拜倫詩選)'' in 1908. In 1911, some of these translations were published again in an anthology entitled ''Chao Yin (Voice of the Tide)''. In 1911 or 1912, Su wrote and published his first as well as a most celebrated semi-autobiographical romance novel, ''Duan Hong Ling Yan Ji (The Lone Swan)''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Manshu Source Accessed July 21, 2023])/Su_Manshu Source Accessed July 21, 2023]))
Surendrabodhi + (Surendrabodhi (Wyl. lha dbang byang chub) … Surendrabodhi (Wyl. lha dbang byang chub) was an Indian paṇḍita who came to Samye at the time of Trisong Deutsen. The following information has been complied by Dan Martin:* One of the Indian teachers invited to Tibet in time of Emperor ral pa can (early 9th century). See the shorter Lde'u history (p. 135), where the name is spelled su len tra bo de.* In list of South Asian pundits in bu ston's History (1989), p. 280.7.* In list of imperial period pundits in Tibet contained in zhu chen, bstan 'gyur dkar chag, p. 158, line 19.* Stog Palace catalogue, index.* su randra bodhi. Translator in time of Emperor Ral pa can. Padma dkar po, Chos 'byung, p. 331.* Biographical Dictionary of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, vol. 1, p. 565. Surendrabodhi — in Tibetan translation, Lha dbang byang chub — in time of Ral pa can. Mtshan tho, no. 18. ([http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Surendrabodhi Source Accessed Aug 18, 2020])endrabodhi Source Accessed Aug 18, 2020]))
Aranya, H. + (Swami Hariharananda Aranya (1869–1947) was … Swami 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.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.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]))
Adeu Rinpoche + (The Eighth Adeu Rinpoche was born on the f … The 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.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.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.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.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.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.Adeu Rinpoche passed away in July 2007, in Nangchen, Tibet.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.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.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.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.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.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.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.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.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]))
Bardor Rinpoche, 2nd + (The first rebirth of Terchen Barway Dorje … The first rebirth of Terchen Barway Dorje was recognized by the 15th Karmapa, but lived only a short time and, in fact, died before he was reached by the search party seeking him. The Karmapa later explained what happened: Terchen Barway Dorje had promised a great sinner named Changkyi Mingyur that he would not be reborn in a lower state. Changkyi Mingyur died shortly before the new incarnation of Terchen Barway Dorje was discovered and was about to be reborn in a lower state. In desperation, he called on Barway Dorje and it was therefore necessary for Bardor Rinpoche to depart his new body in order to fulfill his promise.The 15th Karmapa decided to perform another recognition of the 2nd Barway Dorje, but before the time for recognition arrived, the 15th Gyalwang Karmapa departed this realm for the benefit of beings in other places.For this reason, the rebirth of Terchen Barway Dorje—the 2nd Bardor Rinpoche—was recognized by the 11th Tai Situ Rinpoche, Padma Wangchok Gyalpo.The 2nd Bardor Rinpoche was born at the end of 1920 and many auspicious signs accompanied his birth. He was enthroned at Raktrul Monastery at the age of five but received his training and transmissions at Surmang and Kyodrak monasteries.In his thirteenth year, the 2nd Bardor Rinpoche met the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa. Because the Gyalwang Karmapa had been Bardor Rinpoche’s karmically destined guru in many lives, Bardor Rinpoche felt great devotion for the Karmapa upon meeting him.The 2nd Bardor Rinpoche spent much of his life serving the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa, although he occasionally traveled back to Raktrul Monastery to look after its needs. Toward the end of his life, he made an aspiration to be able to serve both the Karmapa and Raktrul Monastery in his future lives. As a result of that aspiration we now have two incarnations of the 3rd Bardor Rinpoche—one who has devoted most of his life to the service of both the 16th and 17th Karmapas and has founded Kunzang Palchen Ling in the US, and one who remains in Tibet and looks after Raktrul Monastery.A detailed account of the life of the 2nd Bardor Rinpoche is available in English translation as ''The Light of Dawn'' composed by Karma Tupten. ([https://www.kunzang.org/treasure-lineage/2nd-bardor-rinpoche/ Source Accessed June 28, 2023])-rinpoche/ Source Accessed June 28, 2023]))
Murti, T. R. V. + (Tirupattur Ramaseshayyer Venkatachala Murt … Tirupattur 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.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])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]))
Pema Rigtsal + (Tulku Pema Rigtsal Rinpoche is the Supreme … Tulku 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.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])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.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.Among his writings, there are::a commentary on the Calling The Lama From Afar of Dudjom Rinpoche:a biography of the Degyal Rinpoche (the first).:his first book in Tibetan, entitled “Semkyi Sangwa Ngontu Phyungwa” (translated and published in English as [[The Great Secret of Mind]]).cret of Mind]]).)
Urgyen, Tulku + (Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (Tib. སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་ཨོ་ར … Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (Tib. སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་ཨོ་རྒྱན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་, Wyl. ''sprul sku o rgyan rin po che'') (1920–1996) was one of the greatest teachers of Dzogchen and Mahamudra in recent times, whose lineage is now continued by his sons, including Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche.Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was born in Nangchen, in the province of Kham, eastern Tibet, in 1920. He began meditation practice at the early age of four, when he attended the teachings his father, Chime Dorje, would give to his many students. Already at four he had what is called a recognition of the nature of mind. Later he studied with his uncle Samten Gyatso, his root master, as well as with many other lamas of both Kagyü and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among the lineage masters from whom he drew his inspiration were Milarepa and Longchen Rabjam—on merely hearing their names, tears would come to his eyes.In his youth he practised intensively, and stayed in retreat for a total of twenty years. He had four sons, each of whom is now an important Buddhist master in his own right: Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche.When he left Tibet he went to Sikkim and then settled in Nepal at Nagi Gompa Hermitage, in the mountains above the Kathmandu valley. He was the first lama to spread the Tibetan Buddhist teachings to Malaysia. In 1980 Tulku Urgyen went on a world tour encompassing Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, Great Britain, the USA, Hong Kong and Singapore. In his later years, however, he did not travel much and his many students, both Eastern and Western, would go to Nepal to visit him.Tulku Urgyen accomplished a great deal in his life. He constructed and restored many temples, and established six monasteries and retreat centres in the Kathmandu region. He had over three hundred monks and nuns under his guidance. In particular he built a monastery and three-year retreat centre at the site of the sacred cave of Asura, the site of Padmasambhava’s famous retreat. He also re-established some traditional annual prayer gatherings in exile.In his childhood he had been recognized by the Fifteenth Karmapa Khakhyap Dorje, as the reincarnation of the master Chöwang Tulku, and he was also an emanation of Nupchen Sangye Yeshe, one of the twenty-five main disciples of Padmasambhava. He was the lineage holder of many teaching transmissions, especially that of the terma teachings of his great grandfather Chokgyur Lingpa. He transmitted the Dzogchen Desum teachings to such masters as Sixteenth Karmapa, Dudjom Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche as well as thousands of other disciples. Tulku Urgyen was especially close to the Karmapa—one of his root teachers—and to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, with both of whom there was a powerful bond of mutual respect.Tulku Urgyen is the author of several books in English, including ''Repeating the Words of the Buddha'' and ''Rainbow Painting''. He also supervised many English translations of Tibetan texts and teachings carried out by his Western students, and gave the name Rangjung Yeshe to the publishing imprint established to make these and other Dharma works available in the West.He was famed for his profound meditative realization and for the concise, lucid and humorous style with which he imparted the essence of the teachings. Using few words, he would point out the nature of mind, revealing a natural simplicity and wakefulness that enables the student to actually touch the heart of the Buddha’s wisdom mind. In this method of instruction, he was unmatched.Tulku Urgyen passed away peacefully on 13th February 1996 (the 24th day of the 12th month of the Wood Pig year), at Nagi Gompa. At that time the sky overhead was clear and completely cloudless for two days, which is traditionally seen as a sign that a highly realized master is passing on.The ''yangsi'' of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, named Urgyen Jigme Rabsel Dawa, was born in 2001. (Source: [https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Tulku_Urgyen_Rinpoche Rigpa Wiki])p?title=Tulku_Urgyen_Rinpoche Rigpa Wiki]))
Vācaspatimiśra + (Vācaspati Miśra was an extremely versatile … Vācaspati 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 Ap … Walter 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.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.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.Writings Schubring's works include:*Mahaviras. Kritische Übersetzung aus dem Kanon der Jaina. Verlag Vandenhoeck & Rubrecht, Göttingen 1926.*Die Jainas. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr 1927*Die Lehre der Jainas: Nach den alten Quellen. Berlin, Leipzig: de Gruyter 1935*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.*Die Jaina-Handschriften der Preussischen Staatsbibliothek: Neuerwerbungen seit 1891. Leipzig: Harrassowitz 1944*Der Jainismus. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1964*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]))
Wayman, A. + (Wayman joined Columbia in 1966 as a visiti … Wayman joined Columbia in 1966 as a visiting associate professor of religion. In 1967, he was appointed professor of Sanskrit in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, a position he held until his retirement in 1991. During his tenure, Wayman taught classes in classical Sanskrit, Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit, Indian and Tibetan Religions and the history of astrology.While at Columbia, he was a member of the administrative committee of the Southern Asian Institute. He also served as senior editor of The Buddhist Traditions Series (with 30 volumes to date) published by Motilal Banarsidass in Delhi, India.Wayman authored 12 books, including ''Buddhist Tantric Systems'', ''Untying the Knots in Buddhism'', ''Enlightenment of Vairocana'', and ''A Millennium of Buddhist Logic''. He co-authored a translation of the 3rd-century Buddhist scripture ''Lion's Roar of Queen Shrimala'' with his wife, Hideko. Her knowledge of Chinese and Japanese sources complemented his research and translation of Sanskrit and Tibetan sources.An honorary volume, titled ''Researches in Indian and Buddhist Philosophy (essays in honor of Prof. Alex Wayman)'', edited by Ram Karan Sharma, was published in 1993 to commemorate the many years that Wayman devoted to scholarly research on Indian topics. ([https://lists.h-net.org/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-asia&month=0411&week=b&msg=Mjh17lJ%2B2gHmOKM2On16yg&user=&pw= Source Accessed Aug 10, 2020])]2B2gHmOKM2On16yg&user=&pw= Source Accessed Aug 10, 2020])])
Chos brdzu mkhan +
Huikai + (Wumen Huikai. (J. Mumon Ekai; K. Mumun Hye … Wumen Huikai. (J. Mumon Ekai; K. Mumun Hyegae 無門慧開) (1183-1260). In Chinese, "Gateless, Opening of Wisdom"; Chan master in the Linji zong; author of the eponymous ''Wumen guan'' ("Gateless Checkpoint"), one of the two most important collections of Chan gong'an (J. kōan; K. kongan). A native of Hangzhou prefecture in present-day Zhejiang province, Huikai was ordained by the monk "One Finger" Tianlong (d.u.), who also hailed from Hangzhou (see also Yizhi Chan). Wumen later went to the monastery of Wanshousi in Jiangsu province to study with Yuelin Shiguan (1143-1217), from whom Huikai received the ''wu gong'an'' of Zhao zhou Congshen; Huikai is said to have struggled with this gong’an for six years. In 1218, Huikai traveled to Baoyinsi on Mt. Anji, where he succeeded Yuelin as abbot. He subsequently served as abbot at such monasteries as Tianningsi, Pujisi, Kaiyuansi, and Baoningsi. In 1246, Huikai was appointed as abbot of Huguo Renwangsi in Hangzhou prefecture, and it is here that the Japanese Zen monk Shinichi Kakushin studied under him. Emperor Lizong (r. 1224–1264) invited Huikai to provide asermon at the Pavilion of Mysterious Virtue in the imperial palace and also to pray for rain. In honor of his achievements, the emperor bestowed upon him a golden robe and the title Chan master Foyan (Dharma Eye). (Source: "Wumen Huikai." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 1002. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)tp://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.))
Wenhui, Y. + (Yang Wenhui. (J. Yō Bunkai; K. Yang Munhoe … Yang Wenhui. (J. Yō Bunkai; K. Yang Munhoe 楊文會) (1837-1911). Chinese Buddhist layman at the end of the Qing dynasty, renowned for his efforts to revitalize modern Chinese Buddhism. A native of Anhui province, Yang fled from the Taiping Rebellion to Hangzhou prefecture. In 1862, he serendipitously acquired a copy of the ''Dasheng qixin lun'' ("Awakening of Faith According to the Mahāyāna") and became interested in Buddhism. In 1878, he traveled to England, where he served at the Chinese Embassy in London, befriending the Japanese Buddhist scholar Nanjō Bun’yū (1849-1927), who helped him to acquire Chinese Buddhist texts that had been preserved in Japan. After his return to China, Yang established a publishing press called the Jingling Kejing Chu and published more than three thousand Buddhist scriptures. In 1893, Anagārika Dharmapāla visited Yang in Shanghai. In 1894, Yang and the British missionary Timothy Richard translated the ''Dasheng qixin lun'' into English. In 1907, the Jingling Kejing Chu began to publish primers of Buddhism in various languages. In 1910, Yang also founded the Fojiao Yanjiu Hui (Buddhist Research Society), where he regularly lectured until his death in 1911. (Source: "Yang Wenhui." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 1022. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)tp://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.))
Ye shes mtsho rgyal + (Yeshe Tsogyal was the principal consort of … Yeshe Tsogyal was the principal consort of Guru Padmasambhava. She was Vajravarahi in human form and also an emanation of Tara and Buddhalochana.She was born as a princess in the clan of Kharchen. According to some accounts her father was called Namkha Yeshe and her mother was Gewa Bum. In other histories, such as the Zanglingma and the biography revealed by Taksham Nüden Dorje, her father is named as Kharchen Palgyi Wangchuk, who is otherwise said to have been her brother. Yet another version names her father as Tökar Lek and her mother as Gyalmo Tso.She became the consort of King Trisong Detsen before being offered to Guru Rinpoche as a mandala offering during an empowerment. She specialized in the practice of Vajrakilaya and experienced visions of the deity and gained accomplishment. In Nepal, she paid a ransom for Acharya Salé and took him as her spiritual consort. Through the power of her unfailing memory, she collected all the teachings given by Guru Rinpoche in Tibet and concealed them as terma. At the end of her life, it is said, she flew through the air and went directly to Zangdokpalri. (Source: [https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Yeshe_Tsogyal Rigpa Wiki])index.php?title=Yeshe_Tsogyal Rigpa Wiki]))
Zaya Pandita + (Zaya Pandita or Namkhaijamts (1599–1662) w … Zaya Pandita or Namkhaijamts (1599–1662) was a Buddhist missionary priest and scholar of Oirat origin who is the most prominent Oirat Buddhist scholar. Among his accomplishments is the invention of the Clear Script.Zaya Pandita was the fifth son of Babakhan, a minor Khoshut prince. After Babakhan converted to Tibetan Buddhism in the early 17th century, he, like many other Oirat princes, wished for one of his sons to enter the Buddhist clergy. In pursuit of his wish, Babakhan chose Zaya to become a śrāmaṇera ("novice monk"). In 1615, Zaya journeyed to Lhasa where he would study and practice Buddhism, including study under the guidance of the Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen, 4th Panchen Lama.In 1638, Zaya Pandita left Tibet at the direction of the Panchen Lama to conduct missionary work among the Mongols. One year later in 1640, he assisted Erdeni Batur, Khun Taiyishi of the Choros (Oirats) tribe, in assembling a pan-Mongol conference between the Oirat and the Khalkha Mongols. The purpose of the conference was to encourage the formation of a united Mongolian front against potential external enemies, such as the Kazakhs, Manchus, and Russians and to settle all internal matters peacefully. The conference produced a code, which provided protection from foreign aggression to both the Oirat and the Khalkha and guaranteed the free movement of people throughout Mongol land.When not engaged in diplomacy between the Oirat and the Khalkha, Zaya Pandita spread Tibetan Buddhism to the Oirats, the Khalkha and even the Kalmyk people in far away Russia. In furtherance of his missionary work, Zaya Pandita composed a new alphabet, based on the traditional Mongolian alphabet, called "Clear script" (''todo bichig'') to transcribe the Oirat language as it is pronounced. By doing so, Zaya Pandita eliminated the ambiguities of the traditional Mongolian alphabet.From the time Zaya Pandita developed the Clear Script in 1648 until his death in 1662, he translated approximately 186 Buddhist texts from Tibetan language to the Oirat language while still serving the religious needs of the Oirat tribes in Dzungaria.The todo bichig script is still used by Oirats in Xinjiang with slight revisions, and is taught alongside standard classical written Mongolian in that region. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaya_Pandita Source Accessed Oct 6, 2023])According to Fredrick Liland, "The Oirat scholar Zaya Pandita (1599-1662) according to his biography made a new translation of the BCA. Zaya Pandita was influential in spreading the Buddhist faith also among the Kalmyks, a Mongolian people who migrated to the shore of the Caspian Sea in the 17th Century. He is said to have translated a large number of texts into the Oirat/Kalmyk language, so it is quite likely that the BCA was among these. The translation of Zaya Pandita has however not been found. (Source: Liland, Fredrik. "Later Editions and Translations." In "The Transmission of the Bodhicaryāvatāra: The History, Diffusion, and Influence of a Mahāyāna Buddhist Text," 49–58. MA thesis, University of Oslo, 2009.)–58. MA thesis, University of Oslo, 2009.))
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]. 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).He received his education in the monastery Trashilhünpo. In 1756 he founded the monastery Trashi Samtenling (bkra shis bsam gtan gling).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])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 mo … he 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.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])'''Read more: ''':Marilyn Silverstone, 'Five Nyingmapa Lamas in Sikkim', Kailash: A Journal of Himalayan Studies, 1973, vol. 1.1:Nyoshul Khenpo, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems, Padma Publishing, 2005, p. 480'''Writings:'''*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*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))
Ǔich'ǒn + (Ǔich'ǒn. (C. Yitian) (1055-1101). Korean p … Ǔich'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 studiedthe 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 onlythrough 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 athousand 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.))

Chos brdzu mkhan + (Wrote an interlinear commentary on the ''B … Wrote 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''.)

Decleer, H. + ('''In Memoriam: Hubert Decleer (1940–2021) … '''In Memoriam: Hubert Decleer (1940–2021)''':by Andrew QuintmanWith 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.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.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. 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. 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. 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.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. 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.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. 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. 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. 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.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. 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. 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.”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. 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.Benjamin Bogin, Andrew Quintman, and Dominique TownsendPortions 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)Professor Elliot Sperling’s death was a colossal tragedy byevery measure. He was only 66 years old, and he exudedlife, health, and purpose—the antithesis of death. Afterretiring from a long professorship at Indiana Universityin 2015, where he was director of the Tibetan Studiesprogram at the department of Central Eurasian Studies,Sperling moved back to his native New York. He bought anapartment in Jackson Heights, where he converted everywall into meticulously arranged bookshelves—only thewindows were spared. He was clearly looking forward toa busy retirement, living in what was basically a librarypretending to be an apartment.Sperling was the world’s foremost authority on historicalSino-Tibetan relations. For his landmark work “on the political, religious, cultural, and economic relations betweenTibet and China from the fourteenth through seventeenthcenturies,” he was awarded a MacArthur genius grant atthe age of 33.1He accumulated a compact but enduring body of work that defined and shaped Tibetan studiesover the last three decades. No less important, he was alsoa phenomenal teacher, storyteller, entertainer, whiskey connoisseur (he delighted in teaching us how to enjoythe peaty Scotch whiskies), and a passionate advocate forTibetan and Uyghur causes.Through his seminal writings on Tibet’s relations withChina during the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, hebecame arguably the first historian to use both Chineselanguage archives and Tibetan language sources extensively, bringing to light the separation and independence thatcharacterized the relationship between the two nations.Until he came along, most Western academics viewedTibet through Chinese eyes, largely because they couldnot access Tibetan sources. Sperling, fluent in Tibetan aswell as Chinese, upended the old Sino-centric narrativeand transformed the field. Roberto Vitali, who organized afestschrift for Sperling in 2014, writes that Sperling’s work“will stay as milestones” in Tibetan studies.2 His writingshave become so central to the field that any scholar whowrites a paper about historical Sino-Tibetan relations cannot do so without paying homage to Sperling’s work. He is,so to speak, the Hegel of Sino-Tibetan history.One can imagine the joy many of us felt when ProfessorSperling chose to make his home in Jackson Heights, thesecond (if unofficial) capital of the exile Tibetan world—after Dharamsala, India. We saw him at demonstrations atthe Chinese consulate, art openings at Tibet House, poetrynights at Little Tibet restaurant, and sometimes at dinnerparties in the neighborhood. At every gathering, he heldcourt as the intellectual life of the party. His friends andstudents bombarded him with questions on topics rangingfrom art to politics to linguistics, for his erudition wasnot limited to history alone. Unfailingly generous andeloquent, he supplied the most intriguing, insightful andexhaustive answers to every question. Each conversationwith him was a scholarly seminar. Among the circle ofTibetan activists and artists living in New York City,Sperling quickly fell into a sort of second professorship, anunderground tenure without the trappings of university.We weren’t about to let him retire so easily.Some of Professor Sperling’s most influential early worksinclude: The 5th Karma-pa and Some Aspects of the RelationshipBetween Tibet and the Early Ming (1980); The 1413 MingEmbassy to Tsong-ka-pa and the Arrival of Byams-chen chos-rjeShakya ye-shes at the Ming Court (1982); Did the Early MingEmperors Attempt to Implement a ‘Divide and Rule’ Policy inTibet? (1983); and The Ho Clan of Ho-chou: A Tibetan Family inService to the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (1990) among others.One of my personal favorites in his corpus is The 5th Karmapa and Some Aspects of the Relationship Between Tibet and theEarly Ming. In this text, Sperling argues that in the earlyyears following the collapse of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in1367, the Ming rulers of China adopted a non-expansionistforeign policy, displaying greater interest in drawing clearboundaries to keep the ‘barbarians’ out of China thanin expanding its boundaries to encroach into non-Mingterritories. Ming China was initially conceived more asan inward-looking state than an outward-looking empire,partly in critique of the ruthless expansionism of theirpredecessors, the Mongol Yuan rulers. In fact, Sperlingquotes from the very proclamation carried by the firstmission that Ming Taitsu, or the Hongwu Emperor, sent toTibet::Formerly, the hu people [i.e. the Mongols] usurped:authority in China. For over a hundred years caps:and sandals were in reversed positions. Of all:hearts, which did not give rise to anger? In recent:years, the hu rulers lost hold of the government….:Your Tibetan state is located in the western lands.:China is now united, but I am afraid that you have:still not heard about this. Therefore this proclamation [is sent].3 Sperling goes on to write that this “first mission is acknowledged by Chinese records to have met with nosuccess,” and that necessitated the dispatching of a secondmission.4In ''Did the Early Ming Emperors Attempt to Implement a “Divide and Rule” Policy in Tibet?''5Sperling defies decades of conventional wisdom with a bold argument when he writes::The Chinese court was never, in fact, able to mount:a military expedition beyond the Sino-Tibetan:frontier regions. This fact becomes strikingly:obvious as one glances through both Tibetan and:Chinese sources for the period in question…. Unable:to protect its embassies or even to retaliate against:attacks on them, China was hardly in a position to:manifest the kind of power needed to implement a:policy of “divide and rule” in Tibet.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.Elliot Sperling’s academic stature would have allowedhim to be an ivory tower intellectual. Instead, he choseto be a true ally of the Tibetan people and an unwaveringchampion of Tibetan freedom. While he studied withTaktser Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, hemaintained lifelong friendships with the people he metin Dharamsala: Tashi Tsering (the preeminent Tibetanhistorian), Jamyang Norbu (the rebel intellectual andaward-winning author), Peter Brown (the ‘AmericanKhampa’ and a brother in the Tibetan struggle). Sperlingjoined many of us in the trenches of activism, alwaysencouraging us to embark on bigger and bolder advocacycampaigns for Tibet. Speaking in his Bronx-accentedTibetan, he told us that if only Tibetans studied our historymore seriously, we would be able to believe that Tibet willbe free again.A sharp and fearless critic of Beijing, Sperling neitherminced his words nor censored his writings under fear ofbeing banned from China. Even when he taught in Beijingfor a semester, where he developed a close friendship withthe Tibetan poet Woeser, he successfully avoided the trapof self-censorship that has neutered so many scholars in our time.6While railing against Beijing’s atrocities in Tibet, he managed to be critical of Dharamsala’s excessively conciliatory stance toward Beijing.7His 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.”In recent years, Sperling took up the case of Ilham Tohti,the Uyghur intellectual sentenced to life imprisonmentby Beijing. He played a key role in raising Tohti’s profileas a prisoner of conscience, nominating him for humanrights awards. He took Tohti’s daughter, Jewher, underhis wing and oversaw her wellbeing and education. InJewher’s own words, Elliot Sperling became “like a secondfather” to her. His friendship with Ilahm Tohti and Jewherexemplified the compassion and generosity with which hetreated everyone. Sure, he made his mark in this world as ascholar, but his monumental intellect was matched by hisunbounded kindness, altruism, and humanity.“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 deathhas 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.”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.''Endnotes'' 1. MacArthur Foundation, <https://www.macfound.org/fellows/236/> (accessed 6 March 2017).2. Roberto Vitali, “For Elliot from a Friend,” InternationalAssociation for Tibetan Studies. Also see Trails of the TibetanTradition: Papers for Elliot Sperling, edited by Roberto Vitali(Amnye Machen Institute: 2014).3. Elliot Sperling, “5th Karmapa and Some Aspects ofthe Relationship Between Tibet and the Early Ming,” inMichael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi, eds., Tibetans Studiesin Honour of Hugh Richardson, Warminster, 1980 (publishedin translation as Shiboling, “Wushi Gamaba yiji Xizanghe Mingchu de guanxi yaolue,” in Guowai Zangxue yanjiuyiwenji, vol. 2, Lhasa, 1987), pp.279-289.4. Ibid.5. Elliot Sperling, “Divide and Rule Policy in Tibet,” inErnst Steinkellner, ed., Contributions on Tibetan Language,History and Culture. Proceedings of the Csoma de KorosSymposium Held at Velm-Vienna, Austria, 13-19 September1981, Vienna, 1983, pp.339-356.6. See Tsering Woeser, “A Chronicle of Elliot Sperling,”in Trails of the Tibetan Tradition: Papers for Elliot Sperling,Roberto Vitali eds., (published by Amnye Machen Institute,2014).7. He has criticized the Dalai Lama’s ‘Middle WayApproach’ to dealing with China as too conciliatory. Seehis article Self-Delusion, <http://info-buddhism.com/SelfDelusion_Middle-Way-Approach_Dalai-Lama_Exile_CTA_Sperling.html#f1>.'''Tenzin Dorjee''' is a writer, activist, and a researcher at TibetAction Institute. His monograph The Tibetan NonviolentStruggle: A Strategic and Historical Analysis was publishedin 2015 by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.His writings have been published in various forums includingGlobal Post, Courier International, Tibetan Review, TibetTimes, and the CNN blog. He is a regular commentatoron Tibet-related issues for Radio Free Asia, Voice ofAmerica, and Voice of Tibet. He served as the ExecutiveDirector of Students for a Free Tibet from 2009 to 2013.An earlier version of this obituary was published in theHuffington 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'':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.''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.''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.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].''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.Besides '' 'Sragdharāstotra' '' other texts attributed to ''Sarvajñamitra'' are all in praise of goddess ''Tārā'', viz., 1. ''Devītarākuvākyādhyesana nāma stotra'' 2. ''Āryatārāsādhanā'', and 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''.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''.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: 1. The ''Vāgiśvarastotra, 2. The ''Āryamañjuśrīstotra'', 3. The Āryavāgiśvarastotra'', 4. The ''Lokeśvarasiṃhanāda nāma stora [stotra?]'', 5. ''Prajñāpāramitastotra'' 6. ''Acintyastava'', 7. ''Stutyatītastava'', 8. ''Niruttarastava'', 9. ''Āryabhattārakamañjuśrīparmārhastuti'', 10. ''Āryamañjuśrībhattārakakarunāstotra'', 11. ''Aṣṭamahāsthanacaityastotra'', 12. ''Aṣṭamahāsthanacaityastotra'' [Listed 2x in source as nos. 11 and 12] 13. ''Dvādaśakāranayastotra'', 14. ''Vandanāstotra'', and 15. ''Narakoddhāra''. 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))
Rong zom chos kyi bzang po + ( *https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Rongzom_Ch%C3%B6kyi_Zangpo *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rongzom_Chokyi_Zangpo )
Gzhon nu rgyal mchog + (1. (from kong sprul gsan yig @ v. 1, f. 16 … 1. (from kong sprul gsan yig @ v. 1, f. 16v)important master in the bka' ma transmission lineage of the rgyud bzhi.2. important bka' gdams/sa skya master in lineage of the blo sbyong teachings; he was involved with his student sems dpa' chen po dkon mchog rgyal mtshan in the compilation of the blo sbyong brgya rtsa. ([https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:P1943 Source Accessed June 12, 2022])/bdr:P1943 Source Accessed June 12, 2022]))
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, LaFleur … A 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. 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.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.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]))
Ware, J. + (A specialist in the study of pre-Tang Budd … A 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.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.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]))
Muller, C. + (A. Charles Muller (born September 19, 1953 … A. 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.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.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]))
Sumatikīrti + (According to Akasoy, Burnett, and Yoeli-Tl … According to Akasoy, Burnett, and Yoeli-Tlalim (eds.) in their book ''Islam and Tibet'' (2011, 125), Sumatikīrti "is well known as a pundit who worked on translations, belonging to the 'later spreading' (''phyi-dar'') period, which begins in the last decades of the tenth century. He stayed in the Nepal Valley, and it is not certain if he ever set foot in Tibet, perhaps not. Given the dates of the Tibetan translators with whom he worked, he must have been active in the last part of the eleventh century. It is known that Mar-pa Do-pa Chos-kyi-dbang-phyug (dates not certain, but perhaps 1042–1136) studied with Sumatikīrti, among others, in Nepal. Rngog Lo-tsā-ba Blo-ldan-shes-rab (1059–1109) also is known to have worked with Sumatikīrti." Sumatikīrti is responsible, along with Rngog blo ldan shes rab, for a second revision of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra''.cond revision of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra''.)
Pāramiti + (According to the account in the Chinese ca … According 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.))
Krug, A. + (Adam’s dissertation, "The Seven Siddhi Tex … Adam’s dissertation, "The Seven Siddhi Texts: The Oḍiyāna Mahāmudrā Lineage in its Indic and Tibetan Contexts," focuses on an early corpus of Vajrayāna Buddhist texts that came to be known in Nepal and Tibet as part of a larger canon of Indian works on ‘the great seal’ or ''mahāmudrā''. In addition to providing text-critical historical analyses of these works, his dissertation focuses on larger issues such as a revaluation of demonology as an analytic paradigm for critical historical research in South Asian religions, inter-sectarian dynamics in the formulation of the Vajrayāna, and practical canonicity and curriculum in tantric Buddhist textual communities. His recently published work is titled "Pakpa’s Verses on Governance in ''Advice to Prince Jibik Temür: A Jewel Rosary''," published in a special issue of ''Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie'' on Kingship, Ritual, and Narrative in Tibet and the Surrounding Cultural Area by The French Institute of Asian Studies (École française d’Extrême-Orient). He has received two U.S. State Department research grants through the Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Fellowship program and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and is currently a lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. ([https://www.religion.ucsb.edu/people/student/adam-krug/ Source Accessed June18, 2021])/adam-krug/ Source Accessed June18, 2021]))
A 'dzoms rgyal sras rig 'dzin 'gyur me rdo rje + (Adzom Gyalse Gyurme Dorje (Tib. ཨ་འཛོམ་རྒྱ … Adzom 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.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.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.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]))
Butters, A. + (Albion M. Butters (Masters of Theological … Albion M. Butters (Masters of Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School; Fulbright scholar, India; Ph.D., History of Religion, Columbia University) has a specialization in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. As an Academy of Finland Research Fellow, he is currently engaged in a study on ideological aspects of "Campus Carry" in Texas, focusing in particular on fear and affect, power, and intersections between gun culture and religiosity.Butters is the editor of Studia Orientalia Electronica, an online peer-reviewed imprint of the Studia Orientalia journal (est. 1917, Finnish Oriental Society). His multidisciplinary research interests include questions of identity and meaning-making, shifting ideologies (religious and secular), and the integration of spiritual themes in popular culture. Forthcoming is his monograph titled Spi-Fi: Spiritual Fiction in Comics, which examines the significance of stories and art for identity construction and personal transformation; supported by the Kone Foundation, this research project was inspired by Butters’ involvement as one of the creators of the graphic novel Mandala (Dark Horse Comics, 2014). ([https://utu.academia.edu/AlbionButters Source Academia.edu])ia.edu/AlbionButters Source Academia.edu]))
Dokic, A. + (Aleksa Dokic received a PhD in Buddhist St … Aleksa Dokic received a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of Delhi in 2001. The dissertation was titled "Samādhirāja Sūtra: An English Translation of Chapters I-XX of the Sanskrit Text with Critical Notes." The supervisor for the dissertation was Karam Tej Singh Sarao. Dokic is currently Assistant Director, Government Office for Human Rights and Rights of National Minorities, Croatia.nd Rights of National Minorities, Croatia.)
Bo Fazu + (Also known as Po-yüan or Po Fa-tsu. A prie … Also known as Po-yüan or Po Fa-tsu. A priest and a translator of Buddhist texts during the late Western Chin dynasty (265–316) in China. He built a Buddhist monastery at Ch'ang-an, where he translated and lectured on Buddhist scriptures. In 305 he set out for Lung-yu, where he intended to live in retirement. He was killed along the way, however, because of his refusal to work for Chang Fu, the local governor of Ch'in-chou, and also because of accusations lodged by someone he had defeated in debate. The Buddha's Parinirvāna Sutra, one of the Hinayana versions of the Nirvana Sutra, was translated by Fa-tsu. ([https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/dic/Content/F/14 Source Accessed Sep 3, 2021])Content/F/14 Source Accessed Sep 3, 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))
Skilton, A. + (Andrew Skilton is a scholar of the Buddhis … Andrew Skilton is a scholar of the Buddhist history and literature of South, Southeast Asia. He studied Buddhism and Buddhist languages at the universities of Bristol and Oxford, where he did his Ph.D. on the ''Samādhirājasūtra'', a major Mahāyāna scripture, examining its Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit recensions. He was senior lecturer in Buddhist studies at Cardiff University and associate lecturer and research fellow at SOAS, London. He is now senior research fellow in Buddhist studies in the Theology and Religious Studies Department at King’s College, London, and also manages the Revealing Hidden Collections Project at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. His publications include ''A Concise History of Buddhism'', ''The Bodhicaryāvatāra'' (with Kate Crosby), and ''How the Nāgas Were Pleased''. ([http://www.ubcpress.ca/andrew-skilton Source Accessed Jan 7, 2021])drew-skilton Source Accessed Jan 7, 2021]))
Chédel, A. + (André Chédel, born in Neuchâtel in 1915 an … André 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.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.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.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.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.André Chédel was a Freemason, a member of the Swiss Grand Lodge Alpina.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]))
Warren, A. + (Anne Warren is affiliated with the Cleveland chapter of Jewel Heart Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center. She serves on the Executive Committee as Dharma Coordinator. In addition, she is an editor of several works by Gelek Rimpoche.)
Jack, A. + (Anthony Abraham Jack (Ph.D., Harvard Unive … Anthony 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.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.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]))
Warder, A. + (Anthony Kennedy Warder (8 September 1924 – … Anthony Kennedy Warder (8 September 1924 – 8 January 2013) was a British Indologist. His best-known works are Introduction to Pali (1963), ''Indian Buddhism'' (1970), and the eight-volume ''Indian Kāvya Literature'' (1972–2011).He studied Sanskrit and Pali at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and received his doctorate from there in 1954. His thesis, supervised by John Brough, was entitled ''Pali Metre: A Study of the Evolution of Early Middle Indian Metre Based on the Verse Preserved in the Pali Canon''. (When it was published in 1967, the title was changed to ''Pali Metre: A Contribution to the History of Indian Literature''.)For a number of years, he was an active member of the Pali Text Society, which published his first book, ''Introduction to Pali'', in 1963. He based his popular primer on extracts from the Dīgha Nikāya, and took the then revolutionary step of treating Pali as an independent language, not just a derivative of Sanskrit.His began his academic career at the University of Edinburgh in 1955, but in 1963 moved to the University of Toronto. There, as Chairman of the Department of East Asian Studies, he built up a strong programme in Sanskrit and South Asian studies. He retired in 1990.''Studies on Buddhism in Honour of Professor A. K. Warder'' was published in 1993, edited by Narendra K. Wagle and Fumimaro Watanabe.He and his wife, Nargez, died of natural causes almost simultaneously on 8 January 2013. He was eighty-eight, and she was ninety. They had no children. They were buried together following a Buddhist service. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._K._Warder Source Accessed Feb 10, 2021])._K._Warder Source Accessed Feb 10, 2021]))
Waley, A. + (Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schl … Arthur 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.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.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]))
Baizhang Huaihai + (Baizhang Huaihai (Chinese: 百丈懷海; pinyin: B … Baizhang Huaihai (Chinese: 百丈懷海; pinyin: Bǎizhàng Huáihái; Wade-Giles: Pai-chang Huai-hai; Japanese: Hyakujō Ekai) (720–814) was a Zen master during the Tang Dynasty. A native of Fuzhou, he was a dharma heir of Mazu Daoyi (Wade-Giles: Ma-tsu Tao-i).[1] Baizhang's students included Huangbo, Linji and Puhua.Hagiographic depictions of Baizhang depict him as a radical and iconoclastic figure, but these narratives derive from at least a century and a half after his death and were developed and elaborated during the Song dynasty.[2] As Mario Poceski writes, the earliest strata of sources (such as the ''Baizhang guanglu'' 百丈廣錄 ) about this figure provide a "divergent image of Baizhang as a sophisticated teacher of doctrine, who is at ease with both the philosophical and contemplative aspects of Buddhism."[3] Poceski summarizes this figure thus::The image of Baizhang conveyed by the Tang-era sources is that of a learned and sagacious monk who is well versed in both the theoretical and contemplative aspects of medieval Chinese Buddhism. Here we encounter Baizhang as a teacher of a particular Chan brand of Buddhist doctrine, formulated in a manner and idiom that are unique to him and to the Hongzhou school as a whole. Nonetheless, he also comes across as someone who is cognizant of major intellectual trends in Tang Buddhism, as well as deeply steeped in canonical texts and traditions. His discourses are filled with scriptural quotations and allusions. He also often resorts to technical Buddhist vocabulary, of the kind one usually finds in the texts of philosophically oriented schools of Chinese Buddhism such as Huayan, Faxiang, and Tiantai. Here the primary mode in which Baizhang communicates his teachings is the public Chan sermon, presented in the ritual framework of “ascending the [Dharma] hall [to preach]” (''shangtang'').[4]Regarding his teachings, Poceski notes::A central idea that infuses most of Baizhang’s sermons is the ineffability or indescribability of reality. Ultimate reality cannot be predicated in terms of conventional conceptual categories, as it transcends the familiar realm of words and ideas. Nonetheless, it can be approached or realized—as it truly is, without any accretions or distortions—as it manifests at all times and in all places. That is done by means of intuitive knowledge, whose cultivation is one of the cornerstones of Chan soteriology. Since the essence of reality cannot be captured or conveyed via the mediums of words and letters, according to Baizhang it is pointless to get stuck in dogmatic assertions, or to attach to a particular doctrine or practice. Like everything else, the various Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) teachings are empty of self-nature. They simply constitute expedient tools in an ongoing process of cultivating detachment and transcendence that supposedly free the mind of mistaken views and distorted ways of perceiving reality; to put it differently, they belong to the well-known Buddhist category of “skillful means” (''fangbian'', or upāya in Sanskrit). Holding on rigidly or fetishizing a particular text, viewpoint, or method of practice—even the most profound and potent ones—can turn out to be counterproductive, as it becomes a source of attachment that impedes spiritual progress. The perfection of the Chan path of practice and realization, therefore, does not involve the attainment of some particular ability or knowledge. Rather, in Baizhang’s text it is depicted as a process of letting go of all views and attachment that interfere with the innate human ability to know reality and experience spiritual freedom.[5]One of his doctrinal innovations is what are called the “three propositions” (sanju), which are three distinct stages of spiritual realization or progressive ways of knowing:[6]*Thoroughgoing detachment from all things and affairs*Nonabiding in the state of detachment*Letting go of even the subtlest vestiges of self-referential awareness or knowledge of having transcended detachment.Baizhang's teachings and sayings have been translated by Thomas Cleary in ''Sayings and Doings of Pai-Chang''.[7] The Wild fox koan is attributed to Baizhang. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baizhang_Huaihai Source Accessed July 15, 2021])ng_Huaihai Source Accessed July 15, 2021]))

Search by property

List of results

Navigation menu

Search