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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] +
Eric Greene is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies. He received his B.A. in Mathematics from Berkeley in 1998, followed by his M.A. (Asian Studies) and Ph.D. (Buddhist Studies) in 2012. He specializes in the history of medieval Chinese Buddhism, particularly the emergence of Chinese forms of Buddhism from the interaction between Indian Buddhism and indigenous Chinese culture. Much of his recent research has focused on Buddhist meditation practices, including the history of the transmission on Indian meditation practices to China, the development of distinctly Chinese forms of Buddhist meditation, and Buddhist rituals of confession and atonement. He is currently writing a book on the uses of meditative visionary experience as evidence of sanctity within early Chinese Buddhism. In addition to these topics, he has published articles on the early history of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, Buddhist paintings from the Silk Roads, and the influence of modern psychological terminology on the Western interpretation of Buddhism. He is also presently working on a new project concerning the practice of translation - from Indian languages to Chinese - in early Chinese Buddhism. He teaches undergraduate classes on Buddhism in East Asia, Zen Buddhism, ritual in East Asian Buddhism, and mysticism and meditation in Buddhism and East Asia, and graduate seminars on Chinese Buddhist studies and Chinese Buddhist texts.<br> After completing his Ph.D. in 2012, Eric took a position at the University of Bristol (UK), where he taught East Asian Religions until coming to Yale in 2015. ([https://religiousstudies.yale.edu/people/eric-greene Source Accessed July 21, 2020]) +
Peter N. Gregory (1945-2025) was the Jill Ker Conway Professor Emeritus of Religion and East Asian Studies at Smith College and an eminent scholar of medieval Chinese Buddhism. Peter passed away suddenly the evening of March 19th while he was reading in bed.
Peter was a specialist on Chinese Buddhism during the Tang and Song periods. He was renowned for his groundbreaking work on the Chan and Huayan figure Guifeng Zongmi, which led to two books, Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism (1991), and Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity: An Annotated Translation of Tsung-mi’s Yüan jen lun with a Modern Commentary (1995). Zongmi was his lifelong obsession. At the time of his death, Peter was continuing to work on a massive multi-volume, copiously annotated translation of Zongmi’s magnum opus, the Chan Preface, with an extensive scholarly commentary. It is hoped that at least some portions of this project will find their way into print.
Peter may be perhaps best known to the field for his long-time service as executive director and president of the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism, from 1984 until his retirement from Smith College in 2014. The Kuroda Institute established two important book series, both copublished by the University of Hawaii Press: Studies in East Asian Buddhism and Classics in East Asian Buddhism. Peter built these series up from scratch until they became two of the preeminent series in the field of Buddhist Studies. Peter did not have his own graduate students, but gave generously of his time and scholarly expertise in helping young scholars transform their unwieldly dissertations into masterful, and often prize-winning, first books. He was a consummate mentor to junior faculty in the field, guiding them with his typical competence and empathy.
In addition to his authored volumes, Peter was also a masterful editor of multiauthor volumes that derived from conferences he sponsored through the Kuroda Institute, including Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought (1987) and Buddhism in the Sung (1999, with Daniel A. Getz, Jr.). These were no mere collection of papers. As editor, Peter demanded extensive rewrites of all the conference papers, so that contributors’ chapters were not simply stand-alone studies but directly engaged in issues raised in each others’ chapters. Peter also wrote an extensive introduction to each volume, framing each chapter within a larger set of issues addressed by the volume as a whole. These volumes demonstrated how the best edited volumes could be far more than the sum of their parts and served as a model for other multiauthor volumes published through the Studies in East Asian Buddhism series.
Peter’s scholarly interests in Buddhism developed in part due to his long-time practice of Zen with Maezumi Roshi and the Los Angeles Zen Center. This engagement with American instantiations of the religion led to an increasing focus in his research and teaching on Buddhism in America, which culminated in the documentary film The Gate of Sweet Nectar: Feeding Hungry Ghosts in an American Zen Community (2004) and the coedited volume Women Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences (2007). Peter’s interest in matters of the mind started as an undergraduate at Princeton back in the 1960s, when he worked at the New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute on a series of experiments on the hypnotic alteration of perception. Peter was the hypnotist and his subject was Harold (Hal) Roth, now professor of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies and director of the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown University.
Peter is survived by his beloved wife, Marguerite (Margi), his two daughters and their spouses, Jyana and Earl Browne and Tara and Steph Gregory, and his granddaughter, Sophie.
--Robert Buswell, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Griffiths was born in London, England, on 12 November 1955. Griffiths has held appointments at the University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago. A scholar of Augustine of Hippo, Griffiths's main interests and pursuits are philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion – particularly Christianity and Buddhism. He received a doctorate in Buddhist studies in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his early works established him as one of the most incisive interpreters of Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy. His works on Buddhism include ''On Being Mindless'' (Lasalle, IL: Open Court, 1991) and ''On Being Buddha'' (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994). After converting from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism and accepting the Schmitt Chair of Catholic Studies at UIC, he has largely given up his work in Buddhist studies. His recent books include: ''Problems of Religious Diversity'' (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001); ''Philosophy of Religion: A Reader'' (co-edited with Charles Taliaferro) (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003); and ''Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity'' (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004). His latest book deals with curiositas and the nature of intellectual appetite; its title is: ''Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar''. According to the faculty pages at Duke Divinity School, from which he resigned in 2017, Griffiths has published ten books as sole author and seven more as co-author or editor. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_J._Griffiths Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]) +
Drolungpa Lodrö Jungne was a disciple of rNgog lo tsā ba Blo ldan shes rab. Among his important works include a biography (''rnam thar'') of Blo ldan shes rab as well as the ''Great Stages of the Doctrine'' (''Bstan rim chen mo''), which served as a model for Tsongkhapa's Lam rim texts. +
Paul Groner received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Yale and spent most of his career at the University of Virginia. His research mostly focused on the Japanese Tendai School during the Heian period. He has also done research on the precepts and ordinations, which led to research on Eison, founder of the Shingon Ritsu sect, and the status of nuns in medieval Japan. In recent years, his interests have extended to the Tendai educational system during the Muromachi Period and to the establishment of Japan’s first public library at the Tendai temple, Kan’eiji. Among his major works are ''Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School'' and ''Ryōgen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century''. He is also the translator of HIRAKAWA Akira’s ''The History of Indian Buddhism'', vol. 1 (all published by University of Hawai’i Press). ([https://ealc.berkeley.edu/people/paul-groner Source Accessed Dec 3, 2019]) +
Williiam Grosnick, Assistant Professor of Religion at La Salle College, Philadelphia, received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1979. His articles on the Buddhist ''Tathāgatagarbha'' tradition have appeared in ''The Journal of the International Association for Buddhist Studies'' and the ''Proceedings of the International Conference of Orientalists'' in Japan. ([https://books.google.com/books?id=r61jYd_uDF0C&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=william+grosnick+Buddhism+professor&source=bl&ots=TFkHV3J0NN&sig=ACfU3U38FQ1F4GGaJgMNEiZULnWjSjeqYA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWzJ2BgIbnAhWpAp0JHa4_COMQ6AEwBHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=william%20grosnick%20Buddhism%20professor&f=false Source Accessed Jan 15, 2020]) +
A Kadam scholar from Sangpu Neutok Monastery who was known for his expertise in the Five Treatises of Maitreya. He was a contemporary of both Dölpopa and Butön and a teacher of the Sakya scholar Yakde Paṇchen and the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje. +
Guo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center (www.tallahasseechan.com) and is also the guiding teacher for the Western Dharma Teachers Training course at the Chan Meditation Center in New York and the Dharma Drum Lineage. He is one of the late Master Sheng Yen’s (1930–2009) senior and closest disciples, and assisted him in leading intensive retreats throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Guo Gu has edited and translated a number of Master Sheng Yen’s books from Chinese to English. He is also a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Florida State University, Tallahassee. (Source: [https://www.shambhala.com/authors/g-n/guo-gu.html Shambhala Publications]) +
Yin Guan is an Operational Specialist at Mem Tea Imports. She received a Master of Theological Studies (MTS) specializing in Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School in 2019. +
Elio was born in Varese, Italy, on 5 August 1954 and grew up in Como. He studied art and received a Master of Arts before traveling to India to study Buddhism. On his return from India he moved to Switzerland, where for ten years he learned Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy under one of the Dalai Lama’s philosophical advisors. Elio joined the Dzogchen community in 1986, when he received teachings from Chögyal Namkhai Norbu for the first time.
Invited by the late Kalu Rinpoche, Elio spent almost twenty years in India working on the large encyclopedia on Indo-Tibetan knowledge known as Shes bya kun khyab (Myriad Worlds,Buddhist Ethics, Systems of Buddhist Tantra, The Elements of Tantric Practice) authored by Kongtrul the Great, published in separate volumes by Snow Lion Publications. During this time Elio continued to actively collaborate with the Dzogchen Community and especially with the Shang Shung Institute in Italy, of which he is a founding member.
Elio has worked on various translations for the Shang Shung Institute in Italy, including several books by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu relating to Tibetan medicine. He has completed several levels of the Santi Maha Sangha training, and became an authorized teacher of the base, first, and second level. Since 2003, Elio has been one of the three principal translators for the Ka-ter project of the Shang Shung Institute of Austria. Aside from serving as instructor for the Training for Translators from Tibetan program, he also works for the Dzogchen Tantra Translation Project. ([http://skyjewel.org/ Source Accessed March 26, 2020]) +
Dr. Herbert Guenther (1917-2006) was one of the first translators of the Vajrayana and Dzogchen teachings into English. He was well known for his pioneering translations of Gampopa's ''Jewel Ornament of Liberation'' and Longchenpa's ངལ་གསོ་སྐོར་གསུམ་, ''ngal gso skor sgum'', which was published as a trilogy under the title ''Kindly Bent to Ease Us''.
He was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1917. He studied in Munich and Vienna, and then taught at Vienna University from 1943 to 1950. He then lived and taught in India, at Lucknow University from 1950 to 1958, and the Sanskrit University in Varanasi from 1958 to 1963. He then went to the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, where his students included Leslie Kawamura, Kennard Lipman, Steven Goodman and James Valby.
According to Steven Goodman, Guenther used to say that a good translator must do two things: 1) translate Tibetan terms based on the genre and approach in which they are being used, and 2) continually refine one's translation choices.
Guenther had many admirers and although many of his translation choices never caught on, his work did have a clear and undeniable influence on many translators. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Herbert_V._Guenther Source Accessed July 22, 2020])
Also see Steven Goodman's article "[https://www.lionsroar.com/profile-death-of-a-pioneer/ Death of a Pioneer]".
See a list of terms used by Guenther in translation on [https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Category:HVG_Glossary Rigpa Wiki here].
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_V._Günther Herbert V. Günther on Wikipedia]
'''QUOTES:'''<br>
"1. To give an example, if someone were to 'translate' the French ''il a le mal de tête'' as 'he has the evil of the earthenware pot,' which is the correct philological rendering and then were to claim that this is what the French understood by that phrase, he would be considered insane, but when someone proclaims such absurdities as 'embryo of Tathāgatha,' 'substantial body', 'eminated incarnation Body,' and so on, which are not even philologically correct but merely reveal utter incomprehension of the subject matter, by a strange volte-face, he is said to be a scholar."
~ "Bodhisattva - The Ethical Phase in Evolution" in [[The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhism]], page 123, note 1.
Gungru Gyaltsen Zangpo (Tib. གུང་རུ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་བཟང་པོ་, Wyl. gung ru rgyal mtshan bzang po) (1383–1450) - the third throneholder of Sera Monastery. He was a disciple of Tsongkhapa, Gyaltsab Je, and Khedrup Je. He was a teacher of Ga Rabjampa Kunga Yeshe. His extant writings were recently published in three volumes.
Volume 1<br>
''byams pa'i dgongs rgyan'' - a commentary on Prajnaparamita philosophy.
Volume 2<br>
''dbu ma rtsa ba shes rab kyi don bsdus'' - Short explanation of the meaning of Nagarjuna's ''Mulamadhyamakakarika''.<br>
''dbu ma 'jug pa'i 'grel pa'' - Commentary on the ''Madhyamakavatara'' of Chandrakirti.<br>
''legs bshad bla ma'i man ngag bdud rtsi'i chu rgyun'' - General treatise on Madhyamika philosophy.
Volume 3<br>
''dbu ma bzhi brgya pa'i 'grel pa'' - Commentary on Aryadeva's ''Four Hundred Verses''<br>
''dbu ma'i stong thun'' - Survey of Madhyamika thought in the context of the various philosophical positions.<br>
''mngon rtogs rgyan gyi de kho na nyid gsal bar byed pa mkhas pa'i yid 'phrog'' - A commentary on the ''Abhisamayalankara''. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Gungru_Gyaltsen_Zangpo Source Accessed Jan 27, 2023]) +
Indian scholiast and major translator of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese during the Liu Song period (420–479). Born in central India to a brāhmaṇa family, he is said to have studied in his youth the five traditional Indian sciences, as well as astronomy, calligraphy, mathematics, medicine, and magic. He was converted to Buddhism and began systematically to study Buddhist texts, starting with the Abhidharma and proceeding through the most influential Mahāyāna texts, such as the ''Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra'' and ''Avataṃsakasūtra''. Around 435, he departed from Sri Lanka for China, arriving in Guangzhou by sea. In China, he devoted himself to teaching and translating Buddhist scriptures, carrying out most of his translations of Mahāyāna and mainstream Buddhist texts while residing in Qiyuansi in Jiankang and Xinsi in Jingzhou. He translated a total of fifty-two scriptures in 134 rolls, including the ''Saṃyuktāgama'' and the ''Prakaranapāda'' [śāstra], both associated with the Sarvāstivāda school, such seminal Mahāyāna texts as the ''[[Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra]]'' and the ''Laṅkāvatārasūtra''. In the ''Lengqie shizi ji'', a Chan genealogical history associated with the Northern school (Bei zong) of the early Chan tradition, Guṇabhadra is placed before Bodhidharma in the Chan patriarchal lineage, perhaps because of his role in translating the ''Laṅkāvatārasūtra'', an important scriptural influence in the early Chan school. (Source: "Guṇabhadra." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 336. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27) +
Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen is core faculty at Nitartha Institute and recently retired from [https://www.naropa.edu/faculty/acharya-gyaltsen.php Naropa University].
Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen was born in Trakar, Nepal, near the Tibetan border. He completed 10 years of traditional scholastic training at [http://www.rumtek.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=400&Itemid=612&lang=en Karma Shri Nalanda Institute] at Rumtek Monastery, Sikkim, India, graduating as acharya with honours (graduated in the same class as [[Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche]]). This was followed by traditional yogic training in the first three-year retreat to be conducted at Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche's monastery in Pullahari, Nepal.
Following the advice of [[Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche]], Lama Tenpa taught at various Kagyu centers in Europe (Teksum Tashi Choling in Hamburg, Germany), at Nitartha, and centers in Canada. In 2004 he moved to Boulder, CO and began teaching at Naropa University. He retired from Naropa in 2020.
Learn more about Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen on the [https://nitarthainstitute.org/about/nitartha-faculty/ Nitartha faculty page] and at [https://nalandabodhi.org/teacher/acharya-lama-tenpa-gyaltsen/ Nalandabodhi]. +
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso is a noted scholar and teacher who was born in Eastern Tibet in 1935. After completing this early training, he spent five years wandering throughout Eastern and Central Tibet undertaking extensive solitary retreats in caves. When he reached Tsurphu Monastery, he received instruction from the head of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, the 16th Karmapa, who later named him a khenpo, which is a title of scholastic mastery. In 1977 he came to the West to teach Tibetan language and Buddhism. Known for his highly engaging teaching style, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso has been traveling and teaching in the West ever since, placing an emphasis on the careful training of Westerners. Some of his students include [[Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche]], [[Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen]], [[Shenpen Hookham|Lama Shenpen Hookham]], [[Karl Brunnhölzl]], and [[Elizabeth Callahan]]. ([http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0661/2002152104-b.html Source Accessed July, 21 2020])
Visit his official site at [http://www.ktgrinpoche.org/ ktgrinpoche.org] +
Khenpo Gyurme Tsultrim was born in the Mugu district of western Nepal in 1969 where he studied reading and writing with his uncle. When he was thirteen, he met Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and became one of the first monks at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal. In 1985, as the Shechen Philosophical College was not yet built, Khyentse Rinpoche sent him to the Dzongsar Monastic College in India for higher studies. He studied there for six years and then completed the last three years of his study at the Palyul Nyingmapa College in Mysore, India.
He became the first monk of Shechen Monastery, Nepal, to attain the rank of Khenpo, the equivalent of a Ph.D., in 1996. Presently, Khenpo Gyurme Tsultrim is the vice abbot of the monastery and teaches at its College. He has traveled to Europe a number of times to give teachings, and he oversees many of the activities of the monastery. (Source: Shechen https://shechen.org/spiritual-development/teachers/khenpo-gyurme-tsultrim/) +
The son of a physician, Luis Gómez was born in Puerto Rico on April 7 1943, growing up in the town of Guayanilla. He received his B.A. degree in 1963 from Universidad de Puerto Rico, enrolling there at age sixteen. He received his Ph.D. degree in Buddhist Studies, Indic Philology, and Japanese Language and Literature from Yale University in 1967. His first academic position was at the University of Washington. After that, he returned to Puerto Rico for four years, serving as chair of the Department of Philosophy at the Universidad de Puerto Rico.
He joined the University of Michigan faculty as an Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies in 1973 and was promoted to full professor in 1979. In 1986, he was named a “Collegiate Professor,” the highest faculty rank in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at Michigan, naming his professorship after his former colleague and mentor, the distinguished Chinese historian Charles Hucker.
Luis Gómez’s contributions to Buddhist Studies during his thirty-five years at Michigan spanned the areas of graduate training, undergraduate teaching, and scholarship. He founded Michigan’s highly regarded Ph.D. program in Buddhist Studies, which has produced several generations of outstanding scholars. That his students specialized in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Indian, Thai, and Burmese Buddhism testifies to his wide-ranging knowledge, as well as his high level of proficiency in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese, as well as Latin, French, German, and Italian (in addition to his native Spanish). His work as a graduate mentor was honored in 1995, when he received the John H. D’Arms Award for Distinguished Graduate Mentoring in the Humanities. In recognition of his outstanding undergraduate teaching, he was named Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in 1997. A dedicated administrator, he chaired the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures for a decade. ([http://iabsinfo.net/2017/09/obituary-tribute-to-luis-oscar-gomez/ Source Accessed May 20, 2020])
Dr. Hiromi Habata is a faculty member at the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies in Tokyo, Japan. Before her appointment she was a researcher in Indology at the Institute of Indology and Tibetology at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. Her scholarly interests include Buddhist Sanskrit, manuscripts of Central Asia, and methods of translation of Buddhist texts into Chinese and Tibetan. She is a member of the British Library Sanskrit Fragments Project and is currently working on a critical edition and analysis of the Mahaparinirvana-sutra of the Mahayanists. ([https://www.en.buddhismus-studien.uni-muenchen.de/people_vorlage/index.html Adapted from Source Aug 3, 2020])
Click here for a link to Hiromi Habata's [https://www.indologie.uni-muenchen.de/personen/3_privatdoz/habata/publ_habata/index.html publications] +
Yoshito S. Hakeda was an Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. He is the translator of ''The Awakening of Faith'', attributed to Aśvaghosha (1967), and one of the collaborators assisting Wm. Theodore de Bary in preparing ''Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan'' (1969).
According to his obituary in the New York Times, "Professor Hakeda's major volume was a translation and study of the works and thought of Kukai, a ninth-century Japanese Buddhist priest and scholar, published by the Columbia University Press in 1972. He also collaborated on ''Bankei Zen,'' a translation of the works of a 17th-century Zen master." ([https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/01/obituaries/yoshitoshakeda-professor-ofjapaneseatcolumbiadies.html Source Accessed December 4, 2019)] +
