Property:Bio
From Tsadra Commons
This is a property of type Text.
D
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki (鈴木 大拙 貞太郎 ''Suzuki Daisetsu Teitarō''; he rendered his name "Daisetz" in 1894; 18 October 1870 – 12 July 1966) was a Japanese author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin (and Far Eastern philosophy in general) to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities, and devoted many years to a professorship at Ōtani University, a Japanese Buddhist school. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.T._Suzuki Source Accessed July 30, 2020]) +
Dakpo Tashi Namgyal (Dakpo Paṇchen Tashi Namgyel, Wylie: dwags po paN chen bkra shis rnam rgyal) (1513–1587) was a lineage holder of the Dagpo Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He was also trained in the Sakya lineage and was renowned as a scholar and yogi.
He should not be confused with his namesake, also known as Kunkyen Tashi Namgyal, (1399–1458), who helped establish Penpo Nalendra Monastery in 1425 with Sakya master Rongton Sheja Kunrig (1367–1449). Later in life he served as chief abbot of the Kagyu Daklha Gampo Monastery in southern Tibet.
His most famous works were two Mahamudra texts, ''Moonbeams of Mahamudra'' and ''Clarifying the Natural State.'' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagpo_Tashi_Namgyal Source Accessed Feb 28, 2020]) +
Dale S. Wright is the David B. and Mary H. Gamble Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of Asian Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles where he has taught for 37 years. He is author of books in the field of Buddhist Studies including ''Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism'' (Cambridge University Press, 1998), ''The Six Perfections: Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character'' (Oxford University Press, 2009), ''What Is Buddhist Enlightenment?'' (Oxford University Press, 2016), co-editor of a series of Oxford University Press books on Zen Buddhism as well as author of numerous essays, articles, and reviews.
Wright has served as President of the Occidental College Faculty Council, Director of the California Private Universities and Colleges Japan Study Program, and on numerous boards and steering committees in academic and non-academic contexts, including the Foundation for Global Ethics, the University of Chicago Enhancing Life Project, the Southern California Consortium for Asian Studies, the Occidental College Advisory Council, The Music Circle, the Advisory Committee to the Braille Institute, and on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the Journal of Buddhist Philosophy. ([https://www.shin-ibs.edu/luce/wright/ Source Accessed Jan 24, 2025]) +
After a career as a journalist based in New York and Hong Kong, Damchö Diana Finnegan ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1999. In 2009, she received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a thesis on gender and ethics in Sanskrit and Tibetan narratives about Buddha’s direct female disciples in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya.
After completing her dissertation she worked closely with the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, serving as co-editor on various publications, including ''Interconnected: Embracing Life in a Global Society'' and ''The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out''.
In 2007, she co-founded Dharmadatta Nuns’ Community (Comunidad Dharmadatta), a community of Spanish-speaking Buddhist nuns, based first in India and later in Mexico. Together with the other Dharmadatta nuns, she leads a large Latin American community with a commitment to gender and environmental justice as part of its spiritual practice.
At the same time, Damchö continues to participate in academic circles, presenting at conferences, editing books, and engaging in various research projects. The most recent publication on which she collaborated, a translation from Sanskrit and Tibetan of the manual for conferring full ordination to women, is forthcoming from Hamburg University’s Numata Center for Buddhist Studies.
Damchö has served as a board member of Maitripa College since its founding in 2005. ([https://maitripa.org/damcho-diana-finnegan/ Source Accessed Sep 23, 2021]) +
Lhundup Damchö was born and raised in New York. After high school, she spent a year back-packing alone in Europe before starting her university studies at Sarah Lawrence, where she earned a BA in humanities. She then spent a year studying and living abroad in Paris and Poland, and then joined the New School for Social Research, for MA studies in Continental and Greek philosophy. In 1989, she left to begin a career as a journalist, continuing for seven years in her hometown of New York and later as bureau chief in Hong Kong. Later, during a year’s sabbatical writing as a freelance journalist, she engaged in a 10-day retreat at Kopan Monastery in Nepal’s Kathmandu valley. It was there that she first heard teachings on Buddhism, from Swedish nun Ani Karin.
Within two years, Damchö had left her career, completed several retreats and taken ordination vows in 1999. She was in Dharamsala preparing for another retreat when she first met His Holiness the Karmapa, weeks after his escape from Tibet. Following her retreat, she returned to Madison, Wisconsin, where she continued her seven years of Buddhist philosophy study with Geshe Lhundup Sopa, her abbot. At the same time, Lama Zopa Rinpoche also had a profound influence, and his teachings on renunciation and the cultivation of compassion greatly inspired her practice. In 2003, she was sent to Puerto Rico to offer Dharma talks at the Dharma center founded by Geshe Sopa and directed by Yangsi Rinpoche. Upon arrival in Puerto Rico, Damchö learned that Rinpoche had informed the students there that she would be teaching in Spanish – although her rudimentary knowledge of the language at the time came from having a Cuban sister-in-law, many Latino friends and a lifelong love of languages. Nevertheless, on that slim toehold Damchö began her long engagement with the Dharma in Spanish.
During this same period, she lived with other nuns at Deer Park and engaged in graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying Sanskrit, Tibetan and interdisciplinary studies of Asian culture and history. Her MA thesis explored reading strategies of Mahayana sutras, particularly the Sanghata Sutra, of which she later produced an English translation and a website devoted to the sutra.
In 2006, she returned to India after a six-year absence. After spending over a year reading Sanskrit texts in Pune, Varanasi and Vishakhapatnam with Prabhakara Shastry, (you can read her blog on this period here) she moved to Dharamsala where Dapel and Nangpel had just received their monastic vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After two years in Dharamsala, the seeds of a nuns’ community began to sprout, and when the nuns shared their aspiration with His Holiness the Karmapa, he quickly granted his blessing for them to proceed. In the same year, Damchö received her PhD, with a thesis on gender and ethics in Sanskrit and Tibetan narratives about Buddha’s direct female disciples, entitled “For the Sake of Women, Too: Ethics And Gender in the Narratives of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya.” Damchö has a project pending to publish an English translation of those stories of these nuns’ lives.
Since completing her dissertation in 2009, Damchö has lived in India participating in the life of the nuns’ community, serving His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, on various projects, and engaging in various Spanish-language Dharma initiatives.
In 2010, under the guidance of the 17th Karmapa, she wrote Karmapa: 900 Years, a historical survey of the Karma Kagyu lineage that has since been translated into twelve languages. She co-translated and edited The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out, a book of teachings by His Holiness the Karmapa based on several weeks of dialogue between the Karmapa and a group of students from the University of Redlands. She has since organized several other extended interactions between young people and His Holiness. In 2015, she co-translated and edited Nurturing Compassion, teachings by the Karmapa during his first trip to Europe. Under the Gyalwang Karmapa’s guidance, she produced a visual biography to commemorate his predecessor, Dharma King: The Life of the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa in Images, which will be launched in 2016 as part of a commemorative event in Bodhgaya. (Dapel served alongside Damchö to photo-edit this book.) Her translation of his script of a play on the life of Milarepa is also forthcoming from KTD Publications.
Damchö gives weekly Dharma talks in Spanish, which can be viewed at www.facebuda.org. She travels regularly to Dharma centers across Latin America, and leads an annual retreat in Mexico. With Silvia Sevilla, she co-founded Editorial Albricias, a Spanish-language publisher of books on Buddhism. With Leslie Serna, she co-founded a Buddhist study institute that offers online courses in Buddhist philosophy and practice in Spanish, free of charge. This study program was given the name Instituto Budadharma by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa in 2012, and currently admits over 500 students each semester.
Although the bulk of her time is now divided between India and Latin America, Damchö continues to participate in academic circles, presenting at conferences and engaging in collaborative research projects. She has served as a board member of Maitripa College, a Buddhist college in Portland, Oregon, since its founding in 2005.
Source[http://www.dharmadatta.org/en/lhundup-damcho/]
Professor Emeritus of Buddhist Ethics at the University of London, Goldsmiths. Research Interests include: Buddhist ethics: theoretical foundations and normative applications, with particular reference to medicine and biotechnology. ([https://www.gold.ac.uk/history/staff/d-keown/ Source: University Website Accessed June 25, 2020])
[https://networks.h-net.org/node/6060/pages/3571741/keown-damien H-Buddhism GENERATIONS OF BUDDHIST STUDIES Article] +
A master born in Khal Kha (Mongolia). His teachers included Blo bzang dge legs bstan 'dzin, Tshe dbang skyabs mchog, Bsod nams rgya mtsho, and Chos kyi rdo rje. His students included Skal bzang ye shes, Blo bzang bstan 'dzin dpal 'byor, Blo bzang yon tan, and Bsod nams rgya mtsho. +
Currently a literary translator for The Institute of Tibetan Classics, Dan Martin completed his doctoral degree in Tibetan Studies with minors in Religious Studies and Anthropology at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies in 1991. He has taught courses as a Visiting Lecturer at Indiana, Hamburg, and Harvard Universities. He has held research positions in Bloomington, Oslo, and Jerusalem. His publications include over 30 articles as well as books entitled ''Mandala Cosmogony'', Harrassowitz (Wiesbaden 1994), ''Unearthing Bon Treasures'', Brill (Leiden 2001), and the bibliography ''Tibetan Histories'', Serindia (London 1997). His main areas of research fall within the realm of the cultural history of Tibet, from the tenth century to the twentieth. His interests are in Indian and Tibetan literature, medicine and religions, as well as Eurasian interconnections in the same fields. These days he is finalizing a translation of a 400-page history of Buddhism in India and Tibet composed in the late 13th century. ([https://iias.huji.ac.il/people/dan-martin Source Accessed Aug 3, 2020]) +
Dan Smyer Yü is Kuige Professor of Ethnology, School of Ethnology and Sociology and the National Centre for Borderlands Ethnic Studies in Southwest China at Yunnan University. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Davis in 2006. Prior to his current faculty appointment, he was the Founding Director of the Center for Trans-Himalayan Studies at Yunnan Minzu University, a Senior Researcher/Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, a core member of the Transregional Research Network (CETREN) at University of Göttingen, and a New Millennium Scholar at Minzu University of China, Beijing. He is the author of ''The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China: Charisma, Money, Enlightenment'' (Routledge 2011) and ''Mindscaping the Landscape of Tibet: Place, Memorability, Eco-aesthetics'' (De Gruyter 2015), and the co-editor of ''Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China'' (Routledge 2014) and ''Trans-Himalayan Borderlands: Livelihoods, Territorialities, Modernities'' (Amsterdam University Press 2017). His research interests are religion and ecology, environmental humanities, trans-Himalayan studies, sacred landscapes, climate change and mass migration, modern Tibetan studies, and comparative studies of Eurasian secularisms. His externally funded projects are "Trans-Himalayan Environmental Humanities" (ICIMOD), "India-China Corridor Project" (the Swedish Research Council), "Cultural and Ecological Diversity of the Trans-Himalayas in the Context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative" (National Social Sciences Foundation of China), and "Sustainable Lives in Scarred Landscapes: Heritage, Environment, and Violence in the China-Myanmar Jade Trade" (The British Academy Sustainable Development Program). ([https://www.issrnc.org/2020/06/04/meet-issrnc-board-member-dan-smyer-yu/ Source Accessed Aug 10, 2020]) +
Dan Arnold is a scholar of Indian Buddhist philosophy, which he engages in a constructive and comparative way. Considering Indian Buddhist philosophy as integral to the broader tradition of Indian philosophy, he has particularly focused on topics at issue among Buddhist schools of thought (chiefly, those centering on the works of Nāgārjuna and of Dharmakīrti), often considering these in conversation with critics from the orthodox Brahmanical school of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. His first book – ''Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of Religion'' (Columbia University Press, 2005) – won an American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion. His second book – ''Brains, Buddhas, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind'' (Columbia University Press, 2012) – centers on the contemporary philosophical category of intentionality, taken as useful in thinking through central issues in classical Buddhist epistemology and philosophy of mind. This book received the Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism, awarded by the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is presently working on an anthology of Madhyamaka texts in translation, to appear in the series "Historical Sourcebooks in Classical Indian Thought." His essays have appeared in such journals as ''Philosophy East and West'', the ''Journal of Indian Philosophy'', ''Asian Philosophy'', the ''Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies'', the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', and ''Revue Internationale de Philosophie''. ([https://salc.uchicago.edu/daniel-arnold Source Accessed Jul 13, 2020]) +
Daniel A. Métraux is Professor of Asian Studies at Mary Baldwin College and Adjunct Professor of Asian Culture and History in the graduate program at the Union Institute and University. He has written extensively on Japan's New Religions and other aspects of modern Asian history, including ''Burma's Modern Tragedy'' (2004) and ''The Asian Writings of Jack London'' (2010). He has served as Editor of the ''Southeast Review of Asian Studies'' and as president of the SE Chapter, Association for Asian Studies. (Source: ''The Buddhist World'', notes on contributors, xvi) +
Dan Hirshberg’s study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism began as an undergrad in 1996 and culminated in a PhD at Harvard University (2012) where his dissertation focused on Nyang-rel Nyima Ozer (1124–92), the first of the great Buddhist treasure revealers, and the textual and religious innovations that produced the first biography of Padmasambhava. Dan is now Assistant Professor of Religion at the The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA, where he directs the Contemplative Studies program and serves as associate director of the Leidecker Center for Asian Studies. His first book, Remembering the Lotus-Born: Padmasambhava in the History of Tibet's Golden Age (Wisdom Publications 2016), explores the earliest re/construction of Tibet's most popular narrative, its conversion to Buddhism under the emperors, by means of Tibetan innovations in reincarnation theory, textual revelation, and historiography. It won Honorable Mention for the E. Gene Smith Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies in 2018. +
Daniel Boucher's scholarly focus is Buddhist studies, particularly the early development of the cluster of Indian Buddhist movements called the Mahayana and their transmission to China in the first few centuries of the Common Era. His related interests include translation as a religious genre, with special focus on the earliest translations of Buddhist texts into Chinese; Buddhist Middle Indo-Aryan, particularly the role of Gandhari Prakrit in the earliest transmission of Buddhism to Central Asia and China; art historical, epigraphical, and archeological materials as sources for the study of religion; and history, theory, and methods in the academic study of religion. ([https://religious-studies.cornell.edu/daniel-boucher Source Accessed May 20, 2021]) +
Dan Cozort grew up in North Dakota, where he ran cross-country and track and was a successful debater and extemporaneous speaker. At Brown University he majored in religious studies, specializing in Christian theology and ethics. At the graduate school of the University of Virginia, he specialized in Buddhism, learned Tibetan and Sanskrit, and began his collaboration with Tibetan lamas. He did a year of fieldwork in India, traveling broadly and staying in Tibetan monasteries. His teaching career began with a two-year appointment at Bates College in Maine. Coming to Dickinson in 1988, he proposed that the College join the South India Term Abroad consortium, which he directed in Madurai, south India, in 1992-93. In 1991 he organized the Festival of Tibet at Dickinson, which included an art exhibit he curated and was the initial occasion in which Tibetan monks constructed a Buddhist sand painting in the Trout Gallery. The monks returned in 1995 to construct another; he collaborated with Prof. Lonna Malmsheimer on a film to document it. In 2000 he began to teach in the Norwich Humanities Programme in England and in 2003-2005 he was its resident director. Prof. Cozort’s teaching is principally in the area of comparative religion, where he offers courses on Buddhism and Hinduism. However, he has also taught about Native American religions, about love and sex in relation to religion, about happiness, and has taught a variety of courses in the theory of religious studies. Currently, in addition to introductory courses, he frequently offers “Contemplative Practices in Asia,” “Buddhism and the Environment,” and “Spiritual Dimensions of Healing,” a course on the relation of religion and medicine. He is the author of six books: Highest Yoga tantra, Buddhist Philosophy, Unique Tenets of the Middle Way Consequence School, Sand Mandala of Vajrabhairava, Sadhana of Mahakala, and Enlightenment Through Imagination. He also edited the Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics.He has also written numerous book chapters and articles and a film script. From 2006 to 2019, he was the Editor of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics. ([https://www.dickinson.edu/site/custom_scripts/dc_faculty_profile_index.php?fac=cozort Source Accessed Apr 14, 2021])
Daniel Donnet is professor emeritus at Université catholique de Louvain. +
<h2>Summary</h2>
Daniel Gold has broad interests in South Asian religion and culture, with research specializations in old Hindi poetry, early modern North Indian devotional cultures, and contemporary religious life. He has also written on the study of religion.
<h2>Research Focus</h2>
Gold is currently revisiting the early modern Hindi saint-poets known collectively as "sants." Situating the religious cultures that have grown up around particular figures in their separate historical contexts, he seeks to understand factors affecting the diversity of the religious cultures that emerged around specific sants and continuities in the development of their tradition as a whole. ([https://religious-studies.cornell.edu/daniel-gold Source Accessed Feb 13, 2023]) +
University of Vienna, Department of South Asian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies +
Daniel Stuart is a scholar of South Asian religions, literary cultures, and meditation traditions who specializes in the texts and practices of the Buddhist tradition. He has worked extensively on sutra literature and Buddhist manuscripts in various Asian languages and scripts. He is particularly interested in the interrelationships between Buddhist practice traditions, theories of mind, and scriptural production in premodern and modern India. ([https://sam.research.sc.edu/uscera/facultyExpertise/cv/32657;jsessionid=F72AFD048453AE0C3FF4F670126B8062 Source Accessed 26 Jan 2015]) +
Daniel Brown is the author of 15 books including Transformations of Consciousness (with Ken Wilbur & Jack Engler), and a book on Mahamudra, Pointing Out the Great Way: The Mahamudra Tradition of Tibetan Meditation-Stages (Wisdom Publications), and two books on public dialogues with H.H. The Dalai Lama. He is also the co-author of a forthcoming book on the Bon A Khrid lineage of Bon Great Completion Meditation.
In graduate school at The University of Chicago he studied Sanskrit with Hans van Beutenen, and also studied Tibetan, Buddhist Sanskrit, and Pali languages in the Buddhist Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison WI. He spent 10 years translating meditation texts for his doctoral dissertation on Tibetan Buddhist Mahamudra meditation.
He has studied meditation practice for about 45 years, beginning with reading Patanjali’s Yogasutras and its main commentaries in the original Sanskrit with the great historian of religion professor Mircea Eliade, as well as practicing Patanjali's stages of meditation directly with Dr. Arwind Vasavada. At the same time, Dr. Brown studied the Burmese Theravadin Buddhist mindfulness meditation, first with Western teachers in the United States like Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Christopher Titmus, and then directly with the originator of the Burmese mindfulness tradition, Mahasi Sayadaw in Rangoon, Burma and other masters like Tungpulo Sayadaw and Achaan Cha. Read more [https://www.drdanielpbrown.com/buddhist-meditation-teacher here]. +
I have been interested for some time in the sites and economies of practice that mediated religious life in Middle Period China (10th–14th centuries), particularly as they applied to persons who identified themselves (or others) as “Buddhist.” This interest arises from the conviction that religious subjects and their traditions are not static and monolithically constituted entities, but disparate works in progress, the estimations of which are ceaselessly negotiated in relation to a diversity of shifting idioms, obligations, and historical contingencies. To me the key question becomes one of processes and agencies of cultural practice, and that question in turn implies networks, that is to say, the sites and channels through which cultural data move, locate, and come to be collectively embodied.
I am working on several projects at the moment, all of which focus on Song (960–1279) and Yuan period China (1279–1368). ([https://religiousstudies.ku.edu/daniel-stevenson Source Accessed October 22, 2019]) +
