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Khenpo Yönga aka Khenchen Yönten Gyatso (Tib. ཡོན་ཏན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wyl. yon tan rgya mtsho) (19th-20th C.) was a personal student of Patrul Rinpoche and Orgyen Tendzin Norbu. He belonged to Gemang Monastery, a branch of Dzogchen Monastery, and studied at Dzogchen and Shechen monasteries. He wrote a very popular two-part commentary on Rigdzin Jikme Lingpa's Treasury of Precious Qualities, called Lamp of Moonlight and Rays of Sunlight. Among his students were Changma Khenchen Thubten Chöpel (the teacher of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Khenpo Jikmé Phuntsok) and Khenchen Tsewang Rigdzin of Washul Mewa (who attained the rainbow body). (Source: [https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Khenpo_Yönga Rigpawiki]) +
Professor at Tibet University in Lhasa. +
Gendün Drub was a close disciple of Tsongkhapa, after first ordaining and training in the great Kadam monastery of Nartang. Gendün Drub was instrumental in spreading the new Geluk tradition in Tsang; he founded the great monastery Tashilhunpo in 1447 and was its first abbot, until 1484. He was posthumously identified as the First Dalai Lama, a previous incarnation of the third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso, who first held the title. Gendün Drub was identified as an emanation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion believed to be embodied in the Dalai Lama incarnation line. +
Gene Reeves studied, taught, and wrote in Japan for twenty years, primarily on Buddhism and interfaith relations. When he retired from the University of Tsukuba, where he taught for eight years, he served as the international advisor at Rissho Kosei- kai. He was a founder of and the special minister for the International Buddhist Congregation in Tokyo, and he also served as the international advisor to the Niwano Peace Foundation and was the coordinator of an annual International Seminar on the Lotus Sutra. In the spring of 2008, Reeves was a visiting professor at the University of Peking, Beijing, China.
Reeves was active in interfaith conversations and organizations: he served as chair of the Planning Committee for the 1987 Congress of the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) at Stanford University; he was one of the founders of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions; and he was a member of the Board of the Society for Buddhist Christian Studies. In Japan he was an advisor to the Japan Liaison Committee of the IARF and a participant in the Religious Summit at Mount Hiei and in various activities of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. As a Buddhist teacher, he traveled frequently to China, Singapore, Taiwan, America, and Europe to give talks at universities and churches, mainly on the Lotus Sutra.
Gene Reeves died in 2019.
(Source: [https://wisdomexperience.org/content-author/gene-reeves/ Wisdom Publications]) +
[https://www.tbrc.org/#!footer/about/genesmith Founder of TBRC, now BDRC]
*[https://84000.co/obituary-of-e-gene-smith/ Obituary on 84000]
*[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/01/AR2011010102390.html Obituary in Washington Post]
*[http://digitaldharma.com/home Documentary film about his life and work: Digital Dharma]
''[https://www.tbrc.org/#!footer/about/genesmith Biography from BDRC]:''
E. Gene Smith (BDRC Founder and Senior Research Scholar) was born in Ogden, Utah in 1936. He studied at a variety of institutions of higher education in the United States: Adelphi College, Hobart College, University of Utah, and the University of Washington in Seattle.
In 1959, the Rockefeller Foundation, seeing the opportunity to promote Tibetan studies, funded the establishment of nine centers of excellence worldwide, one of which was at the University of Washington.
Under the auspices of the Rockefeller grant to the Far Eastern and Russian Institute, nine Tibetans were brought to Seattle for teaching and research, including the Ven. Deshung Rinpoche Kunga Tenpai Nyima, the tutor to the Sakya Phuntsho Phodrang. Smith had the good fortune to study Tibetan culture as well as Buddhism with Deshung Rinpoche and the rest of the Tibetan teachers in Seattle from 1960 to 1964. He lived with the Sakya family for five years. He spent the summer of 1962 travelling to the other Rockefeller centers in Europe to meet with the Tibetan savants there.
In 1964 he completed his Ph.D. qualifying exams and travelled to Leiden for advanced studies in Sanskrit and Pali. In 1965 he went to India under a Foreign Area Fellowship Program (Ford Foundation) grant to study with living exponents of all of the Tibetan Buddhist and Bonpo traditions.
He began his studies with Geshe Lobsang Lungtok (Ganden Changtse), Drukpa Thoosay Rinpoche and Khenpo Noryang, and H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He decided to remain in India to continue serious study of Tibetan Buddhism and culture. He travelled extensively in the borderlands of India and Nepal. In 1968 he joined the Library of Congress New Delhi Field Office. He then began a project which was to last over the next two and a half decades: the reprinting of the Tibetan books which had been brought by the exile community or were with members of the Tibetan-speaking communities in Sikkim, Bhutan, India, and Nepal.
He became field director of the Library of Congress Field Office in India in 1980 and served there until 1985 when he was transferred to Indonesia. He stayed in Jakarta running the Southeast Asian programs until 1994 when he was assigned to the LC Middle Eastern Office in Cairo.
In February 1997 he took early retirement from the U.S. Library of Congress to become a consultant to the Trace Foundation for the establishment of the Himalayan and Inner Asian Resources (HIAR) library.
In December 1999 he and a group of friends established the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center in Cambridge.
He passed away on December 16, 2010. (Source Accessed on June 30, 2020)
Japanese Tendaishū monk, scholar, and artist, popularly known as Eshin Sōzu (Head Monk of Eshin) because he spent much of his life at the monastery of Eshin at Yokawa on Hieizan. Genshin was born in Yamoto province (present-day Nara prefecture), but after losing his father at a young age, he was put in the care of the Tendai center on Mt. Hiei. It is believed that during his teens he formally joined the institution and became a student of the Tendai reformer Ryōgen (912–985). Genshin first gained a name for himself in 974 due to his sterling performance in an important debate at Mt. Hiei. Eventually, Genshin retired to the secluded monastery of Shuryōgon'in in Yokawa, where he devoted the rest of his life primarily to scholarship. Genshin wrote on a wide array of Buddhist topics related to both Tendai and Pure Land practices and is also regarded as the founder of the Eshin school of Tendai, which espoused the notion that everyone in inherently awakened (J. ''hongaku''). (Source: "Genshin." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 318. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Geoff Bailey is currently a resident scholar at the Tibetan Academy of Social Science,
having graduated from the Tibet University Tibetan language program. He has been
involved in numerous Tibetan language projects. (Source: ''The Six Brothers'', 2007) +
Geoff Barstow first encountered Tibetan Buddhism in 1999, while on a study abroad trip in college. Since that time, the study of Tibetan religion, history, and culture has been the focus of his professional life. He has spent more than six years conducting research in Nepal, China, and Tibet. At present, that research focuses on the history of vegetarianism on the Tibetan plateau, asking questions about how animals were viewed, how they were treated (ie: eaten), and what that can tell us about Tibetan Buddhism more broadly. As a teacher, his courses emphasize various aspects of Buddhist religious thought, but also seek to explore how those ideas have been lived and experienced by actual Buddhists. ([https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/geoffrey-barstow Source Accessed Apr 27, 2021]) +
Geoffrey Samuel’s research extends over a number of interrelated areas within religious studies, social anthropology, comparative sociology, and cognate disciplines. Theoretically, his interests centre around an understanding of cultural processes and their effects on human behaviour, in terms which recognise the embodied character of human existence and which give proper weight to both human consciousness and biology. He is particularly interested in religion (including ‘shamanism’) in relation to healing, gender and ecology, including the ways in which these issues manifest in contemporary societies.
His main ethnographic focus has been on religion in Tibetan societies. His work on Tibetan religion has also extended into the social history of Indic religions more generally. Other research topics include Tibetan medicine and health practices, the anthropology of music, research on Buddhism and other new religious movements (paganism, shamanism, esotericism) in the UK and Australia, and research into Islam in the UK and Bangladesh. He has carried out extensive field research over many years in India, Nepal, Tibet, and other Asian and Western societies.
His recent research, organised through the Research Group on the Body, Health and Religion (BAHAR), focusses on the understanding of healing processes in a variety of contexts: folk healing practices in Asian societies, ‘traditional’ Asian medical and yogic practices aimed at healing, and Western adaptations and developments of such practices within the field of complementary and alternative medicine. This research has included two major externally-funded projects under his direction, an AHRC-funded project on Tibetan longevity practices (with Cathy Cantwell and Rob Mayer) and a Leverhulme Trust-funded project on Tibetan medicine in the Bon tradition (with Colin Millard). Currently he is involved in a Templeton Foundation-funded project on meditation-derived compassion training for nurses and other health staff in Sydney, NSW.
In 2008-11, he also took part in an ESRC-funded project on young Bangladeshis, marriage and the family in Bangladesh and the UK directed by Dr Santi Rozario.<br> ([https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/702489-samuel-geoffrey Source Accessed Aug 7, 2020])
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold is the abbot and resident teacher of Zen Mountain Monastery and abbot of the Zen Center of New York City. He received dharma transmission from John Daido Loori Roshi in 1997. ([https://www.lionsroar.com/mind-is-buddha/ Source Accessed Nov 18, 2019]) +
Ven. George Churinoff (Gelong Thubten Tsultrim) has taught and studied in FPMT centers around the world. Since attending his first November Course in Kopan in 1974 and ordaining in 1975, he has studied extensively. A physics graduate from MIT, Venerable George earned a Masters degree in Buddhist studies from Delhi University, India. He took ordination in 1975 and studied the Geshe Studies Program at Manjushri Institute, England, where he also served as Spiritual Program Coordinator.
Venerable George was instrumental in founding the Masters Program at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy, where he also served as Program Coordinator. After studying and teaching there for eight years he spent several years at Tushita Centre in Delhi, followed by three years as Lama Osel Rinpoche's English curriculum tutor at Sera Je Monastery in South India. Venerable George has done many retreats in the sutra and tantra traditions and taught extensively in FPMT centers all over the world. He taught the Basic Program as resident teacher at Dorje Chang Institute, New Zealand and at Land of Medicine Buddha, USA. Venerable George now resides in Asheville, NC. ([https://landofmedicinebuddha.org/events/basic-program-tenets-module-with-ven-george-churinoff-2021-03-19/ Source Accessed Aug 19, 2021]) +
George Nicolas de Roerich was a prominent 20th century Tibetologist. His name at birth was Yuri Nikolaevich Rerikh. George's work encompassed many areas of Tibetan studies, but in particular he is known for his contributions to Tibetan dialectology, his monumental translation of the ''Blue Annals'', and his 11-volume Tibetan-Russian-English dictionary (published posthumously). George was the son of the painter and explorer Nicholas Roerich and Helena Roerich. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Roerich Source Accessed March 4, 2020]) +
For 35 years, Tanabe has been a key figure in Hawaiʻi in the field of religion, mainly in the area of Japanese Buddhism, focusing his efforts on educating students and doing research. He visited Japanese universities and fostered networks with the research faculty and coordinated academic symposiums such as the International Conference on the Lotus Sutra and Japanese Culture.
In 1974, Tanabe received a masters of arts in Japanese from the Department of East Asian Languages at Columbia University. He then spent two years researching Buddhist philosophy and history at the University of Tokyo as a foreign research student.
In 1977, he joined the faculty of the Department of Religion at UH Mānoa, where he taught religion and Buddhist philosophy for 28 years. Tanabe also served as the chair of the religion department from 1991 to 2001.
In 2006, Tanabe became an emeritus professor at the university and continued his writing and lectures. That year, he also became an advisor of the Numata Center at the Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai. In 2001, following the Ehime Maru incident, Tanabe assisted and advised the American side on issues of varying sensitivities involving Japan culture and religion.
Among his published titles are ''Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawaiʻi: An Illustrated Guide'', which he wrote and researched with his wife Willa Tanabe, and ''Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan'', co-authored with Ian Reader. He is also general editor for the Topics in Contemporary Buddhism series. ([https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2014/01/30/emeritus-professor-george-tanabe-receives-order-of-the-rising-sun/ Source Accessed June 2, 2023]) +
Georges B. J. Dreyfus (born 1950 in Switzerland) is an academic in the fields of Tibetology and Buddhology, with a particular interest in Indian Buddhist philosophy. In 1985 he was the first Westerner to receive the Geshe Lharampa degree, the highest available within the Tibetan scholastic tradition.
He currently is Jackson Professor of Religion at Williams College, Massachusetts. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Dreyfus Source Accessed March 13, 2024]) +
Georges Driessens was a Buddhist monk (Sherpa Tulku) from the Tibetan tradition and has translated a number of Buddhist texts: ''Le grand livre de la progression vers l'éveil'', by Tsongkhapa, ''La lettre à un ami (Suhṛllekha)'' and ''Le traité du milieu (Mādhyamaka-śāstra)'' by Nāgārjuna. ([https://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/trafil/sites/grupsderecerca.uab.cat.trafil/files/00-edite-chez-Benjamins.pdf Adapted from Source Jan 8, 2021]) +
Georgi Krastev M.A. is currently a University of Vienna, Department of South Asian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies graduate student. He is a freelance translator at the Khyentse Foundation. ([https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgi-krastev-m-a-583456142/?originalSubdomain=at Source Accessed Sep 7, 2021]) +
Dr Georgios T. Halkias is currently Assistant Professor of Buddhism at the Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong. He received his DPhil in Oriental Studies (Tibetan and Himalayan Studies) in 2006 at the University of Oxford and has extensive fieldwork experience in India and Nepal. He specializes in Tibetan Buddhism, the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet, and Himalayan history and culture. Dr Halkias has been a Visiting Associate Researcher at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford since 2007, and a Fellow at the Oxford Centre of Buddhist Studies since 2009. [http://translationintibet.wordpress.com/who-we-are-buddhist-translation-tibet/georgios-t-halkias/ source] +
Gerhard Oberhammer (born 1929) studied theology and philosophy in Innsbruck before he turned his attention to Indology. In 1964 he succeeded Erich Frauwallner (1898–1974) as head of the Institute for Indology at the University of Vienna. He held this professorship until his retirement in 1997. His first co-operation with the ÖAW took place in 1970, when Oberhammer, with the support of Cardinal Franz König and the Academy, founded the De Nobili Research Library, which is now located at the ISTB of the University of Vienna on permanent loan from the ÖAW. From 1983 Oberhammer oversaw the "Commission for Languages and Cultures of South and East Asia," founded by Frauwallner, as well as the "Research Unit for Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia" that had been formed in 1986. The two units merged into an institute (the IKGA) in 1991, with Oberhammer serving as its director until his retirement in 1997.
The most important projects conducted or initiated at the Institute under Oberhammer's directorship include:
* Dictionary of Indian Epistemology and Logic (1983–2006), with the co-operation of Ernst Prets and Joachim Prandstätter.
*The Tāntrikābhidhānakośa Project: A Hindu Tantric Dictionary (since 1993), with the co-operation of Marion Rastelli.
*History of the Rāmānuja School (1994–2010), with the co-operation of Marcus Schmücker and Marion Rastelli. This project led to the work on the Viṣṇu philosopher Veṅkaṭanātha (traditionally dated 1270-1369), which remains a key topic at the IKGA.
*Hermeneutics of religion, an interdisciplinary research topic that highlights in particular the encounter of and the dialogue between western and eastern religions. ([https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ikga/institute/former-directors Source Accesed Jan 30, 2024]) +
P'arang Geri Larkin, born Geraldine Kapp Willis, is founder and former head teacher of Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple, a Korean Chogye center in Detroit, Michigan. The name Geri Larkin is a pen name. She graduated from Barnard College in 1973. Larkin, daughter of a wealthy IBM executive, left her successful business life as a management consultant to enter a Buddhist seminary for three years, where she was ordained. When she left she sold her material possessions and bought a brick duplex in downtown Detroit which, with the help of local residents, she cleaned up and turned into Still Point. Larkin's articulation of the concept of "right livelihood" was highly influential on Ann Perrault and Jackie Victor, two of her students who founded Avalon International Breads in Detroit in 1997. She has been a longtime columnist for Spirituality & Health magazine. She currently resides in Eugene, Oregon. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geri_Larkin Source Accessed Apr 8, 2021]) +
David Germano is the Executive Director of the Contemplative Sciences Center. He has taught and researched Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia since 1992. In this context, he works extensively with each of the eleven schools at UVA to explore learning, research, and engagement initiatives regarding contemplation in their own disciplinary and professional areas. He is currently focused on the exploration of contemplative ideas, values, and practices involving humanistic and scientific methodologies, as well as new applications in diverse fields; he also holds a faculty appointment in the School of Nursing. He is one of the co-leaders of the Student Flourishing Initiative, a three-way partnership with UVA, the University of Wisconsin, and Penn State University, as well as the lead organizer of an international research community of scholars and translators specializing in the Great Perfection (Dzokchen) tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. ([http://uvacontemplation.org/content/david-germano Source Accessed June 11, 2019]) +
