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J.F. Marc des Jardins joined Concordia in 2005 as Assistant Professor after completing a postdoctoral degree on Conflict Resolutions at the Institute of Asian Research at The University of British Columbia. He teaches courses on the various Buddhist traditions (Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese and South Asian) as well as Chinese Popular Cults, Daoism and Tibetan religions. His research focuses on the Tibetan Bön religion and local societies and he has been actively engaged in field-based research along the Sino-Tibetan borderlands since 1991. Dr. des Jardins combines anthropological field methods with textual analysis and historiography. He has recently published a monograph entitled ''Le sûtra de la Mahâmâyûrî: rituel et politique dans la Chine des Tang (618-907)'' (Presse de l'Université Laval 2011) which is a study and translation of a key Chinese Buddhist grimoire important in the history of esoterism in Buddhism. In this work, he illustrates how Chinese indigenous cultural and political traditions were highly compatible with the Buddhist ritual traditions of Medieval India.
In 2011, Dr. des Jardins was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor, and is currently working on different translation and research projects on the indigenous Bön Research which seeks to promote and support scientific research on indigenous Tibetan cultural and social traditions. ([https://www.concordia.ca/faculty/marc-des-jardins.html Source Accessed Nov 20, 2023]) +
Jaakko Takkinen is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His areas of interest include Buddhist Studies, Tibetan Studies, Tibetan Buddhism and Medicine. He received an MA in South Asian Studies from the University of Helsinki in 2010 and a BA in South Asian Studies and Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Helsinki in 2008. Jaakko is currently working on a project entitled "Globalizing Tibetan Medicine through Buddhist Tantra – The Yutok Nyingtig Tradition in Contemporary Tibetan Medical Training." ([https://www.religion.ucsb.edu/people/student/jaakko-takkinen/ Adapted from Source June 9, 2021]). +
Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. After graduating from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1967 he joined the Peace Corps and worked on tropical medicine teams in the Mekong River valley. He met and studied as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. Returning to the United States, Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. Over the years, Jack has taught in centers and universities worldwide, led International Buddhist Teacher meetings, and worked with many of the great teachers of our time. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a father, husband and activist.
His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies. They include, ''A Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology''; ''A Path with Heart''; ''After the Ecstasy, the Laundry''; ''Teachings of the Buddha''; ''Seeking the Heart of Wisdom''; ''Living Dharma''; ''A Still Forest Pool''; ''Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart''; ''Buddha's Little Instruction Book''; ''The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness and Peace''; ''Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are''; and his most recent book, ''No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are''. ([https://jackkornfield.com/bio/ Source Accessed March 6, 2020])
===Teachings on Buddha-nature===
* Awakening to Your Buddha Nature: https://www.spiritrock.org/buddha-nature
* Finding Buddha Nature in the Midst of Difficulty Meditation: https://jackkornfield.com/finding-buddha-nature-in-the-midst-of-difficulty/
* Your Buddha Nature: Teachings on the Ten Perfections: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/your-buddha-nature-507.html
John R. "Jack" Miles (born July 30, 1942) is an American author. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the MacArthur Fellowship. His writings on religion, politics, and culture have appeared in numerous national publications, including ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ''The New York Times'', ''The Boston Globe'', ''The Washington Post'', ''Los Angeles Times'', and ''Commonweal Magazine''.
Miles treats his biblical subjects neither as transcendent deities nor historical figures, but as literary protagonists. His first book, ''God: A Biography'', won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1996, and has been translated into sixteen languages. His second book ''Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God'', was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2002. Miles is general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Religions (November 2014). Miles' book ''God in the Qur'an'' was published in 2018, the third in his God in Three Classic Scriptures series. Miles' current book is ''Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story'', (Nov. 12, 2019) which examines when religion became a distinct area of thought. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Miles Source Accessed May 11, 2021]) +
Jacob Ensink was born in Hilversum on June 5, 1921. He earned his PhD from Utrecht University under the supervision of Jan Gonda in 1952. From 1954-1961 he was lecturer in Sanskrit at Groningen University. And from 1962-1984 he was professor of Sanskrit at the same institution. He became emeritus professor in 1984. ([https://www.dutchstudies-satsea.nl/deelnemers/ensink-jacob-jaap/ Adapted from Source Mar 23, 2021]) +
Jacob Dalton, Professor and Khyentse Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tibetan Buddhism, received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Michigan in 2002. After working for three years (2002-05) as a researcher with the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, he taught at Yale University (2005-2008) before moving to Berkeley. He works on Nyingma religious history, tantric ritual, early Tibetan paleography, and the Dunhuang manuscripts. He is the author of The Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism (Yale University Press, 2011) and Through the Eyes of the Compendium of Intentions: The History of a Tibetan Ritual Tradition (Columbia University Press, under review), and co-author of Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library (Brill, 2006). He is currently working on a study of tantric ritual in the Dunhuang manuscripts.
([https://ealc.berkeley.edu/people/dalton-jacob Source: UC Berkeley]) +
Jacob Samuel Speyer (b. Amsterdam, December 20, 1849 - d. Leiden, November 2, 1913) was a Dutch linguist and philologist.
Speyer was best known as a researcher, text editor, and translator of Sanskrit. He achieved international fame with his main work ''Sanskrit Syntax'' (1886).
Speyer was born in Amsterdam and studied in Amsterdam and Leiden, where he graduated in December 1872 on a thesis about Hindu birth rituals. In 1877 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit at the Municipality of Amsterdam and in 1889 professor of Latin at the University of Groningen. In the same year he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1902 to 1903 he was the ''rector magnificus'' of the University of Groningen. After the end of his rectorship in 1903, he switched to the University of Leiden, where he succeeded Hendrik Kern as professor of Sanskrit.
Speyer wrote and lectured not only on Latin and Sanskrit, but on a multitude of subjects in the fields of linguistics, literature, anthropology, philosophy, and religion of Classical Antiquity and the Orient. He died in Leiden. ([https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Speyer Source Accessed Apr 23, 2021] +
Jacqueline Abdalla is the author of "An Examination of the Historical Context of the Life of Sāntideva" in the book ''Śāntideva and Bodhicaryāvatāra: Images, Interpretations, Reflections'' (Eastern Book Linkers, 2013). +
Jacqueline Stone joined the Princeton faculty in 1990. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Buddhism and Japanese religions. Her chief research field is Japanese Buddhism of the medieval and modern periods. Her current research areas include death and dying in Buddhist cultures, Buddhism and nationalism, and traditions of the ''Lotus Sutra'', particularly Tendai and Nichiren. She is the author of ''Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism'', which received a 2001 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion. She has co-edited ''The Buddhist Dead: Practices, Discourses, Representations'' (with Bryan J. Cuevas, 2007), ''Readings of the Lotus Sutra'' (with Stephen F. Teiser, 2009), and other volumes of collected essays. Her newest book, ''Right Thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhism and Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan'' (working title), is forthcoming from University of Hawai`i Press. She has been president of the Society for the Study of Japanese Religions and co-chair of the Buddhism section of the American Academy of Religion. Currently she is vice president of the editorial board of the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and serves on the advisory board of the ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies''. ([https://religion.princeton.edu/people/faculty/core-faculty/jacqueline-stone/ Source Accessed Aug 6, 2020]) +
Jacques Bacot (4 July 1877 – 18 June 1965) was an explorer and pioneering French Tibetologist. He travelled extensively in India, western China, and the Tibetan border regions. He worked at the École pratique des hautes études. Bacot was the first western scholar to study the Tibetan grammatical tradition, and along with F. W. Thomas (1867–1956) belonged to the first generation of scholars to study the Old Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts. Bacot made frequent use of Tibetan informants. He acquired aid from Gendün Chöphel in studying Dunhuang manuscripts. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Bacot Source Accessed Dec 7, 2023]) +
Jacques May was born in 1927 in Aigle (Switzerland). He first studied Latin and Greek at the University of Lausanne (1949), where the teaching and personality of the Swiss Hellenist André Bonnard (1888-1959), a noted specialist and translator of ancient Greek tragedy, left a lasting impression on him. His early childhood fascination with Alexandra David-Néel (1868-1969) was transformed into a deep interest in "oriental" studies by the great Polish linguist, philologist, and musician Constantin Regamey (1907-1982). In 1949 Jacques May moved to Paris in order to obtain a "certificat d’études indiennes" (1951). At Sorbonne University, the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the Collège de France he studied Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Indian and Buddhist studies under the guidance of extraordinary personalities such as Louis Renou (1896-1966), Marcelle Lalou (1890-1967), Jean Filliozat (1906-1982), Paul Mus (1902-1969) and Paul Demiéville (1894-1979), all of whom impressed him deeply by their impeccable erudition, kindness, and, in the case of Jean Filliozat, administrative, diplomatic, and "political" skills. Of those who studied at the same time in Paris, mention can be made of André Bareau (1921-1993), Paul Horsch (1925-1971), Gerhard Oberhammer (born 1929), and the French Japanologist Bernard Frank (1927-1996). Jacques May could speak endlessly about that "golden age" of French Indology.<br><br>
Returning to Lausanne in 1956, he served as a librarian until 1961 while he prepared his doctoral thesis, which was published in Paris (Adrien Maisonneuve) in 1959 under the title ''Candrakīrti: Prasannapadā Madhyamakavṛtti'' (''Commentaire limpide au Traité du milieu''). This remarkable work consisted of an annotated French translation of the twelve chapters that had been left untranslated by Th. Stcherbatsky, S. Schayer and J.W. de Jong. As noted by P. Demiéville in his foreword, May’s translation was – and remains – a monument of erudition, accuracy and elegance. In 1961 the same Paul Demiéville appointed Jacques May as the editor in chief of the ''Hôbôgirin, Dictionnaire encyclopédique du bouddhisme d’après les sources chinoises et japonaises'', to which he contributed two long articles, ''Chūdō'' ([中道] "Middle Way," together with Katsumi Mimaki) and ''Chūgan'' ([中觀] "Madhyamaka"). Active as a privat-docent, Jacques May taught Sanskrit and Tibetan in Kyoto, where he stayed first as a grantee of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, 1962-1965) and then as a member of the École française d’Extrême-Orient (1965-1968).<br><br>
In 1968 Jacques May was appointed as a "professeur extraordinaire" at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lausanne ("professeur ordinaire" from 1976 to 1992, with a "chaire ad personam" of the Swiss National Science Foundation), directing?/managing? the Department of Oriental Languages and Cultures together with his colleagues Constantin Regamey, Heinz Zimmermann (1929-1986, since 1981), and Johannes Bronkhorst (born 1946, since 1987). Jacques May’s teaching was dedicated, in multi-annual cycles, to diverse topics such as Vasubandhu’s ''Abhidharmakośa'', the ''Mahāyāna Sūtras'', the life of the Buddha, and Sanskrit readings such as the ''Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā'' and the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra'' (the two texts the present writer read with Jacques May in 1991-1992). Besides occasional collaboration with Étienne Lamotte (1903-1983), Jacques May carried on his research on Indian Madhyamaka, which resulted in the French translation of Candrakīrti’s commentary on the ninth chapter of Āryadeva’s ''Catuḥśataka'' ("Āryadeva et Candrakīrti sur la permanence," 1980-1984). Jacques May also supervised the doctoral theses of Tom J.F. Tillemans (his successor in Lausanne, 1992-2011) and Cristina A. Scherrer-Schaub (born 1947, professor of Indian Buddhism at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris until 2015). He was involved in the doctoral research of the Geneva-based japanologists Jérôme Ducor and Michel Mohr.<br><br> Wishing to make his retirement a "true retirement," Jacques May published nothing after 1992 but continued to actively supervise the PhD thesis of his Korean student and wife Kim Hyung-Hi, published in 2013 under the title ''La carrière du Bodhisattva dans l'Avatamsaka-sutra ; Matériaux pour l'étude de l'Avataṃsaka-sūtra et ses commentaires chinois'' (Peter Lang). As long as his health allowed, Jacques May kept travelling, notably in Asia and in South America. Those who had the privilege to know him remember an endearing personality with much wit, a touch of cynicism and (often dark) humor. As his impeccable French translations abundantly testify, Jacques May was a very talented writer; he was an expert in eighteenth-century French prose and late nineteenth-century poetry, above all Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) and his famous "aboli bibelot d’inanité sonore." Curious about everything and naturally inquisitive, there was very little Jacques May, who lived among dictionaries, encyclopedias and maps, could not say about nineteenth-century Vienna or the work of Mozart; in his hand-written correspondence (Jacques May never used a computer in his life), he would quote Vasubandhu and Nāgārjuna in Sanskrit. Although he was not very fond of Yogācāra Buddhism, his article "La philosophie bouddhique idéaliste" (1971) has become a classic and remains, as Étienne Lamotte said a little less than fifty years ago, the best introduction to the topic. (Source: [http://iabsinfo.net/2018/03/obituary-tribute-to-professor-jacques-may/ Jacques May Obituary by Vincent Eltschinger, published on IABS March 24, 2018])
Jade Sylvan (born September 9, 1982, Chicago, Illinois) is an American poet, author, performer, producer, performing artist and Unitarian Universalist minister. They are heavily rooted in the literary and performance community of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. They were called a "risque queer icon" by the Boston Globe. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Sylvan Source Accessed May 24, 2023]) +
Jaehee Han completed a translation of the ''Gaganagañjaparipṛcchāsūtra'' for his doctorate at the University of Oslo, under the supervision of Jens Braarvig, +
Jake Davis is currently a Postdoctoral Associate with the Virtues of Attention project at New York University. He has taught at Brown University and at the City of College of New York. He earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from CUNY Graduate Center, with an Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science, as well as a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Hawai`i. His research at the intersection of Buddhist philosophy, moral philosophy, and cognitive science draws on his textual, meditative, and monastic training in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition of Burma (Myanmar), including work as an interpreter and teacher at meditation retreats. ([https://nyu.academia.edu/JakeHDavis Adapted from Source May 13, 2021]) +
Jake is a PhD student in the Department of Religious Studies at UCSB. His research focuses on Tantric Buddhism in ancient and medieval Tibet. His MA thesis is a translation of an epistle from the Tibetan Buddhist canon ascribed to Buddhaguhya, an eighth-century Indian Buddhist master. +
Jakob became a student of Buddhism in 1974. He traveled to India in 1975, where he became a student of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, as well as Tulku Pema Wangyal. He met Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse in 1977 and became his student as well.
In the early 1980s Jakob did a three-year retreat in France, after which he worked for Association de Centre d’Etudes de Chanteloube. He has worked on translations from Tibetan, including Shabkar and Wondrous Dance of Illusion (supported by Tsadra Foundation), and has also served as oral interpreter for several lamas. In the 1990s he lived in Bir, translating both Madhyamaka and sadhana material for Siddhartha’s Intent. In the late 1990s he began leading study and practice programs for SI Western Door.
Working toward clear and inclusive presentations of Buddhism for modern lay people and non-Buddhists, Jakob wrote and edited many of the early summaries and blurbs presenting Rinpoche’s teachings and programs. In the 2000s he earned a BA in Tibetology at the University of Copenhagen, exploring the commonalities and differences between Buddhism and western humanities and sciences. Since 2008 he has lived in Australia, where he presently directs study and practice programs for SI Australia. He is also a member of the KF Ashoka Translation Grants Subcommittee. ([https://khyentsefoundation.org/project/jakob-leschly/ Source: Khyentse Foundation]) +
Jakob Winkler studies and practices Tibetan Buddhism since the mid-eighties. He met Chögyal Namkhai Norbu in 1989. In 2002 he was authorized by him to teach the study and practice program of the base of "Santi Maha Sangha“ and in 2008 the 1st level. Jakob holds an MA in Tibetology, Indian art history and social anthropology, which he studied in Munich – his hometown – and Vienna. He works mainly as an author, editor and proofreader for Buddhist publications, instructor for Santi Maha Sangha and acts as interpreter for Buddhist teachings. Today he lives in Bonn, Germany. +
Jakub Zamorski is an assistant professor of East Asian Buddhism at the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. He researches and publishes on doctrinal and intellectual history of Pure Land Buddhism in early modern and modern China and Japan, on the reception of Buddhist logic and epistemology in East Asia and occasionally on other topics related to Chinese and Japanese Buddhist thought. He has contributed articles to e.g. ''Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies'', ''Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens'', chapters in edited volumes and essays in encyclopaedias (e.g. ''Brill Encyclopedia of Buddhism'', forthcoming). +
James A. Benn was trained primarily as a scholar of medieval Chinese religions (Buddhism and Taoism). His research is aimed at understanding the practices and world views of medieval men and women, both religious and lay, through the close reading of primary sources in literary Chinese—the lingua franca of East Asian religions. He has concentrated on three major areas of research: bodily practice in Chinese Religions; the ways in which people create and transmit new religious practices and doctrines; and the religious dimensions of commodity culture. In particular he has worked on self-immolation, Chinese Buddhist apocrypha, and the religious and cultural history of tea. ([https://altausterity.mcmaster.ca/people/a-benn-james#biography Adapted from Source Aug 9, 2023]) +
James B. Apple is full Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Calgary. He received his doctorate in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current research focuses upon the critical analysis of Mahāyāna sūtras and topics within Indian and Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism. +
