Property:Bio
From Tsadra Commons
This is a property of type Text.
D
David Need is Lecturing Fellow of Religion at Duke University. He has taught at Duke since 1999, primarily in Religious Studies. He developed the ICS gateway class and taught it from 2005–2012. His academic expertise is in Asian Religions and in Literature and Religion, with a focus on poetics, ritual, and meditation systems.
In addition to scholarly articles, he has published three books — two are translations and essays on Rainer Maria Rilke, the third is a selection of his own poetry, including a long poem set alongside the Gospel of Mark.
===Current Research Interests===
* Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
* Non-dual awareness and poetics
* Influence of Buddhism on 20th Century American Poetry
* Women's Religious Experience & Poetics +
David Patt received his PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the author of ''A Strange Liberation: Tibetan Lives in Chinese Hands''. He recently served as executive director of the Dzogchen Foundation. (Source: [https://wisdomexperience.org/content-author/david-patt/ Wisdom Experience]) +
David R. Brockman, Ph.D., is a nonresident scholar for the Baker Institute’s Religion and Public Policy Program. He is also an adjunct professor at both Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University, where he teaches various courses in religion and religious studies.
From 2010 to 2012, Brockman served as the project director for the World Conference of Associations of Theological Institutions. He is the author several books, including “Dialectical Democracy through Christian Thought: Individualism, Relationalism, and American Politics” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013) and “No Longer the Same: Religious Others and the Liberation of Christian Theology” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011). His forthcoming publication, “Educating For Pluralism, or Against It? Lessons from Texas and Quebec on Teaching Religion in Public Schools,” will appear in Religion & Education.
Brockman holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Southern Methodist University. He received a Master of Theological Studies degree from the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University and his bachelor’s degree in English and education from the University of Texas at Arlington. ([https://www.bakerinstitute.org/experts/david-r-brockman/ Source Accessed Nov 25, 2019]) +
David Cummiskey teaches courses on biomedical ethics, philosophy of law, and seminars on moral theory, contemporary liberalism, and Buddhist philosophy. His research and publications focus on Kantian and consequentialist approaches to moral philosophy, political philosophy, and intercultural ethics and bioethics. His most recent articles discuss the relationship between Buddhist and Kantian ethics, and Buddhist environmental ethics and political philosophy. He is currently working on a series of articles that develop the relationships among Buddhist perfectionism, emergent conceptions of agency, compatibilist conceptions of free will, Kantian accounts of self-constitution, and Humean constructivism. ([https://www.bates.edu/faculty-expertise/profile/david-r-cummiskey/ Source Accessed May 18, 2021]) +
David Ross Komito is a professor of Asian Philosophy and author on the subjects of Mādhyamaka Buddhist philosophy, meditation and the psychology of religion.
Komito received his B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, his M.A. in Religious Studies, M.S. in Counseling and Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington. From 1986 through 1990 he was Dean of John F. Kennedy University's Graduate School for the Study of Human Consciousness. Since 1987 has lectured at San Francisco Zen Center, Finding the Path to Liberation Buddhist Center and other Buddhist centers in the Western USA. After teaching at John F. Kennedy University and the University of San Francisco, he created the Religious Studies Program at Eastern Oregon University. Since retiring from Eastern Oregon University he has been teaching part-time in the Philosophy Department of Portland State University, Oregon.
He is married to the thanka artist Kayla Komito and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Komito Source Accessed Mar 7, 2025]) +
[https://buddhanature.tsadra.org/index.php/Topic_of_the_week/Post-21 Please see Ruegg's obituary here].
David Seyfort Ruegg (New York, 1931) was an eminent Buddhologist with a long career, extending from the 1950s to the present. His specialty was Madhyamaka philosophy, a core doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism.
Ruegg graduated from École des Hautes Etudes in 1957 with degrees in historical science and Sanskrit. He published his thesis "Contributions à l'histoire de la philosophie linguistique indienne" ("Contributions to the History of Indian Linguistic Philosophy") in 1959. He received a second doctorate in linguistics from the Sorbonne in Paris, where his thesis was "La théorie du tathâgatagarbha et du gotra : études sur la sotériologie et la gnoséologie du bouddhisme" ("The Theory of Gotra and Tathâgatagarbha: A Study of the Soteriology and Gnoseology of Buddhism"), with a second half thesis on Bu Rin chen grub's approach to tathâgatagarbha. In 1964 he joined the faculty of the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient, where he researched the history, philology and philosophy of India, Tibet and Buddhism.
From 1966-1972 Ruegg occupied the Chair of Languages and Cultures of India and Tibet at Leiden University. His predecessor was [[Jan Willem de Jong]] and his successor was Tilmann Vetter. He has since become associated with the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Ruegg was president of the International Association for Buddhist Studies (IABS) from 1991 to 1999. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Seyfort_Ruegg Source Accessed Aug 5, 2020]) +
David Llewellyn Snellgrove (29 June 1920 – 25 March 2016) was a British Tibetologist noted for his pioneering work on Buddhism in Tibet as well as his many travelogues. Snellgrove was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and educated at Christ's Hospital near Horsham in West Sussex. He went on to study German and French at Southampton University. In 1941 he was called up to do his military service as a member of the Royal Engineers. He attended the Officers Cadet Training Unit in the Scottish seaside town of Dunbar, and was commissioned as an infantry officer. Thereafter he attended various intelligence courses and further training at the War Office in London, from where he requested a posting to India.
Snellgrove arrived in Bombay in June 1943, and travelled cross-country to Calcutta. He was stationed at Barrackpore, some way up the Hooghly River. A few months after beginning his posting he contracted malaria and was sent to the military hospital at Lebong, just north of Darjeeling. It was while he was at Lebong that he began his future life's calling by purchasing some books about Tibet by Charles Bell as well as a Tibetan Grammar and Reader.
Snellgrove returned to Darjeeling, from where he sometimes went on leave to Kalimpong. On one of these visits he took a young Tibetan into his personal employ in order to have someone with whom to practice speaking Tibetan. He also travelled in the small Himalayan state of Sikkim, and on one such visit he met Sir Basil Gould, who was then the British Representative for Tibet.[2] Inspired to work in Tibet, in 1946 after he left the Army he sat the entrance exams for the Indian Civil Service. This was the first time the exams had been held since the start of the war, and the last time they were ever held. Although he passed the exams, he was not able to take up an appointment in India. Having already begun to study Tibetan, he resolved to find a university where he could further his studies. However, as no university offered courses in Tibetan at that time he was convinced by Sir Harold Bailey that a sound knowledge of Sanskrit and Pali would be beneficial, so he gained entry to Queens' College, Cambridge in October 1946. While at Cambridge, he converted to Roman Catholicism, in part through the influence of his friend Bede Griffiths.
In 1950, after having completed his studies at Cambridge, he was invited to teach a course in elementary Tibetan at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London.[3] He was Professor of Tibetan at SOAS until his retirement in 1982.
Snellgrove's research subsequent to his retirement was focused increasingly upon the art history of South East Asia. He died on 25 March 2016 in Pinerolo, Italy. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Snellgrove Source Accessed Feb 14, 2020])
David Tuffley is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & Socio-Technical Studies at Griffith University in Australia.
David writes on a broad range of interests; from Anthropology, Psychology, Ancient and Modern History, Linguistics, Rhetoric, Comparative Religions, Philosophy, Architectural History, Environments and Ecosystems. +
David Wellington Chappell (1940–2004) was a professor of Buddhist studies whose specialties were Chinese Buddhist traditions (esp. Tiantai) and interreligious dialogue. After receiving a B.A. from Mount Allison University and a B.D. from McGill University, he completed a Ph.D. in the history of religions at Yale University. His subsequent teaching career included three decades as a professor of religion at the University of Hawaii, where he founded the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies in 1981, edited it through 1985, then helped found the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies in 1987. His publications include Buddhist and Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese Society, T'ien-t'ai Buddhism: An Outline of the Fourfold Teachings, Buddhist Peace Work: Creating Cultures of Peace, and Unity in Diversity: Hawaii's Buddhist Communities.
After retiring from the University of Hawaii, he taught comparative studies at Soka University of America and was actively engaged in Buddhist-Muslim dialogue in Asia, Europe, and North America. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_W._Chappell Source Accessed June 14, 2023]) +
David Welsh is a mitra in the Triratna Buddhist Community, and teaches and practises Buddhism atthe Oslo Buddhist Centre. He is a Master’s student in the History of Religion at the University ofOslo, and a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of Palaeography and Historical Philology. ([https://www.academia.edu/5112350/Brain_Hacking_and_Mind_Upgrades_Buddhism_of_the_Future_Book_Review_ Source Accessed Sep 29, 2022]) +
TSERIl\C DAWA is a postgraduate student at the College of Tibetan Studies,
Nationalities University of China, Beijing. His research focuses on Buddhist rituals
and the Bo dong school of Tibetan Buddhism. +
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (the editor) is M.A., D.Ltt. of the Calcutta University, Honorary D.Sc. of the Moscow Academy of Sciences, Member of the German Academy of Sciences. Besides working as Visiting Professor at various universities, he is the author of a considerable number of works on Indian Philosophy and Science inclusive of many that are published abroad in Russian, Chinese,
Japanese, German and other languages. Currently, he is elected National Fellow of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, though he is also working in an honorary capacity as a Guest Scientist of National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies (a constituent
establishment of CSIR). (Source: inside jacket, ''Tāranātha's History of Buddhism in India'', 1990) +
Deborah Klimburg-Salter is an art historian. She is Professor emerita of Asian Art History at the Institute
of Art History, University of Vienna, Director of the research platform CIRDIS (Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation Inner and South Asia) and Associate of the Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University. Her research specializes on Northern India, Tibet and Central Asia. Emphasis on the monastic arts and cultural history of the early medieval periods. Her publications include: with L. Lojda, ed. ''Changing Forms and Cultural Identity: Religious and Secular Iconographies''. Brepols: Turnhout. 2014; "The Tibetan Himalayan Style: The Art of the Western Domains 8th–11th.” In ''Cultural Flows Across the Western Himalaya'', edited by P. McAllister, H. Krasser, and C. Scherrer-Schaub, 313–360. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014. ([https://brill.com/display/book/9789004307438/B9789004307438_001.xml Source Accessed Aug 1, 2023]) +
Dechen Rochard has a B.A. (Hons) in Philosophy (University of London) and a PhD in Buddhist philosophy (University of Cambridge). She also completed a traditional ten-year study program in Buddhist Philosophy at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics (Dharamsala, India). She is currently working for The Dalai Lama Trust translating texts. +
Delog Dawa Drolma (?-1941) was a great female teacher of Tibet, a délok, and the mother of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche.
According to Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche:
My mother was revered throughout Tibet for her extraordinary powers as a lama, but she was more famous for being a delog, one who has crossed the threshold of death and returned to tell about it. Hers was not a visionary or momentary near-death experience. For five full days she lay cold, breathless, and devoid of any vital signs, while her consciousness moved freely into other realms, often escorted by the wisdom goddess White Tara. She undertook her journey as a delog according to instructions she had received from Tara in visions, but against the wishes of her lamas, who pleaded with her not to take such a risk. It is remarkable that she, a young woman of sixteen, had so much confidence in her meditation that she prevailed over very wise, much older lamas. However, she herself had been recognized as an emanation of White Tara, a powerful force of enlightened mind for the longevity and liberation of all sentient beings.
Delog Dawa Drolma received teachings from Dudjom Rinpoche. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Delog_Dawa_Drolma Source Accessed Feb 22, 2023]) +
Denis Mair holds an M.A. in Chinese from Ohio State University and has taught at University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a research fellow at Hanching Academy, Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan. He translated autobiographies by the philosopher Feng Youlan (Hawaii University Press) and the Buddhist monk Shih Chen-hua (SUNY Press). His translation of art criticism by Zhu Zhu was published by Hunan Fine Arts Press (2009). He has translated poetry by Yan Li, Mai Cheng, Meng Lang, Luo Ying, Jidi Majia, Yang Ke, and others. He also translated essays by design critic Tang Keyang and art historian Lü Peng for exhibitions they curated respectively in 2009 and 2011 at the Venice Biennial. (See Lü Peng, From San Servolo to Amalfi, Charta Books, Milan, 2011). ([https://adozennothing.com/adn-archive/denis-mair-september-2016/ Source Accessed Aug 8, 2023]) +
Denma Geshe Lobzang Choying (19th cent.) attended Drepung Loseling Monastic College. He wrote refutations on the views of Jamgon Ju Mipam Gyatso (1846-1912) on topics such as Madhyamaka philosophy and emptiness. ([https://library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:WA00EGS1016271 Source Accessed Feb 10, 2023]) +
Dr. Dennis Hirota is a professor in the Department of Shin Buddhism at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan. He was born in Berkeley, California in 1946 and received his B.A. from University of California, Berkeley. In 2008, he was a visiting professor of Buddhism at Harvard Divinity School where his studies focused on the Buddhist monk Shinran.
He has worked extensively as a translator and editor of Buddhist works. He is particularly known for his translation work in The Collected Works of Shinran. He has also published numerous books and articles, in both English and Japanese, on Pure Land Buddhism and Buddhist aesthetics. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hirota Source Accessed June 2, 2023]) +
Dennis Johnson has an academic background in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies and has worked as a librarian, translator, editor and interpreter. He has also pursued additional training in various mindfulness-based, psychosocial and psychotherapeutic interventions. His main interest lies in forms of transdisciplinary and transcultural research and practice, and their potential to provide a new paradigm for individual, social and cultural transformation based on traditional knowledge as well as modern science. ([https://transpersonal-training.com/dennis-johnson/ Source Accessed Mar 9, 2023]) +
A teacher of Ngawang Puntsok Döndrup and The Second Dzongsar Khyentse, Jamyang Chökyi Lodrö. +
