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Lama David Curtis founded the Tibetan Language Institute in 1996. Since then he has taught Tibetan language and Buddhism courses full-time, specializing in the development of Dharma-centered learning materials and instruction for Western students.
He is motivated by a desire to help others participate in the dharma in more meaningful ways; in puja, in private meditation practice, in meditational retreats, as Tibetan interpreters.
As president and executive director of TLI and Big Sky Mind, David strives to fulfill the TLI mission of helping to preserve the Tibetan language and culture through the teaching of the Tibetan language and instruction in meditation. ([https://www.tibetanlanguage.org/about/david-curtis/ Source Accessed Jan 20, 2025]) +
Associate Professor, Dept. of Religion, University of Manitoba +
Associate Professor, Dept. of Religion, University of Manitoba +
David E. Cooper is a British author and philosopher. He was brought up in Surrey and educated at Highgate School and then Oxford University, where he was given his first job in 1967, as a Lecturer in Philosophy. He went on to teach at the universities of Miami, London and Surrey before being appointed, in 1986, as Professor of Philosophy at Durham University – where he remained until retiring in 2008. During his academic career, David was a Visiting Professor at universities in the United States, Canada, Malta, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Cooper is the former Chair (or President) of the Aristotelian Society, the Mind Association, the Friedrich Nietzsche Society, and the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. He is Secretary and a Trustee of the charity Project Sri Lanka, and he spends time each year visiting and supervising educational and humanitarian projects.
Cooper has published across a broad range of philosophical subjects, including philosophy of language, philosophy of education, ethics, aesthetics, environmental philosophy, animal ethics, philosophy of technology, philosophy of religion, history of both Western philosophy and Asian philosophy, and modern European philosophy, especially Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. In recent years, Cooper has written widely on environmental and Buddhist aesthetics, music and nature, the relationship of beauty and virtue, cultures of food, the significance of gardens, Daoism, our relationship to animals, and the notion of mystery.
Cooper is the author of a number of books, including ''World Philosophies: An Historical Introduction''; ''Meaning''; ''Existentialism: A Reconstruction''; ''The Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility and Mystery''; ''A Philosophy of Gardens''; ''Convergence with Nature: A Daoist Perspective''; ''Senses of Mystery: Engaging with Nature and the Meaning of Life''; and ''Animals and Misanthropy''. He has also edited a number of collections, including ''Blackwell Companion to Aesthetics''; ''Philosophy: The Classic Readings''; ''Epistemology: The Classic Readings''; ''Ethics: The Classic Readings''; and ''Aesthetics: The Classic Readings'' – the latter four notable for their inclusion of material from the Indian and Chinese traditions. He is joint editor of ''Key Thinkers on the Environment''. Cooper is a regular reviewer of books for magazines, including ''The Times Literary Supplement'' and ''The Los Angeles Review of Books''. He is also the author of three novels, all set in Sri Lanka: ''Street Dog: A Sri Lankan Story'', its sequel, ''Old Stripe'', and ''A Shot on the Beach''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._Cooper Source Accessed Mar 12, 2021])
David Gonsalez (Losang Tsering) has been practicing Dharma for over twenty-five years and since that time has devoted the entirety of his life to practice, study, translation, as well as hosting and organizing numerous Dharma teachings and events in the Seattle area. He first began studying with Geshe Khenrab Gajam and traveled to Montreal on several occasions to receive teachings. After Geshe Khenrab’s passing David developed a close relationship with several lamas including Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Ribur Rinpoche. Most notably David invited Gen Lobsang Choephel to Seattle on five occasions at which time he received countless empowerments, oral transmissions, and commentaries. David has also received numerous empowerments and teachings from other great lamas such as Lati Rinpoche, Denma Locho Rinpoche, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, and many more.
David has devoted a great deal of the last twenty-five years to retreat and has completed forty-three fully qualified retreats including subsequent fire pujas. As the translator for Dechen Ling Press these retreats give David a unique opportunity to approach these translations as not only a translator but an experienced practitioner as well assuring the translations are accurate and true to the lineage passed down through Tibetan lamas. ([https://dechenlingpress.org/about/the-translator/ Source: Dechen Link Press 2014 Website]) +
David Gray received his B.A. in Religious Studies from Wesleyan University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in the History of Religion from Columbia University. His research explores the development of tantric Buddhist traditions in South Asia, and their dissemination in Tibet and East Asia, with a focus on the Yogin?tantras, a genre of Buddhist tantric literature that focused on female deities and yogic practices involving the subtle body. He focuses particularly on the Cakrasamvara Tantra, an esoteric Indian Buddhist scripture that serves as the basis for a number of important Nepali and Tibetan Buddhist practice traditions. ([https://www.scu.edu/cas/religious-studies/faculty--staff/david-gray/ Source Accessed Dec 3, 2019])
[https://www.scu.edu/media/college-of-arts-and-sciences/religious-studies/cvs/GrayCV1.pdf Curriculum Vitae] +
David Higgins received his doctorate from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland in 2012. He subsequently held a position as a Post-doc Research Fellow in the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna where he explored the relationship between Mahāmudrā and Madhyamaka philosophies in Bka’ brgyud scholasticism during the post-classical period (15th to 16th centuries). His research interests include Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and epistemology with a particular focus on Bka’ brgyud Mahāmudrā and Rnying ma Rdzogs chen doctrines and practices. His PhD thesis was published under the title ''Philosophical Foundations of Classical Rdzogs chen in Tibet: Investigating the Distinction Between Dualistic Mind (sems) and Primordial Knowing (ye shes)'' (Vienna, WSTB no. 78, 2013). His recent publications include ''Mahāmudrā and the Middle Way: Post-classical Kagyü Discourses on Mind, Emptiness and Buddha Nature'' (Vienna, WSTB no. 90, 2016, 2 vols.) and ''Buddha Nature Reconsidered: The Eighth Karma pa’s Middle Path'' (Vienna, WSTB, forthcoming, 2 vols.), both of which were co-authored with Martina Drazczyk. ([https://conference.tsadra.org/past-event/2019-vienna-symposium/ Source Accessed July 22, 2020]) +
David P. Jackson made many important contributions to the field of Tibetan studies and Tibetan art before he passed away in 2025. He received his doctorate in 1985 from the University of Washington and studied and translated for many years in Seattle for the polymath Tibetan scholar Dezhung Rinpoche. Until 2007, he was a professor of Tibetan Studies at Hamburg University in Germany, and after that was a curator for the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. He is the author of numerous articles and books on Tibetan art, literature, and history, including ''A Saint in Seattle'' (2003), ''Tibetan Thangka Painting'' (1984), ''The Mollas of Mustang (1984)'', ''A History of Tibetan Painting'' (1996), ''Enlightenment by a Single Means'' (1994), and the “Masterworks of Tibetan Painting” series (2009–2016), written for the Rubin Museum. He also translated ''A Concise History of the Glorious Sakyapa School'' (2022). +
David Jones is professor of philosophy and editor of ''Comparative and Continental Philosophy'' (Taylor and Francis), the founding editor of ''East-West Connections'' from 2000 to 2013, and the editor of the ''Series on Comparative and Continental Philosophy''. In 2013 and 2015 he was Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at National Taiwan University and has been a visiting professor at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, Visiting Professor of Chinese Philosophy at the University of North Georgia, and Visiting Professor of Confucian Classics at Emory. From 1996 to 2008 he was the director of the Center for the Development of Asian Studies, which was a Southeast regional center of the Asian Studies Development Program of the East-West Center in Honolulu. Under his direction, CDAS coordinated a number of faculty development workshops and organized conferences and programs on Asia for faculty and the public in Atlanta, the Southeast, and nationally. David Jones was the president of the highly regarded Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle for the last twelve years. ([http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~djones/index.htm Source Accessed Mar 17, 2020]) +
David J. Kalupahana (1936–2014) was a Buddhist scholar from Sri Lanka. He was a student of the late K.N. Jayatilleke, who was a student of Wittgenstein. He wrote mainly about epistemology, theory of language, and compared later Buddhist philosophical texts against the earliest texts and tried to present interpretations that were both historically contextualized and also compatible with the earliest texts, and in doing so, he encouraged Theravadin Buddhists and scholars to reevaluate the legitimacy of later, Mahayana texts and consider them more sympathetically.
Born in Galle District, Southern Sri Lanka, Kalupahana attended Mahinda College, Galle for his school education. He obtained his BA (Sri Lanka, 1959), Ph.D (London), and D. Litt (Hon. Peradeniya, Sri Lanka). He was Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii. He was assistant lecturer in Pali and Buddhist Civilization at the University of Ceylon, and studied Chinese and Tibetan at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London where he completed a Ph.D. dissertation on the problem of causality in the Pali Nikayas and Chinese Agamas in 1966.
He left the University of Ceylon (1972) to join the University of Hawaii, serving as the Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Chairman of the Graduate Field in Philosophy (1974–80). He directed international intra-religious conferences on Buddhism, and on Buddhism and Peace.
Many of his books are published and widely available in India (by Motilal Banarsidass and others), and therefore presumably have a fairly significant influence on the fields of Buddhism and Buddhist Studies in India and other nearby South Asian countries, such as his native Sri Lanka. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kalupahana Source Accessed Apr 21, 2021]) +
Khenpo David Karma Choephel studied Buddhist philosophy at the Vajra Vidya Institute in Namo Buddha, Nepal, and Sarnath, India. He currently serves as Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche’s main English-language translator, and also translates for the Gyalwang Karmapa and the Kagyu Monlam.
His published translations include ''Ngondro for Our Current Day'' by the Gyalwang Karmapa, ''Heart of the Dharma'' by Khenchen Trangu Rinpoche, ''Jewels from the Treasury, Vasubandhu’s Verses on the Treasury of Abhidharma'', with commentary by the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje, all published by KTD Publications; and ''Vivid Awareness: The Mind Instructions of Khenpo Gangshar'' by Thrangu Rinpoche, published by Shambhala Publications. His most recent translation, ''The Torch of True Meaning: Instructions and the Practice Text for the Mahamudra Preliminaries'' by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye and the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje, was taught by the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, ''A Collection of Commentaries on The Four-Session Guru Yoga'', Compiled by the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, both published by KTD Publications. ([http://www.ktdpublications.com/david-karma-choephel/ Source Accessed Feb 12, 2020]) +
Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University. (BU JD, CU PhD). Dr. Kittay specializes in teaching courses on Buddhism and on Eastern and Western philosophy, most recently, “Technology, Religion, Future,” “Interpreting Buddhist Yoga,” "Law and Religion," and "Reincarnation, Simulation, Resurrection." He is the translator of The Vajra Rosary Tantra (Wisdom Publications, forthcoming 2019), Alaṃkakalaśa’s word commentary on the Vajra Rosary Tantra, and, with Professor Lozang Jamspal, Pha Dampa Sangs rgyas's One Hundred Spiritual Instructions to the Dingri People (Ladakh Ratnashridipika Press, 2011), the Elucidation of the Intention Tantra, The Questions of the Four Goddesses Tantra and Tsong Khapa's commentary on it, The Vajra Intuition Compendium Tantra, with Tsong Khapa's commentary, and the Later Tantra (these being the first complete English translations of the Explanatory Tantras of the Guhyasamāja under the Noble Tradition, and (under a grant from 84000,Translating the Words of the Buddha) The Symphony of Dharma Sūtra, along with other publications about Buddhism, religion, and law. He regularly lectures at Tibet House US, where he serves on the Board, and at Do Ngak Kunphen Ling Tibetan Buddhist Center, at Columbia, and worldwide, and is the President of the Tibetan Classics Translators Guild of New York. He also writes and lectures on the subject of compassionate lawyering, and has served as a trial and civil rights lawyer, federal bankruptcy trustee and a receiver for the Securities Exchange Commission. He is currently Director and Professor of Philosophy at the Harlem Clemente Course for the Humanities, teaching humanities to economically disadvantaged people in Harlem.
Dr. Kittay's current primary research interests are Buddhist philosophy and tantra, hermeneutic yoga, and consciousness studies. ([https://religion.columbia.edu/content/david-kittay Source: Columbia University, Accessed July 27, 2024]) +
David Kittelstrom is a senior editor at Wisdom Publications, where he has worked since 1993, and staff editor for The Library of Tibetan Classics, Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Teachings of the Buddha, and Classics of Indian Buddhism series. He is not himself a translator but has had the good fortune to work closely with many. ([http://conference-wp.tsadra.org/2017-conference/2017-speakers/ Source]) +
David Landis Barnhill is the former Director of Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. He is the translator of ''Basho's Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho'' (2005), ''Basho's Haiku: Selected Poems of Matsuo Basho'' (2004), and the coeditor (with Roger S. Gottlieb) of ''Deep Ecology and World Religions: New Essays on Sacred Ground'' (2001), all published by SUNY Press. +
David Lazar Friedmann (b. Amsterdam 26.2.1903 — d. London 11.4.1984) was a Dutch Buddhist scholar and Art Historian in the U.K. He was born into a Jewish family engaged in the diamond trade. After school in Amsterdam he studied Sanskrit for three years at Utrecht (under Caland), then the history of religion, Sanskrit and Indian art and archaeology at Leiden (under Vogel). He earned his Ph.D. in 1936 from Leiden. After a year of further studies at Oxford (under Johnston), he became Lecturer in Buddhist Studies at Leiden in 1938. As a jew he was dismissed after German occupation in 1940, but continued to teach clandestinely. Leaving the country in 1941, he joined the Netherlands Information Bureau in New York, writing and lecturing on the history and culture of the Netherlands, India, and Indonesia. From 1946-50 he served as Professor at the University of Indonesia in Batavia/Jakarta, and he taught Sanskrit, Buddhist philosophy, and Indian art. From 1950 he was Lecturer and from 1959 he was a Reader at S.O.A.S. in London, and also taught at King’s College. He retired in 1970, but continued lecturing. He was married to Helène (d. 1976), a ceramic artist of Russian-Jewish origin, and had two daughters.
Friedman took great care supervising his students and published himself very little. Among his students were Lohuizen-De Leeuw, D. Killingley, and Rita Gupta.
Publications: Diss. [Sthiramati:] Madhyāntavibhāgaṭīkā. Analysis of the Middle Path and the Extremes. 143 p. Utrecht 1937 (translated). ([https://whowaswho-indology.info/2099/friedman-david-lazar/ Adapted from Source June 29, 2023]) +
David Robert Loy is a professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism.
He is a prolific author, whose essays and books have been translated into many languages. His articles appear regularly in the pages of major journals such as ''Tikkun'' and Buddhist magazines including ''Tricycle'', ''Lion's Roar'', and ''Buddhadharma'', as well as in a variety of scholarly journals. Many of his writings, as well as audio and video talks and interviews, are available on the web. He is on the advisory boards of Buddhist Global Relief, the Clear View Project, Zen Peacemakers, and the Ernest Becker Foundation.
David lectures nationally and internationally on various topics, focusing primarily on the encounter between Buddhism and modernity: what each can learn from the other. He is especially concerned about social and ecological issues. A popular recent lecture is "Healing Ecology: A Buddhist Perspective on the Eco-crisis", which argues that there is an important parallel between what Buddhism says about our personal predicament and our collective predicament today in relation to the rest of the biosphere. You can hear David's podcast interview with Wisdom Publications here. Presently he is offering workshops on "Transforming Self, Transforming Society" and on ''Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Precipice'', which is also the title of a new book forthcoming in early 2019. He also leads meditation retreats.
Loy is a professor of Buddhist and comparative philosophy. His BA is from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and he studied analytic philosophy at King’s College, University of London. His MA is from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and his PhD is from the National University of Singapore. His dissertation was published by Yale University Press as ''Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy''. He was senior tutor in the Philosophy Department of Singapore University (later the National University of Singapore) from 1978 to 1984. From 1990 until 2005, he was professor in the Faculty of International Studies, Bunkyo University, Chigasaki, Japan. In January 2006, he became the Besl Family Chair Professor of Ethics/Religion and Society with Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, a visiting position that ended in September 2010. In April 2007, David Loy was visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. From January to August 2009 he was a research scholar with the Institute for Advanced Study, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. From September through December 2010 he was in residence at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, with a Lenz Fellowship. In November 2014, David was a visiting professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands. In January through April 2016, David was visiting Numata professor of Buddhism at the University of Calgary. ([https://www.davidloy.org/ Source Accessed Sep 17, 2021])
D. Max Moerman is Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures. He is Co-Chair of the Columbia University Seminar in Buddhist Studies and an Associate Director of the Columbia Center for Buddhism and Asian Religions. He holds an A.B. from Columbia College and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research interests are in the visual and material culture of Japanese religions. ([https://barnard.edu/profiles/d-max-moerman Source Accessed Nov 29, 2023]) +
David L. McMahan is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, where he teaches classes on Asian religion and philosophy.
His research is on the interface of Buddhism and modernity, including its interactions with science, psychology, literature, romanticism, and transcendentalism.
His latest book is on the ways that Buddhist and Buddhist-derived meditation is understood and practiced in different cultural and historical contexts, ancient and modern.
He has also written on ancient Buddhist literature in India. +
David Michie is the internationally best-selling author of ''The Dalai Lama's Cat'' series of novels, as well as non-fiction titles including ''Why Mindfulness is Better than Chocolate'', ''Hurry Up and Meditate'', ''Buddhism for Busy People'' and ''Buddhism for Pet Lovers''. His books are available in 26 languages in over 40 different countries.
David is a keynote speaker, corporate trainer and coach on mindfulness and meditation. He has extensive experience presenting to a wide variety of different audiences around the world.
In 2015 he established Mindful Safaris, leading groups to Africa – where he was born and brought up – encouraging people to visit unexplored places, outer and inner, through a combination of daily game viewing trips and mindfulness sessions.
David’s blog on mindfulness and related subjects at www.davidmichie.com attracts a global audience of thousands of visitors each week. ([https://davidmichie.com/about-david-michie/ Source Accessed Apr 6, 2021]) +
David Molk studied Tibetan language at Venerable Geshe Rabten's Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in Mont-Pelerin, Switzerland. Since 1987 he has interpreted and translated for many Tibetan lamas. He lives in Big Sur, California. +
