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Kadam Neil Elliot is the resident teacher at KMC London, and, also, the teacher of the STTP (special teacher training program).
Kadam Neil has been a student of Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche for nearly 40 years and has worked closely with him on editing and translating many of his books. He is a senior teacher who teaches the Special Teacher Training Programme at KMC London with over 800 people around the world studying on the programme by correspondence. ([https://meditaenmenorca.org/kadam-neil-elliot/?lang=en Source Accessed May 24, 2021]) +
Neil Pembroke is Associate Professor in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland, Australia. [His] research interests include: pastoral care in worship and preaching; philosophy and theology in dialogue on issues in pastoral counselling; theology and healthcare; and processes for developing personal and spiritual maturity.
Associate Professor Pembroke holds a B.Eng (Agric.) [D.D.I.A.E.] B.Th (B.C.T.), BA (Hons) (Qld), PhD (Edin), and is a Lecturer in Studies in Religion.
His teaching interests include: Jung and Human Spirituality; Religion and Health; Mysticism; Psychology of Religion; and Religion and the Psychotherapies. ([http://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/1214 Adapted from Source Apr 30, 2021]) +
Neten Ngedön Drubpe Dorje (Tib. གནས་བརྟན་ངེས་དོན་གྲུབ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Wyl. gnas brtan nges don grub pa'i rdo rje), the Second Neten Chokling (1873/74-1927) — one of the immediate reincarnations of Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa and a teacher of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö. +
Kyabje Nawang Gehlek Rimpoche (Tibetan: སྐྱབས་རྗེ་དགེ་ལེགས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།, Wylie: skyabs rje dge legs rin po che/) was a Tibetan Buddhist lama born in Lhasa, Tibet on October 26, 1939. His personal name was Gelek; kyabje and rimpoche, are titles meaning "teacher" (lit., "lord of refuge") and "precious," respectively. He was a tulku, an incarnate lama of Drepung Monastic University, where he received the scholastic degree of Geshe Lharampa, the highest degree given, at the exceptionally young age of 20. The 14th Dalai Lama said "he completed his traditional Buddhist training as a monk in Tibet prior to the Chinese Takeover."
Considered "an important link to the great lineages of Tibet’s great masters, especially of the Geluk school. Known more famously for the Tibetans as Nyakre Khentrul Rinpoche, Rinpoche had been instrumental in reprinting many of the Geluk texts in the 1970s, and also remained an important object of affection for both Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche. Of course, his emergence as one of the great Tibetan teachers in the West has also been a source of inspiration for many.” Gelek Rimpoche was a nephew of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. He was tutored by many of the same masters who tutored the current 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.
In 1959, Gelek Rimpoche fled to India from Tibet and gave up monastic life. He was one of the first students of the Young Lamas Home School. He was director of Tibet House in New Delhi, India and a radio host at All India Radio. He conducted over 1000 interviews, compiling an oral history of the fall of Tibet to the Communist Chinese. He was the founder and president of Jewel Heart, "a spiritual, cultural, and humanitarian organization that translates the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism into contemporary life."
He moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1987 to teach Buddhism. He became an American citizen and founded Buddhist communities in Ann Arbor, Bloomfield Hills, Chicago, Cleveland, Nebraska, New York, Maylaysia and The Netherlands.
Beat-poet Allen Ginsberg was among the more prominent of Jewel Heart's members. Ginsberg met with Gelek Rinpoche through the modern composer Philip Glass in 1989. Allen and Philip jointly staged benefits for the Jewel Heart organization. Professor Robert Thurman, Joe Liozzo, and Glenn Mullin are also Jewel Heart members and frequent lecturers.
Gelek Rinpoche died on February 15, 2017 in Ann Arbor, Michigan after undergoing surgery the previous month. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelek_Rimpoche Source Accessed Aug 25, 2020])
Celebrated contemporary Sakya scholar who held the office of abbot of Dzongsar Monastery. A brief biography can be found in his obituary published [https://khyentsefoundation.org/project/part-x-khenpo-kunga-wangchuk/ here], and a short video tribute can be watched [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDLFFlEDIyY here]. +
The Ven. Prof. Geshe Ngawang Samten is Director and Vice Chancellor of the [[Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies]] in Sarnath, Varanasi. Prior to assuming the Vice Chancellorship he was Director of the Research and Publications Division of the Institute. Prof. Geshe Samten earned his Shastri, Acharya and PhD from the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies and his Geshe degree from Ganden Shartse Monastic University. He is editor of the Tibetan critical edition of Nagarjuna's Ratnavali (CIHTS Press), and is co-translator with Prof. Jay Garfield of Tsong Khapa's Ocean of Reasoning (Oxford University Press). Prof. Geshe Samten has addressed conferences and colloquia around the world, and has held visiting professorships at the University of Tasmania, Hampshire College, Amherst College and Smith College.
Geshe Ngawang Samten is also a member of the Tenzin Gyatso Scholars Program's advisory council, which is being developed by the Tenzin Gyatso In
[http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Geshe_Ngawang_Samten Source Accessed December 15, 2011] +
Ngawang Zangpo (Hugh Leslie Thompson) completed two three-year retreats under the direction of the late Kalu Rinpoche at Kagyu Ling, France, 1976–1980 and 1980–1983, and he served as translator for Kalu Rinpoche from 1985–1989. He is the founding resident lama of a Buddhist center in Taipei, Taiwan (1985), a founding member of Kalu Rinpoche's International Translation Group (1987), and he was a Tsadra Foundation Fellow from 2000 to 2018. He is presently working on a number of translation projects that were initiated under the direction of Chadral Rinpoche and Lama Tharchin Rinpoche. He has also contributed to the Kalu Rinpoche Translation Group's books ''Myriad Worlds'' and ''Buddhist Ethics''. [http://www.tsadra.org/translators/hugh-thompson-ngawang-zangpo/ Source: Tsadra.org] and [https://www.shambhala.com/authors/u-z/ngawang-zangpo.html Shambhala Publications]
'''Completed Projects as a Tsadra Foundation Fellow:'''
*''Sacred Ground: Jamgön Kongtrul on Pilgrimage and Sacred Geography'', Jamgön Kongtrul
*''Guru Rinpoche: His Life and Times'', Taranatha, Jamgön Kongtrul, and Sera Khandro
*''Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse of the Shangpa Masters'', compiled by Jamgön Kongtrul
*''The Treasury of Knowledge: Books II, III, and IV; Buddhism’s Journey to Tibet'', Jamgön Kongtrul
*''A History of Buddhism in India and Its Spread to Tibet'', Butön Rinchen Drup
*''Refining Our Perception of Reality'', Sera Khandro
*''The Complete Nyingma Tradition from Sutra to Tantra, Books 1 to 10, Foundations of the Buddhist Path'', Choying Tobden Dorje
*''The Complete Nyingma Tradition from Sutra to Tantra, Book 14, An Overview of Buddhist Tantra'', Choying Tobden Dorje
'''Previously Published Translations:'''
*''Jamgön Kongtrul’s Retreat Manual'', Jamgön Kongtrul
*''Enthronement: Recognition of the Reincarnate Masters of Tibet'', Jamgön Kongtrul +
Nguyen Dac Sy received his PhD from the Department of Buddhist Studies at the University of Delhi in 2012. His doctoral research on buddha-nature and the ''Laṅkāvatārasūtra'' was supervised Dr. Ram Kumar Rana and co-supervised by Dr. T. R. Sharma. +
Nicholas Barr received his BA in comparative religion from Columbia University, where he studied Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. As a Princeton in Asia fellow, he worked in education and development in Laos before earning his MSW with a concentration in adult mental health at the University of California, Los Angeles. He then worked as a clinical social worker for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health for two years before completing his PhD at the University of Southern California School of Social Work. Before joining the faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he was a Cohen Veteran’s Network funded postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families.
Dr. Barr’s research focuses on enhancing understanding of risk and protective factors for populations with an elevated likelihood of traumatic experiences, like homeless young adults and military service members. His work includes intervention development and implementation leveraging principles of mindfulness to enhance resilience and improve mental and behavioral health outcomes in these populations. He holds certifications in a number of evidence based practices including Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Behavior Therapy. ([https://www.unlv.edu/people/nicholas-barr Source Accessed May 24, 2021]) +
Nicholas N. Poppe (Russian: Никола́й/Ни́колас Никола́евич Поппе, Nikoláj/Níkolas Nikolájevič Poppe; July 27, 1897 – August 8, 1991) was an important Russian linguist.<br><br>He is also known as Nikolaus Poppe, with his first name in its German form. He is often cited as N.N. Poppe in academic publications.<br><br>Poppe was a leading specialist in the Mongolic languages and the hypothetical Altaic language family to which, in the view of many linguists[who?], the Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic languages belong. Poppe was open-minded toward the inclusion of Korean in Altaic, but regarded the evidence for the inclusion of Korean as less strong than that for the inclusion of Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic.<br><br>Poppe spoke fluent Mongolian and attained an unmatched familiarity with Mongolian oral literature. His research focused on studies of the Altaic language family, especially Khalkha-Mongolian and Buriat-Mongolian, and on studies of the folklore of these and related languages. He wrote manuals and grammars of written and colloquial Khalkha-Mongolian and Buriat-Mongolian, Yakut, the Alar dialect, and Bashkir.<br><br>His publications in the realm of Mongolian oral literature include eleven volumes of Mongolian epics, collections of Mongolian sayings, songs, and fairy tales, and Mongolian versions of works in Sanskrit.<br><br>After 1949, Poppe wrote mostly in German and English, in addition to Russian. Regardless of the language he used, his writing was remarkable for its simplicity and clarity. As a result, his works are easily comprehensible to specialists and non-specialists alike.<br><br>Poppe was an exceptionally prolific scholar. A bibliography of his publications from 1924 to 1987 includes 284 books and articles and 205 book reviews. Between 1949 and 1968 — a period during which he was teaching 16 to 17 hours a week at the University of Washington, with only three months in the summer for uninterrupted research — he wrote 217 works, including over 40 books.<br><br>The secret of his high productivity, as he jokingly described it, was that while other people were enjoying "the beautiful surroundings of Seattle, climbing the mountains or sailing the waters", "he sits at his desk, wearing out one typewriter after the other like other people wear out their shoes". ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Poppe Source Accessed Jan 25, 2021])
Dr. Nicholas Ribush, MB, BS, is a graduate of Melbourne University Medical School (1964) who first encountered Buddhism at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 1972. Since then he has been a student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche and a full time worker for their international organization, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT).
Nick established FPMT archiving and publishing activities at Kopan in 1973 and with Lama Yeshe founded Wisdom Publications in 1975. He was a monk from 1974 to 1986. Between 1981 and 1996 he served variously as Wisdom’s director, editorial director and director of development. In 1996 he founded the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, which has preserved and organized thousands of hours of teachings and tens of thousands of pages of transcripts, established an image archive of some of the earliest photos of the lamas, and published more than 1,000,000 books for free distribution.
Over the years Nick has edited and published many teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and many other teachers and established and/or directed several other FPMT activities, including the International Mahayana Institute, Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre, the Enlightened Experience Celebration, Mahayana Publications, Kurukulla Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies and the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. He was a member of the FPMT board of directors from its inception in 1983 until 2002.
A profile of Dr. Ribush is published on-line at Beliefnet.com, and an interview can be found in Mandala magazine. He also teaches at Kurukulla Center. ([https://www.lamayeshe.com/directors-page Source Accessed Feb 6, 2025]) +
Nicolas Bommarito is currently an Assistant Professor of philosophy at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Before that, He worked at SUNY Buffalo and was a Bersoff Fellow at NYU. He has studied at Brown University, Tibet University, and University of Michigan. His research focuses on questions in virtue ethics, moral psychology, and Buddhist philosophy. ([https://www.nicbommarito.com/philosophy Adapted from Source Jan 18, 2021]) +
A social anthropologist by training (PhD Paris-Nanterre University 2001), Nicolas Sihlé first taught at the Department of anthropology at the University of Virginia (USA) from 2002 to 2010, before joining the Centre for Himalayan Studies. He is a specialist of Tibetan society and religion, and of Buddhist societies more generally. His work focuses in particular on religious specialists called tantrists (''ngakpa''), key figures of the non-monastic side of Tibetan Buddhism, generally characterized by their practice of tantric rituals involving occasionally strong ritual power and even ritual violence, as in violent exorcisms. He has carried out extended fieldwork in the Mustang district (northern Nepal) as well as in the Repkong district in northeast Tibet (Amdo/Qinghai), but also shorter periods of research in Ladakh (northern India), Dolpo (NW Nepal), Nyemo (central Tibet), and Bhutan.
His first book, based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in culturally Tibetan areas in the north of Nepal, appeared in 2013, under the title ''Rituels bouddhiques de pouvoir et de violence : La figure du tantriste tibétain'' [Buddhist rituals of power and violence: The figure of the Tibetan tantrist]. It analyzed the striking features of this type of Buddhist specialist: a highly ritualistic orientation (with a strong magical component); the practice of tantric rituals involving strong ritual power and even ritual violence (which shows here, comparatively speaking, quite a paradoxical centrality in a Buddhist context); the association between ritual legitimacy and power on the one hand and hereditary lineage on the other; and the relative absence of references to renunciation. The analysis of the monk vs. tantrist duality is more broadly relevant for thinking about religious fields that are organized around values such as ritual power/violence vs. ritual/ethical purity. This work has also involved thinking about written texts (such as a local corpus of manual rituals) as objects in need of a fully ethnographic analysis that takes into account their materiality, their partaking in a social and political economy, but also their particular status, at the juncture between a local universe of meanings and practices and a wider (e.g., Buddhist or Tibetan) cultural world.
His current major research project focuses on the large communities of Buddhist and Bönpo tantrists of the Repkong district in northeast Tibet (Chinese Qinghai province), where is has been conducting fieldwork since 2003. The focus is here (i) on very large-scale collective rituals and their place, among others, in the constitution of supra-local collectivities and the negotiation of identities, as well as (ii) on the vicissitudes of the religious sphere, and in particular of ritual, in the context of the transformations of the moral, intellectual, social and political universe of post-Mao Amdo.
These projects all contribute to a comparative anthropology of Buddhism—a major emphasis in his research activity. He is thus involved for instance in the coordination of a network of scholars (with several years of workshops and seminars) engaging in the comparative anthropology of Buddhism. In this context, he has co-edited a special issue on the Buddhist gift (''Religion Compass'' 2015).
He is also the main editor of the collective research blog ''The Himalayas and Beyond'' (http://himalayas.hypotheses.org/). ([https://himalaya.cnrs.fr/spip3/spip.php?article135&lang=en Source Accessed Nov 14, 2023])
Emeritus Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, PhD in Translation Theory. Since 1998, she has been practicing meditation in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and regularly conducts both group and individual retreats. She has performed accompaniment in the hospital and at home. She has participated in several training seminars on accompaniment in illness and end of life. Since 2010 she has coordinated seminars on suffering, illness and death, including "Viure la pròpia mort i la dels altres" of the CCEB. ([https://www.anitya.es/quienes-somos/ Source Accessed Jan 19, 2021]) +
Nicole Riggs is a writer and translator of ancient Tibetan texts. She focuses on little-known figures of the 9th to 12th centuries in Tibet, including several women and explores their relationship to the world through their songs of wisdom.
She believes that the insights shared in ancient philosophy are applicable to today's challenges in that they speak to the need for non self-centered solutions and are intrinsically related to creativity. More recently, she has begun to explore how the shape of the letters and the sound of syllables in the Tibetan alphabet relate to the meaning of the words they form, creating an opening for a different perspective on reality.
Nicole holds a Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of Sunderland. She is an affiliate researcher with Center for the Study of Crops and Social Policy (CASP), an anchor with Cooperation Humboldt, a Co-Founder of the Cooperative Agriculture Network (CAN), and a board director of the Humboldt Community Business Development Center (HCBDC). ([https://www.chianticom.com/index.php/en/r/721-riggs-nicole Source Accessed Jan 31, 2025]) +
Nicole Willock is an assistant professor of Asian religions at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She is currently a 2017 Research Fellow through the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist studies for her book project, ''Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Scholars Making Modern China''. This project analyzes the writings of three Tibetan Buddhist intellectuals (Tseten Zhabdrung, Dungkar Rinpoche, and Muge
Samten) through the lens of postcolonial and poststructuralist theories to challenge normative assumptions on religious subjects, state-driven secularization, and moral agency in China. Her publications include "The Revival
of the Tulku Institution in Modern China: Narratives and Practices" (''Revue d'Etudes Tibetaines'', 2017) and "Dorje Tarchin, the Melong, and the Tibet Mirror Press: Negotiating Discourse on the Religious and the Secular in Tibet" (''Himalaya Journal'', 2016). Since 2011, she has served as a Tibet and Himalaya Panel Steering Committee member for the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and as an Academic Advisory Board member for the Treasury of Lives: Biographical Encyclopedia digital project. (Source: ''A Gathering of Brilliant Moons'', 331) +
Nieh, Tao-chen, a Buddhist layman, born during the West Jin dynasty, was one of the important sutra translators in the early time. He worked as a note taker and editor of Zu, Fa-fu for several years. After Zu Fa-fu passed away, Nieh, Tao-chen translated total sixty-four sutras and a Buddhist catalogue by himself. However, there are very few relevant academic papers dealing with Nieh, Tao-chen and his translations nowadays. This paper focuses on Nieh, Tao-chen's six existent translated sutras collected by Taisho to determine the real translator, then to explore the contrast among them, compare the beginning structure of each sutra, and check the transliteration in order to figure out the change of Nieh, Tao-chen's translation style, his contributions to the development of the sutra translation and the influence on the establishment of Buddhist Schools later in Chinese Buddhism. ([https://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/search/search_detail.jsp?seq=396602&comefrom=authorinfo Source Accessed Aug 13, 2023]) +
Niguma was one of two great dakinis who founded the Shangpa Kagyu school of Vajrayana Buddhism.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Niguma was one of the most important Buddhist teachers and yoginis in India. While there are only brief glimpses of her life from sources and texts, Sarah Harding’s Niguma: Lady of Illusion surveys what little literature there is surrounding “the heiress of unimaginable qualities.”
Although not much is known about Niguma’s life, her teachings had a significant impact on Buddhism. Alongside the dakini Sukhasiddhi, she is one of two female founders of the Shangpa Kagyu school of Vajrayana Buddhism.
Niguma developed esoteric instructions, treatises, and practice manuals. Within the collection of commentaries in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, called the Tengyur — part of the core of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition — seventeen texts are attributed to Niguma, though they were likely written by her student Khyungpo Naljor. Niguma is said to watch over the holders of the lineage with impartial compassion, blessing them and compassionately overseeing the success of their activity.
Niguma’s birthplace was most likely near Kashmir, a hub of Buddhist tantric activity. She is thought by some to be the sister of Naropa, the famous Vajrayana Buddhist teacher, although others suggest that Niguma was Naropa’s consort. There is often confusion and overlap between the biographical details of Niguma and Naropa’s respective lives and accomplishments.
Although it is difficult to identify the woman behind the mystery of Niguma’s dakini image, Tibetan master Taranatha (1575-1634) wrote a short biography that helps shine light on her story:
The dakini Niguma’s place of birth was the Kashmiri city called “Incomparable.” Her father was the brahmin Santivarman. Her mother was Shrimati. Her real name was Srijnana. She had previously gathered the accumulations for three incalculable eons. Thus, in this life, based on the teachings of the instructions by the adept Lavapa and some others, she manifested the signs of progress in the secret mantra Vajrayana, and attained the body of union. So her body became a rainbow-like form. She had the ability to really hear teachings from the great Vajradhara. Having become a great bodhisattva, her emanations pervaded everywhere and accomplished the welfare of beings.
Harding points out that Niguma’s life story consists of only six folios, while that of her student Khyungpo Naljor consists of forty-three. According to scholars, Niguma had high-level realization, attained rainbow body, and received teachings directly from Vajradhara — the tantric form of Shakyamuni Buddha. It is said that Niguma cultivated the Buddhist path in previous lives, so that in her lifetime she directly saw the truth of the nature of phenomena just by hearing basic instruction from a few adept masters. (Source: Buddhadharma Magazine, Spring 2024)
Nika Jovic is a translator and member of the Dharmacakra Translation Committee. She is affiliated with the Jonang Foundation and has translated works by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen: ''An Official Document of the King, the Spontaneously Present Dharmakāya'' and ''A General Commentary on All Profound Sutra and Tantra Teachings: Entitled, "Knowing One, All is Liberated."'' She has also participated in translating and editing for the 84000 project—namely, the ''Avalokīnīsūtra'' and the ''Bhadrakalpikasūtra''. ([https://jonangfoundation.org/works-list/ Source Accessed Oct 23, 2024]) +
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (/bərˈdjɑːjɛf, -jɛv/; Russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; 18 March [O.S. 6 March] 1874 – 24 March 1948) was a Russian philosopher, theologian, and Christian existentialist who emphasized the existential spiritual significance of human freedom and the human person. Alternative historical spellings of his surname in English include "Berdiaev" and "Berdiaeff", and of his given name "Nicolas" and "Nicholas". Russian paleontologist and Christian apologist Alexander V. Khramov (Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ph.D. from Moscow University) attributes his ideas about an atemporal human fall to Berdyaev and Evgenii Nikolaevitch Troubetzkoy. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Berdyaev Source Accessed June 1, 2023]) +
