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From Buddha-Nature
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The 14th Shamarpa, Mipham Chokyi Lodro, passed away aged 61 on 11th June 2014.<br>
'''February 15, 2020: Karmapas Work Together to Identify Reincarnated Lama: <br>[https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/karmapas-work-together/ Tricycle Magazine Reports]'''
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Mipham Chökyi Lodrö was born in Derge, Tibet. At the age of four he was recognized by the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpei Dorje as the 14th Shamarpa reincarnation. Upon the Karmapa's request the Tibetan Government withdrew its one hundred and fifty nine year old ban of the Shamarpas.
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Shamar Rimpoche remained with the 16th Karmapa until his death in 1981. He received the entire cycle of Kagyu teachings from the 16th Karmapa. Since the 16th Karmapa’s death in 1981, Shamar Rimpoche has devoted his efforts to the many projects initiated by the late 16th Karmapa. He has completed the reprinting of the “Tengyur” a body of two hundred and fourteen volumes in which prominent Indian and Tibetan masters elucidate the teachings given by the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. Shamar Rimpoche also supports and offers guidance to Rumtek Monastery, the seat of H. H. the sixteenth Karmapa. He co-founded and brought into being the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute, New Delhi, India. The Institute currently offers courses in Buddhist studies for both monastic and lay students.<br>
([https://shamarpa.org/history/mipham-chokyi-lodro/ Source Accessed Dec 19, 2019])
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The Shamarpa and the Karmapa are spiritually inseparable, and are fellow holders of the 900 year old Karma Kagyu lineage, a tradition that precedes the Dalai Lama’s lineage by over 200 years. ([https://www.karmapa.org/karmapa-thaye-dorje-find-reincarnation-of-shamarpa/ Source Accessed May 2, 2020]) +
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Aaron K. Koseki received his PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977 under the supervision of Minoru Kiyota. His dissertation is entitled "Chi-tsang's Ta-ch'eng-hsüan-lun: The Two Truths and the Buddha-Nature." Some of his articles include: "Prajñāpāramitā and the Buddhahood of the Non-Sentient World: The San-Lun Assimilation of Buddha-Nature and Middle Path Doctrine," ''Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies'' 3/1 (1980), "Later Mādhyamika in China: Some Current Perspectives on the History of Chinese Prajñāpāramitā Thought," ''Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies'' 5/2 (1982), "Chi-tsang's ''Sheng-man pao-k'u'': The True Dharma Doctrine and the Bodhisattva Ideal," ''Philosophy East and West'' 34, no. 1, (1984), "The concept of practice in San Lun thought: Chi-tsang and the 'concurrent insight' of the Two Truths," ''Philosophy East and West'' 31, no. 4, (1981), and a review of Minoru Kiyota's book ''Shingon Buddhism: Theory and Practice'', ''Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies'' 1/2 (1979). +
Masao Abe is a leading Buddhist thinker who has spent many years furthering the work begun by D. T. Suzuki. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University after postgraduate studies at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. Abe has been a visiting professor at several major universities in the United States and has traveled widely in Europe and Asia as well. Author of ''Zen and Western Thought'', he has also contributed to the Macmillan Library of Philosophy and Religion series. ([https://www.shambhala.com/authors/a-f/masao-abe.html Source Accessed Nov 22, 2019]) +
Adam S. Pearcey is the founder-director of Lotsāwa House, a virtual library of translations from Tibetan. His publications include (as co-translator) Mind in Comfort and Ease by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Wisdom Publications, 2007); Ga Rabjampa’s ''To Dispel the Misery of the World'' (Wisdom Publications, 2012), which he translated at the suggestion of the late Khenchen Appey Rinpoche; and ''Beyond the Ordinary Mind: Dzogchen Advice from Rimé Masters'' (Snow Lion, 2018). A partial list of the many translations he has published online can be found [https://adamspearcey.com/translations/ here].
Adam first encountered Tibetan Buddhism in 1994 when he taught English at two monasteries near Darjeeling in India. He went on to study at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London; the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, where he also taught Tibetan and served as an interpreter; the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala; Oxford University, where he earned a Master’s degree in Oriental Studies; and again at SOAS, where he completed his PhD with a thesis entitled ''A Greater Perfection? Scholasticism, Comparativism and Issues of Sectarian Identity in Early 20th Century Writings on rDzogs-chen''.
In 2018 he was a senior teaching fellow at SOAS, lecturing on Buddhist philosophy and critical approaches to Buddhist Studies. ([https://adamspearcey.com/ Source Accessed Feb 10, 2020]) +
Marc Agate holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, Atlanta (GA) and graduated from the École des Mines de Nantes in Computer Sciences. After working for a web services company for five years in Atlanta, he returned to France and joined the Dashang Rimay Community where he learned Tibetan and started to develop several multilingual lexicographic projects.
With his wife, he published a practical guide on Tibetan Kunye Massage. He also translated several sutras from Tibetan to French, as well as the ''Uttaratantra'' and its commentary by Asanga, and books 2, 3 and 4 of the ''Treasury of Knowledge'' by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye. Marc has joined BDRC to offer his expertise, and help preserve and spread Buddhist teachings around the world. ([https://www.tbrc.org/#!footer/community/people Source Accessed Oct 4, 2019]) +
Zahiruddln Ahmad was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia. He is the author of several books on Tibetan history, including ''China and Tibet, 1708-1959'' (Oxford University Press, 1960); ''Tibet and Ladakh: A History'' (Chatto & Windus, 1963); ''Sino-Tibetan Relations in the 17th Century'' (Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1970); ''Life of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Vol. IV, Part I'' (International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 1999); ''An introduction to Buddhist Philosophy in India and Tibet'' (International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 2007); ''The Song of the Queen of Spring'' (International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 2008); and ''The Historical Status of China in Tibet'' (Aditya Prakashan, 2012). He is also the author of numerous articles on Tibetan history and related subjects. +
Prof. Akira Saito is a faculty member at the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies in Tokyo Japan. He holds an M.A. from the University of Tokyo (1979) and received his Ph.D. from Australian National University (1985). His primary area of specialization is the History of Indian Buddhist Philosophy and Madhyamaka Studies. His teaching activities at ICPBC include: Reading Buddhist Studies in Foreign Languages; Inner Asian Buddhist Philology; Ph.D. Tutorials; and Special topics in Buddhist Studies. ([http://www.icabs.ac.jp/en/research/faculty/saito Adapted from Source Aug 3, 2020]) +
Lama Tsultrim Allione is founder and resident lama of Tara Mandala. She is author of ''Women of Wisdom'', ''Feeding Your Demons'', and ''Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine''. Born in New England to an academic/publishing family, she traveled to India in her late teens and was ordained as a Buddhist nun at the age of 22 by H.H. the 16th Karmapa. She was the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun in the Karma Kagyu lineage. After living in the Himalayan region for several years she returned her vows and became the mother of three, while continuing to study and practice Buddhism, particularly focusing on the lineage of Machig Labdron and Dzogchen teachings. In 1993, Lama Tsultrim founded Tara Mandala, a 700-acre center in southwest Colorado where an extraordinary three-story temple in the form of a mandala, dedicated to the sacred feminine in Buddhism has been constructed and consecrated. In 2007 while traveling in Tibet she was recognized as an emanation of Machig Labdron at the historic seat of Machig Zangri Khangmar by the resident lama. This recognition was confirmed by several other lamas, and in 2012 she was given the Machig Labdron empowerment by HH the 17th Karmapa. ([https://taramandala.secure.retreat.guru/teacher/tsultrim-allione/ Source Accessed July 15, 2020]) +
Orna Almogi studied Tibetology (major) and Religious Studies and Psychology (minors) at the University of Hamburg (MA 1998). She received her PhD in Tibetology from the same University in 2006 (doctoral thesis: “Rong-zom-pa’s Discourses on Traditional Buddhology: A Study on the Development of the Concept of Buddhahood with Special Reference to the Controversy Surrounding the Existence of Gnosis (ye shes: jñāna) at the Stage of a Buddha”). From 1999 until 2004 she had been working for the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP) and the Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (NGMCP), where she had been responsible for the Tibetan materials. From 2008 to 2011 she has been a member of the Researcher Group “Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa” with the subproject “The Manuscript Collections of the Ancient Tantras (rNying ma rgyud ’bum): An Examination of Variance.” From 2011 to 2015 she has been working at the “Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures” as the leader of the subproject “Doxographical Organisational Schemes in Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Collection of the Ancient Tantras.”<br> Since 2015 she has been involved in the “Academic Research Program Initiative” (ARPI). Since 2016 she is leading the project “A Canon in the Making: The History of the Formation, Production, and Transmission of the ''bsTan 'gyur'', the Corpus of Treatises in Tibetan Translation.” Her research interests extend to a number of areas connected with the Tibetan religio-philosophical traditions and Tibetan Buddhist literature, particularly that of the rNying-ma school. The primary focus of her research the past years has been the concept of Buddhahood in traditional Buddhist sources, early subclassifications of Madhyamaka, the ''rNying ma rgyud ’bum'', and the ''bsTan ʼgyur''. Another interest of her is the culture of the book in Tibet in all its variety, specifically in connection with the compilation and transmission of Buddhist literary collections, both in manuscripts and xylographs forms. ([https://www.kc-tbts.uni-hamburg.de/en/people/almogi.html Source Accessed Jul 14, 2020])
Buddhist émigré ācarya who played a major role in the introduction and translation of seminal Buddhist texts belonging to the esoteric tradition or mijiao. His birthplace is uncertain, but many sources allude to his ties to Central Asia. Accompanying his teacher Vajrabodhi, Amoghavajra arrived in the Chinese capital of Chang'an in 720–1 and spent most of his career in that cosmopolitan city. In 741, following the death of his mentor, Amoghavajra made an excursion to India and Sri Lanka with the permission of the Tang-dynasty emperor and returned in 746 with new Buddhist texts, many of them esoteric scriptures. Amoghavajra's influence on the Tang court reached its peak when he was summoned by the emperor to construct an abhiṣeka, or consecration, altar on his behalf. Amoghavajra's activities in Chang'an were interrupted by the An Lushan rebellion (655–763), but after the rebellion was quelled, he returned to his work at the capital and established an inner chapel for homa rituals and abhiṣeka in the imperial palace. He was later honored by the emperor with the purple robe, the highest honor for a Buddhist monk and the rank of third degree. Along with Xuanzang, Amoghavajra was one of the most prolific translators and writers in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Among the many texts he translated into Chinese, especially important are the ''Sarvatathāgatasaṃgraha'' and the ''Bhadracarīpraṇidhāna''. (Source: "Amoghavajra." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 36. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Anders holds a Bachelors degree from Naropa University and joined the Centre for Buddhist Studies in 2006. At CBS Anders graduated with a BA in Buddhist Studies in 2010 and afterwards joined the MA program.
His thesis supervisor was Dr. Karin Meyers and the external reader was Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Mathes from the University of Vienna, Austria.
Anders also secured a Tsadra foundation scholarship for his MA studies and recently took ordination. ([http://ryi-student-blog.blogspot.com/2012/12/congratulations-anders-bjonback.html Source Accessed Aug 12, 2020]) +
Ari Goldfield is a Buddhist teacher. He had the unique experience of being continuously in the training and service of his own teacher, Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, for eleven years. From 1998-2009, Ari served as Khenpo Rinpoche’s translator and secretary, accompanying Rinpoche on seven round-the-world teaching tours. Ari received extensive instruction from Rinpoche in Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and teaching methods, and meditated under Rinpoche’s guidance in numerous retreats. In 2006, Khenpo Rinpoche sent Ari on his own tour to teach philosophy, meditation, and yogic exercise in Europe, North America, and Asia. In 2007, Ari moved with Rinpoche to Seattle, where he served and helped care for him until Rinpoche moved back to Nepal in 2009. Ari now teaches in Rinpoche’s Karma Kagyu lineage, with the blessings of the head of the lineage, H.H. the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, and of Khenpo Rinpoche.
Ari is also a published translator and author of books, articles, and numerous songs of realization and texts on Buddhist philosophy and meditation. These include Khenpo Rinpoche’s books ''Stars of Wisdom'', ''The Sun of Wisdom'', and Rinpoche’s ''Song of the Eight Flashing Lances'' teaching, which appeared in ''The Best Buddhist Writing'' 2007. He is a contributing author of ''Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind: Writings on the Connections Between Yoga and Buddhism''.
Ari studied Buddhist texts in Tibetan and Sanskrit at Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and India, and at the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in India. In addition to translating for Khenpo Rinpoche, he has also served as translator for H.H. Karmapa, Tenga Rinpoche, and many other Tibetan teachers. From 2007–11, Ari served as president of the Marpa Foundation, a nonprofit organization initiated by Khenpo Rinpoche that supports Buddhist translation, nunneries in Bhutan and Nepal, and other Buddhist activities. Ari holds a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Harvard Law School, both with honors. ([https://insightla.org/teacher/ari-goldfield-2/ Source Accessed July 22, 2020])
Arne Schelling studied Western and Chinese medicine in Germany and China and now works as a physician in Berlin. From 1995 to 2001 he worked to develop the Kagyu Centers Theksum Tashi Chöling in Hamburg and Kamalashila-Institute in Langenfeld, Germany. He frequently translates (from English to German) for masters of all the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, in Germany and Switzerland. In 2001 Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche appointed Arne as president of Siddhartha’s Intent Europe, and he later became a country representative for Khyentse Foundation in Germany. Since 2002 he has directed the film project "Heart Advice," which aims to preserve the essence of the teachings of Tibetan masters. He also gives instruction at several Buddhist centers in Germany. +
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]) +
Dan Arnold is a scholar of Indian Buddhist philosophy, which he engages in a constructive and comparative way. Considering Indian Buddhist philosophy as integral to the broader tradition of Indian philosophy, he has particularly focused on topics at issue among Buddhist schools of thought (chiefly, those centering on the works of Nāgārjuna and of Dharmakīrti), often considering these in conversation with critics from the orthodox Brahmanical school of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. His first book – ''Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of Religion'' (Columbia University Press, 2005) – won an American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion. His second book – ''Brains, Buddhas, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind'' (Columbia University Press, 2012) – centers on the contemporary philosophical category of intentionality, taken as useful in thinking through central issues in classical Buddhist epistemology and philosophy of mind. This book received the Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism, awarded by the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is presently working on an anthology of Madhyamaka texts in translation, to appear in the series "Historical Sourcebooks in Classical Indian Thought." His essays have appeared in such journals as ''Philosophy East and West'', the ''Journal of Indian Philosophy'', ''Asian Philosophy'', the ''Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies'', the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', and ''Revue Internationale de Philosophie''. ([https://salc.uchicago.edu/daniel-arnold Source Accessed Jul 13, 2020]) +
Gyurme Avertin began his study of the Tibetan language in 1997. He spent two years following the Tibetan program at Langues’O University in Paris. He then went to Nepal in 1999 to study at the [[Rangjung Yeshe Institute]], before making his way to Bir in northern India, where he studied at Dzongsar Shedra. He regularly interprets for teachers visiting Rigpa centres and at the Rigpa Shedra East. (2014 Translation & Transmission Conference Program) +
Dr. Aviv is interested in Buddhist philosophy and intellectual history. He studies topics of intersections between early Buddhist Philosophy, especially of the Abhidharma and the Yogacara traditions, and contemporary philosophy. His interest includes topics such as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, ethics and contemplative practices. His intellectual history research focuses on religion in the modern period, especially the Buddhist renaissance in modern China. In addition, he is also interested in the way the Yogacara school was received and developed in pre-modern China. His current book project explores the role of Indian Buddhist philosophy in the formation of modern Chinese Buddhist thought. ([https://religion.columbian.gwu.edu/eyal-aviv Source Accessed June 8, 2023]) +
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Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (18 November 1898 – 19 January 1956) was one of the most notable Sino-Indologists of the 20th century. He was the third Upacharya (Vice-Chancellor) of Visva-Bharati University. He published a large number of books in English, French, and Bengali. His best known work that is still acclaimed as a classical work even today is ''India and China'', which was first published in 1944. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prabodh_Chandra_Bagchi Source Accessed Jun 4, 2019]) +
Sir Harold Walter Bailey, FBA (16 December 1899–11 January 1996), who published as H. W. Bailey, was an eminent English scholar of Khotanese, Sanskrit, and the comparative study of Iranian languages.
Bailey has been described as one of the greatest Orientalists of the twentieth century. He was said to read more than 50 languages.
In 1929 Bailey began his doctoral dissertation, a translation with notes of the ''Greater Bundahishn'', a compendium of Zoroastrian writings in Middle Persian recorded in the Pahlavi scripts. He became the world's leading expert in the Khotanese dialect of the Saka language, the mediaeval Iranian language of the Kingdom of Khotan (modern Xinjiang). His initial motivation for the study of Khotanese was an interest in the possible connection with the ''Bundahishn''. He later passed his material on that work to Kaj Barr.
He was known for his immensely erudite lectures, and once confessed: "I have talked for ten and a half hours on the problem of one word without approaching the further problem of its meaning."
Bailey was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1944, and subsequently a member of the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Academies. He received honorary degrees from four universities including Oxford; served as president of Philological Society, the Royal Asiatic Society, the Society for Afghan Studies, and the Society of Mithraic Studies; and chaired the Anglo-Iranian Society and Ancient India and Iran Trust. He was knighted for services to Oriental studies in 1960. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Walter_Bailey Source Accessed Dec 6, 2019])
See complete biography in [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bailey-harold-walter-1 Encyclopædia Iranica] +
Baizhang Huaihai (Chinese: 百丈懷海; pinyin: Bǎizhàng Huáihái; Wade-Giles: Pai-chang Huai-hai; Japanese: Hyakujō Ekai) (720–814) was a Zen master during the Tang Dynasty. A native of Fuzhou, he was a dharma heir of Mazu Daoyi (Wade-Giles: Ma-tsu Tao-i).[1] Baizhang's students included Huangbo, Linji and Puhua.
Hagiographic depictions of Baizhang depict him as a radical and iconoclastic figure, but these narratives derive from at least a century and a half after his death and were developed and elaborated during the Song dynasty.[2] As Mario Poceski writes, the earliest strata of sources (such as the ''Baizhang guanglu'' 百丈廣錄 ) about this figure provide a "divergent image of Baizhang as a sophisticated teacher of doctrine, who is at ease with both the philosophical and contemplative aspects of Buddhism."[3] Poceski summarizes this figure thus:
:The image of Baizhang conveyed by the Tang-era sources is that of a learned and sagacious monk who is well versed in both the theoretical and contemplative aspects of medieval Chinese Buddhism. Here we encounter Baizhang as a teacher of a particular Chan brand of Buddhist doctrine, formulated in a manner and idiom that are unique to him and to the Hongzhou school as a whole. Nonetheless, he also comes across as someone who is cognizant of major intellectual trends in Tang Buddhism, as well as deeply steeped in canonical texts and traditions. His discourses are filled with scriptural quotations and allusions. He also often resorts to technical Buddhist vocabulary, of the kind one usually finds in the texts of philosophically oriented schools of Chinese Buddhism such as Huayan, Faxiang, and Tiantai. Here the primary mode in which Baizhang communicates his teachings is the public Chan sermon, presented in the ritual framework of “ascending the [Dharma] hall [to preach]” (''shangtang'').[4]
Regarding his teachings, Poceski notes:
:A central idea that infuses most of Baizhang’s sermons is the ineffability or indescribability of reality. Ultimate reality cannot be predicated in terms of conventional conceptual categories, as it transcends the familiar realm of words and ideas. Nonetheless, it can be approached or realized—as it truly is, without any accretions or distortions—as it manifests at all times and in all places. That is done by means of intuitive knowledge, whose cultivation is one of the cornerstones of Chan soteriology. Since the essence of reality cannot be captured or conveyed via the mediums of words and letters, according to Baizhang it is pointless to get stuck in dogmatic assertions, or to attach to a particular doctrine or practice. Like everything else, the various Chan (or more broadly Buddhist) teachings are empty of self-nature. They simply constitute expedient tools in an ongoing process of cultivating detachment and transcendence that supposedly free the mind of mistaken views and distorted ways of perceiving reality; to put it differently, they belong to the well-known Buddhist category of “skillful means” (''fangbian'', or upāya in Sanskrit). Holding on rigidly or fetishizing a particular text, viewpoint, or method of practice—even the most profound and potent ones—can turn out to be counterproductive, as it becomes a source of attachment that impedes spiritual progress. The perfection of the Chan path of practice and realization, therefore, does not involve the attainment of some particular ability or knowledge. Rather, in Baizhang’s text it is depicted as a process of letting go of all views and attachment that interfere with the innate human ability to know reality and experience spiritual freedom.[5]
One of his doctrinal innovations is what are called the “three propositions” (sanju), which are three distinct stages of spiritual realization or progressive ways of knowing:[6]
*Thoroughgoing detachment from all things and affairs
*Nonabiding in the state of detachment
*Letting go of even the subtlest vestiges of self-referential awareness or knowledge of having transcended detachment.
Baizhang's teachings and sayings have been translated by Thomas Cleary in ''Sayings and Doings of Pai-Chang''.[7] The Wild fox koan is attributed to Baizhang. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baizhang_Huaihai Source Accessed July 15, 2021])
Bardor Tulku Rinpoche was born in 1949 in Kham, East Tibet. At a very early age, he was recognized by His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa as the third incarnation of Terchen Barway Dorje.
When Rinpoche was a small child, with his family and his Dharma tutor he maintained a nomadic life style. Rinpoche was six when he left East Tibet in the company of his grandparents on a journey that took him first to Lhasa, then Tsurphu, and finally to Drikung where Rinpoche was to remain for a couple of years at the home of his grandparents.
After Rinpoche’s grandparents passed away, his parents and siblings joined him in Drikung. When the political and social conditions in Tibet worsened as a result of the Chinese Communist occupation, Rinpoche and his family—initially a party of thirteen—set out toward India over the Himalayas along with many other Tibetans who were also fleeing the fighting.
They traveled through Kongpo to Pema Ku. In Pema Ku, at the border of Tibet and India, as a result of the arduous journey, all Rinpoche’s family members died. When Rinpoche’s father—the last member of his family—died, Rinpoche left Pema Ku and continued on toward Assam with other refugees.
At the township known as Bomdila, where the borders of Tibet, Bhutan, and India meet, a bombing raid dispersed the group. Rinpoche and a young friend fled the attack and traveled westward, along the border of Bhutan and India, to Siliguri and eventually to Darjeeling. When they arrived in Darjeeling, His Holiness the 16th Karmapa was notified that Rinpoche had safely made his way out of Tibet. Filled with joy at the good news, His Holiness arranged for Rinpoche to be brought to Sikkim, and for Rinpoche’s friend to be taken care of.
Bardor Tulku Rinpoche was enthroned as a tulku at Rumtek Monastery when he was in his teens. It was also at Rumtek Monastery, under the tutelage of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, that Rinpoche’s formal training took place.
After completing many years of study and practice, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche accompanied the 16th Karmapa on his world tours in 1974 and 1976. In 1977, His Holiness asked Rinpoche to remain in Woodstock, New York, at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD). During his first two years at KTD, Rinpoche worked side-by-side with the staff to renovate and winterize the house and prepare for the last visit of His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa to the West. During that last visit, in 1980, His Holiness directed that his monastery and seat in North America be established at KTD, and he performed the formal investiture. After the groundbreaking ceremony in May of 1982, Bardor Rinpoche directed the construction activities and labored each day to build the monastery. When the construction of the shrine building was essentially completed in early 1990s, he assumed responsibilities as a teacher at KTD and its affiliate Karma Thegsum Chöling centers (KTCs).
In 2000, with a blessing from His Holiness the 17th Karmapa and His Eminence the 12th Tai Situ Rinpoche, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche established Raktrul Foundation in order to help rebuild the Raktrul Monastery in Tibet and provide educational facilities for monks and the lay community. In 2003, Rinpoche established Kunzang Palchen Ling (KPL), a Tibetan Buddhist Center in Red Hook, New York. Based on nonsectarian principles, KPL offers Dharma teachings from all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and serves as a base for preserving and bringing to the West the terma teachings of Terchen Barway Dorje.
After working tirelessly for thirty-one years with the Venerable Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, the abbot of KTD, to firmly establish KTD and its affiliates in the United States, in October 2008, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche resigned from all his responsibilities at KTD. In August 2009, the KTD Board of Trustees issued an appreciation letter acknowledging Bardor Tulku Rinpoche’s role in the establishment KTD and its affiliates in North America.
Since he left KTD, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche has been directing the activities of Kunzang Palchen Ling, guiding Palchen Study Groups nationwide, overseeing translation projects of terma texts of Terchen Barway Dorje and the construction of the new facility at Kunzang Palchen Ling that is an implementation of his vision for KPL. Rinpoche also serves as an adviser for Dharma TV, an online Buddhist television project. [http://www.kunzang.org/biography/ Source Kunzang.org, Accessed January 27, 2022.]
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. +
Richard Barron is a Canadian-born translator who specializes in the writings of Longchenpa. He has served as an interpreter for many lamas from all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, including his first teacher, Kalu Rinpoche. He completed a traditional three-year retreat at Kagyu Ling in France and later became a close disciple of the late Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. He was engaged in a long-term project to translate ''The Seven Treasuries'' of Longchenpa.
His other translations include ''Buddhahood Without Meditation'', ''The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors'', and ''A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage'' by Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche. ''The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul'' was his first translation in the Tsadra Foundation Series published by Snow Lion Publications. +
Christian Bernert (MA) comes from Austria where he studied Tibetology at the University of Vienna until 2009. He embarked on the Buddhist path in 1999 under the guidance of Khenchen Amipa Rinpoche. Since 2001 he has been studying at IBA, where he currently works as language program coordinator and translator. Christian is a founding member of the Chödung Karmo Translation Group. ([https://conference.tsadra.org/past-event/the-2014-tt-conference/ Source Accessed Jul 20, 2020])
His dissertation was published as a book-length translation: ''Perfect or Perfected? Rongtön on Buddha-Nature: A Commentary on the Fourth Chapter of the Ratnagotravibhāga'' (v v.1.27-95[a]). Kathmandu: Vajra Books, 2018. +
Alexander Berzin (born 1944) grew up in New Jersey, USA. He began his study of Buddhism in 1962 at Rutgers and then Princeton Universities, and received his PhD in 1972 from Harvard University jointly between the Departments of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and Far Eastern Languages (Chinese). Inspired by the process through which Buddhism was transmitted from one Asian civilization to another and how it was translated and adopted, his focus has been, ever since, on bridging traditional Buddhist and modern Western cultures.
Dr. Berzin was resident in India for 29 years, first as a Fulbright Scholar and then with the Translation Bureau, which he helped to found, at the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives in Dharamsala. While in India, he furthered his studies with masters from all four Tibetan Buddhist traditions; however, his main teachers have been His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. Practicing under their supervision, he completed the major meditation retreats of the Gelug tradition.
For nine years, he was the principal interpreter for Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, accompanying him on his foreign tours and training under him to be a Buddhist teacher in his own right. He has served as occasional interpreter for H.H. the Dalai Lama and has organized several international projects for him. These have included Tibetan medical aid for victims of the Chernobyl radiation disaster; preparation of basic Buddhist texts in colloquial Mongolian to help with the revival of Buddhism in Mongolia; and initiation of a Buddhist-Muslim dialogue in universities in the Islamic world.
Since 1980, Dr. Berzin has traveled the world, lecturing on Buddhism in universities and Buddhist centers in over 70 countries. He was one of the first to teach Buddhism in most of the communist world, throughout Latin America and large parts of Africa. Throughout his travels, he has consistently tried to demystify Buddhism and show the practical application of its teachings in daily life.
A prolific author and translator, Dr. Berzin has published 17 books, including Relating to a Spiritual Teacher, Taking the Kalachakra Initiation, Developing Balanced Sensitivity, and with H.H. the Dalai Lama, The Gelug-Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra.
At the end of 1998, Dr. Berzin returned to the West with about 30,000 pages of unpublished manuscripts of books, articles, and translations he had prepared, transcriptions of teachings of the great masters that he had translated, and notes from all the teachings he had received from these masters. Convinced of the benefit of this material for others and determined that it not be lost, he named it the “Berzin Archives” and settled in Berlin, Germany. There, with the encouragement of H. H. the Dalai Lama, he set out to make this vast material freely available to the world on the Internet, in as many languages as possible.
Thus, the Berzin Archives website went online in December 2001. It has expanded to include Dr. Berzin’s ongoing lectures and is now available in 21 languages. For many of them, especially the six Islamic world languages, it is the pioneering work in the field. The present version of the [https://studybuddhism.com/ website] is the next step in Dr. Berzin’s lifelong commitment to building a bridge between the traditional Buddhist and modern worlds. By guiding the teachings across the bridge and showing their relevance to modern life, his vision has been that they would help to bring emotional balance to the world.
([https://studybuddhism.com/en/dr-alexander-berzin Source Accessed Dec 4, 2019])
Click here for a list of Alexander Berzin's [https://studybuddhism.com/en/dr-alexander-berzin/published-works-of-dr-berzin publications]
Bhikkhu Anālayo was born in Germany in 1962 and ordained in Sri Lanka in 1995. In the year 2000 he completed a Ph.D. thesis on the ''Satipatthana-sutta'' at the University of Peradeniya (published by Windhorse in the UK). In the year 2007 he completed a habilitation research at the University of Marburg, in which he compared the ''Majjhima-nikaya'' discourses with their Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan counterparts. At present, he is a member of the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, University of Hamburg, as a professor, and works as a researcher at Dharma Drum Institue of Liberal Arts, Taiwan. Besides his academic activities, he regularly teaches meditation. ([https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/en/personen/analayo.html Source Accessed Nov 22, 2019])
* For a substantial list of Bhikkhu Anālayo's publications, visit his faculty page at the [https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/en/personen/analayo.html University of Hamburg] +
Associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. He is a specialist on early Japanese Zen whose major work to date is Dōgen's Manuals of Zen Meditation, which was corecipient of the 1990 Hiromi Arisawa Memorial Award from the Association of American University Presses with the Japan Foundation. +
Helena Blankleder holds a degree in Modern Languages. She completed two three-year retreats at Chanteloube, France (1980-1985 and 1986-1989). She is a professional translator and a member of the Padmakara Translation Group, Dordogne, France. Helena has been a Tsadra Foundation Fellow since 2001. +
Mark Blum, Professor and Shinjo Ito Distinguished Chair in Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, received his M.A. in Japanese Literature from UCLA and his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies in 1990 from the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in Pure Land Buddhism throughout East Asia, with a focus on the Japanese medieval period. He also works in the area of Japanese Buddhist reponses to modernism, Buddhist conceptions of death in China and Japan, historical consciousness in Buddhist thought, and the impact of the Nirvana Sutra (Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra) in East Asian Buddhism. He is the author of ''The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism'' (2002), and co-editor of ''Rennyo and the Roots of Modern Japanese Buddhism'' (2005) and ''Cultivating Spirituality'' (2011), and his translation from Chinese of ''The Nirvana Sutra: Volume 1'' (2013). He is currently working on completing ''Think Buddha, Say Buddha: A History of Nenbutsu Thought, Practice, and Culture''. ([http://ealc.berkeley.edu/faculty/blum-mark Source Accessed May 31, 2019]) +
Born in Los Angeles, Jim grew up in Southern California. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of San Diego and continued to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he finished his MA and PhD under the direction of the Tibetan Buddhist scholar/practitioner Geshe Lhundub Sopa. His graduate studies focused on the work of the Indian teacher Śāntarakṣita.
Both in his career as Associate Professor in the School of History, Philosophy and Religion at Oregon State University and as Professor of Buddhist Studies at Maitripa College, Jim displayed the rare combination of deep commitment to teaching and rigorous engagement as a research scholar. Even more unusually, Jim was able to produce scholarly texts that were valued equally by the academy and by Buddhist communities. He published analytical and translation works on Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism based upon this research, including The Ornament of The Middle Way: A Study of the Madhyamaka Thought of Śāntarakṣita (2004) and Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning (2004). With Geshe Sopa, he completed a translation of the 4th Chapter of the ''Lamrim Chenmo'', and was pursuing the publication of a translation of Śāntarakṣita’s ''Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti''.
Jim was a strong advocate for institutions of higher education that strive to integrate the knowledge base of Buddhist philosophy with meditative practice and service to the community. In 2004, Jim invited Yangsi Rinpoche to Portland, Oregon to speak to interested persons. In 2005, Jim began working alongside Yangsi Rinpoche, Namdrol Adams, and Angie Garcia on the founding of Maitripa Institute, soon to become Maitripa College, which seeks to embody those ideals. . . .
His main teachers were His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche, Jangtse Choje Rinpoche, Choden Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Yangsi Rinpoche, and Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. ([https://maitripa.org/jim-blumenthal/ Source adapted from an obituary written by Namdrol Miranda Adams, Damcho Diana Finnegan, and Jim's wife, Tiffany)]
A renowned Indian translator and monk (to be distinguished from a subsequent Bodhiruci [s.v.] who was active in China two centuries later during the Tang dynasty). Bodhiruci left north India for Luoyang, the Northern Wei capital, in 508. He is said to have been well versed in the Tripiṭaka and talented at incantations. Bodhiruci stayed at the monastery of Yongningsi in Luoyang from 508 to 512 and with the help of Buddhaśānta (d.u.) and others translated over thirty Mahāyāna sūtras and treatises, most of which reflect the latest developments in Indian Mahāyāna, and especially Yogācāra. His translations include the ''Dharmasaṃgīti'', ''Shidijing lun'', ''Laṅkāvatārasūtra'', ''Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra'', and the ''Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng ji'', attributed to Vasubandhu. Bodhiruci’s translation of the ''Shidijing lun'', otherwise known more simply as the ''Di lun'', fostered the formation of a group of Yogācāra specialists in China that later historians retroactively call the Di lun zong. According to a story in the ''Lidai fabao ji'', a jealous Bodhiruci, assisted by a monk from Shaolinsi on Songshan named Guangtong (also known as Huiguang, 468–537), is said to have attempted on numerous occasions to poison the founder of the Chan school, Bodhidharma, and eventually succeeded. Bodhiruci is also said to have played an instrumental role in converting the Chinese monk Tanluan from Daoist longevity practices to the pure land teachings of the ''Guan Wuliangshou jing''. (Source: "Bodhiruci." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 133. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
William M. Bodiford is a professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches courses on religion in the cultures of Japan and East Asia, and Buddhist Studies. In addition to UCLA, he also has taught at Davidson College (Davidson, North Carolina), the University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa), Meiji Gakuin University (Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan), and ICU (International Christian University; Tokyo, Japan).
He received his Ph.D. from Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut) in the Department of Religious Studies, where he specialized in Buddhist Studies under the direction of Professor Stanley Weinstein. In addition to Yale, he also received graduate training at the Institute of Health and Sport Science (Taiiku Kagaku Kenkyuka), Tsukuba University (Tsukuba, Japan), where he studied the intellectual history of martial arts in Japan under the direction of Professor Watanabe Ichiro, and at the Graduate School of Buddhist Studies, Komazawa University (Tokyo, Japan), where he studied Asian Religions under the direction of Professors Kagamishima Genryu and Ishikawa Rikizan.
His research spans the medieval, early modern, and contemporary periods of Japanese history. Currently he is investigating religion during the Tokugawa period, especially those aspects of Japanese culture associated with manuscripts, printing, secrecy, education, and proselytizing. Although many of his publications focus on Zen Buddhism (especially Soto Zen), he also researches Tendai and Vinaya Buddhist traditions, Shinto, folklore and popular religions, as well as Japanese martial arts and traditional approaches to health and physical culture.
He is a member of the editorial boards of "Cursor Mundi: Viator Studies of the Medieval and Early Modern World" (UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), "Studies in East Asian Buddhism" and "Classics in East Asian Buddhism" (Kuroda Institute). ([https://www.alc.ucla.edu/person/william-m-bodiford/ Source Accessed June 30, 2021])
(Chokle Namgyal) (1376-1451). The twenty-third abbot of Bo dong E monastery, founded in about 1049 by the Bka' gdams geshe (dge bshes) Mu dra pa chen po, and the founder of the Bo dong tradition. His collected works, said to number thirty-six titles, include his huge encyclopedic work ''De nyid 'dus pa'' ("Compendium of the Principles"); it alone runs to 137 volumes in the incomplete edition published by the Tibet House in Delhi. Phyogs las rnam rgyal (who is sometimes confused with Jo nang pa Phyogs las rnam rgyal who lived some fifty years earlier) was a teacher of Dge 'dun grub (retroactively named the first Dalai Lama) and Mkhas grub Dge legs dpal bzang, both students of Tsong kha pa. Among his disciples was the king of Gung thang, Lha dbang rgyal mtshan (1404–1463), whose daughter Chos kyi sgron me (1422–1455) became a nun after the death of her daughter and then the head of Bsam lding (Samding) monastery, which her father founded for her. The monastery is the only Tibetan monastery whose abbot is traditionally a woman; incarnations are said to be those of the goddess Vajravārāhī (T. Rdo rje phag mo), "Sow-Headed Goddess." (Source: "Bo dong Phyogs las rnam rgyal." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 139. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Tara Brach’s teachings blend Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a full, compassionate engagement with our world. The result is a distinctive voice in Western Buddhism, one that offers a wise and caring approach to freeing ourselves and society from suffering.
As an undergraduate at Clark University, Tara pursued a double major in psychology and political science. During this time, while working as a grass roots organizer for tenants’ rights, she also began attending yoga classes and exploring Eastern approaches to inner transformation. After college, she lived for ten years in an ashram—a spiritual community—where she practiced and taught both yoga and concentrative meditation. When she left the ashram and attended her first Buddhist Insight Meditation retreat, led by Joseph Goldstein, she realized she was home. “I had found wisdom teachings and practices that train the heart and mind in unconditional and loving presence,” she explains. “I knew that this was a path of true freedom.”
Over the following years, Tara earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fielding Institute, with a dissertation exploring meditation as a therapeutic modality in treating addiction. She went on to complete a five-year Buddhist teacher training program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Working as both a psychotherapist and a meditation teacher, she found herself naturally blending these two powerful traditions—introducing meditation to her therapy clients and sharing western psychological insights with meditation students. This synthesis has evolved, in more recent years, into Tara’s groundbreaking work in training psychotherapists to integrate mindfulness strategies into their clinical work.
In 1998, Tara founded the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC (IMCW), which is now one of the largest and most dynamic non-residential meditation centers in the United States. She gives presentations, teaches classes, offers workshops, and leads silent meditation retreats at IMCW and at conferences and retreat centers in the United States and Europe. Tara’s podcast receives over 3 million downloads each month. Her themes reveal the possibility of emotional healing and spiritual awakening through mindful, loving awareness as well as the alleviation of suffering in the larger world by practicing compassion in action. She has fostered efforts to bring principles and practices of mindfulness to issues of racial injustice, equity and inclusivity; peace; environmental sustainability, as well as to prisons and schools.
She and Jack Kornfield lead the Awareness Training Institute (ATI) which offers online courses on mindfulness and compassion, as well as the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP).
In addition to numerous articles, videos, and hundreds of recorded talks, Tara is the author of the books ''Radical Acceptance'' (Bantam, 2003), ''True Refuge: Finding Peace & Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart'' (Bantam, 2013), ''Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of R.A.I.N.'' (Viking, 2019) and ''Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness'' (SoundsTrue, 6/2021). She has a son, Narayan, and lives in Great Falls, VA, with her husband, Jonathan Foust and their dog, kd. ([https://www.tarabrach.com/about/ Source Accessed Jan 19, 2022])
Filippo Brambilla is a PhD candidate at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies of the University of Vienna. He is currently writing his dissertation on Tshogs gnyis rgya mtsho (1880–1940), a late Jo nang scholar whose philosophical works are characterized by a distinctive approach that reconciles typically rang stong positions with more orthodox Jo nang views. Filippo’s PhD thesis will include a complete edition and translation of Tshogs gnyis rgya mtsho’s Illuminating Light (''Rab gsal snang''). Recently, Filippo also started working as a researcher in the FWF funded project “Emptiness of Other (gZhan stong) in the Early Jo nang Tradition.” He holds a BA and an MA in Languages and Cultures of Eastern Asia, with specialization in Chinese language and culture, from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Filippo has also spent long periods of study and research in China and Eastern Tibet. (Source: [https://conference.tsadra.org/session/empty-of-true-existence-yet-full-of-qualities-tshogs-gnyis-rgya-mtsho-1880-1940-on-buddha-nature/ Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia]) +
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]) +
Vicky Alvarez Bromley is an artist and illustrator based in the UK and Spain. She is inspired by her own inner world, connection with nature, glimpses of innocence and simplicity, human vulnerability and the mystical.
She loves to paint and draw expressive characters that reflect our feelings and emotions and also likes to add a touch of humour to her artwork! ([https://vickyalvarez.com/about-1 Adapted from Source Jan 19, 2022]) +
Brian Edward Brown was an undergraduate and graduate student of Thomas Berry at Fordham University where he earned his doctorate in the History of Religions, specializing in Buddhist thought. He subsequently earned his doctorate in law from New York University. Currently he is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y. He is the co-founder of The Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue at Iona as well as being one of the founding faculty of the Integral Environmental Studies major at Iona, a joint venture of the departments of biology, political science and religious studies. He is the author of two principal texts: ''The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna'' (Motilal Banarsidass,1991, reprinted 1994, 2003, 2010), and ''Religion, Law and the Land: Native Americans and the Judicial Determination of Sacred Land'' (Westport, Greenwood Press, 1999). He is co-editor of ''Augustine and World Religions'' (Lexington Books, 2008). Among his other publications are articles which have addressed the ecological implications of the Buddhist and Native American tribal traditions, as well as the Earth jurisprudence of Thomas Berry. ([http://thomasberry.org/life-and-thought/past-award-recipients Adapted from Source Jul 20, 2020]) +
Born in Germany, Karl Brunnhölzl, M.D. was trained as a physician in Germany. He studied Tibetology, Buddhology, and Sanskrit at [[Hamburg University]]. He received training in Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy and practice at the Marpa Institute for Translators, founded by [[Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamsto Rinpoche]].
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[[The Foliage of Superior Insight|Ashé Journal Article]]
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[http://www.nalandabodhi.org/teachers/western-teachers/karl-brunnholzl.aspx Nalandabodhi teacher page]
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'''Brief Biography:'''
Karl was originally trained, and worked, as a physician. He took Buddhist refuge vows in 1984 and, in 1990, completed a five-year training in higher Buddhist philosophy at Kamalashila Institute, Germany, receiving the traditional Kagyü title of "dharma tutor" (Tib. skyor dpon). Since 1988, he received his Buddhist and Tibetan language training mainly at Marpa Institute For Translators in Kathmandu, Nepal (director: Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche) and also studied Tibetology, Buddhology, and Sanskrit at Hamburg University, Germany. Since 1989, Karl served as a translator, interpreter, and Buddhist teacher mainly in Europe, India, and Nepal. Since 1999, he has acted as one of the main translators and teachers at Nitartha Institute (director: Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche) in the USA, Canada, and Germany. In addition, he regularly taught at Gampo Abbey's Vidyadhara Institute from 2000-2007. He is the author of several books on Buddhism, such as The Center of the Sunlit Sky, Straight from the Heart, In Praise of Dharmadhātu, and Luminous Heart (all Snow Lion Publications).
Karl met Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in 1986 during Rinpoche's first teaching tour through Europe, receiving extensive teachings as well as pratimoksha vows from him during the following years in both Europe and Nepal, and later also in Canada and the USA. He served as Rinpoche's personal translator during his teachings tours in Europe (particularly at Nitartha Institute in Germany) from 1999-2005. In 2005, he was appointed as one of five Western Nalandabodhi teachers and given the title "mitra."
In 2006, he moved to Seattle and works as a full-time Tibetan translator for Tsadra Foundation. Since his arrival in Seattle, Karl was instrumental in creating the new introductory NB Buddhism 100 Series, leads NB Study Path classes, presents weekend courses and open house talks at Nalanda West, offers selected teachings to the Vajrasattva and Mahamudra practice communities, and provides personal guidance as a PI. He also teaches weekend seminars and Nitartha Institute courses in NB centers in the US, Canada, and Mexico as well as other locations.
Within the Mitra Council, Karl is the current Dean until 2010 and is mainly supervising and revising the NB Study Path (which includes revising the Hinayana and Mahayana study path and creating a Vajrayana study path). While enthusiastic about all facets of the dharma, his main interests are the teachings on Mahamudra, Yogacara and Buddha Nature, and to make the essential teachings by the Karmapas and other major Kagyu lineage figures available to contemporary Western audiences. [http://www.nalandabodhi.org/teachers/western-teachers/karl-brunnholzl.aspx Source]
Buddhabhadra (佛馱跋陀羅, 359–429) means enlightenment worthy. Born in northern India, he was a descendent of King Amṛtodana, who was the youngest of the three uncles of Śākyamuni Buddha (circa 563–483 BCE). He renounced family life at age seventeen and became a monk. Studying hard, he mastered meditation and the Vinaya.
In 408, the tenth year of the Hongshi (弘始) years of the Later Qin Dynasty (後秦 or 姚秦, 384–417), one of the Sixteen Kingdoms (304–439), he went to its capital, Chang-an. The illustrious translator Kumārajīva (鳩摩羅什, 344–413) had arrived there in 401. However, Buddhabhadra did not like Kumārajīva’s students. Together with his own forty-some students, he went to the Lu Mountain (廬山, in present-day Jiangxi Province) and stayed with Master Huiyuan (慧遠, 334–416), the first patriarch of the Pure Land School of China.
In 415, the eleventh year of the Yixi (義熙) years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (東晉, 317–420), Buddhabhadra went south to its capital, Jiankong (建康), present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. He stayed at the Daochang Temple (道場寺) and began his translation work. Altogether, he translated from Sanskrit into Chinese thirteen texts in 125 fascicles. For example, texts 376 and 1425 were translated jointly by him and Faxian (法顯, circa 337–422). Text 376 (T12n0376) in 6 fascicles is the earliest of the three Chinese versions of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra; text 1425 (T22n1425) in 40 fascicles is the Chinese version of the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya. Texts 278 and 666 were translated by him alone probably between years 418 and 421. Text 278 (T09n0278) is the 60-fascicle Chinese version of the Mahāvaipulya Sūtra of Buddha Adornment (Buddhāvataṁsaka-mahāvaipulya-sūtra); text 666 (T16n0666) in one fascicle is the first of the two extant Chinese versions of the Mahāvaipulya Sūtra of the Tathāgata Store.
In 429, the sixth year of the Yuanjia (元嘉) years of the Liu Song Dynasty (劉宋, 420–79), Buddhabhadra died, at age seventy-one. People called him the Indian Meditation Master. He is one of the eighteen exalted ones of the Lu Mountain. ([http://www.sutrasmantras.info/translators.html#kumarajiva Source Accessed Aug 19, 2021])
Anne Burchardi took refuge with Ven. Kalu Rinpoche in 1976.
In 1978 she became a student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and started her education as a Tibetan translator with him.
1978–1980 she was the secretary of Center for Tibetan Buddhism, Karma Drub Djy Ling, Copenhagen, Denmark.
1978-1979 she was secretary at The Ethnographical Department of The National Museum, Copenhagen.
In 1980 she became a member of The Translating Board of Kagyu Tekchen Shedra, International Educational Institute of Higher Learning, Bruxelles, Belgium.
She lived in Kathmandu from 1984–1992 and in 1986 she became Teacher at Marpa Institute for Translation, Kathmandu, Nepal. 1988–1991 she was secretary and course coordinator at Marpa Institute for Translation. From 1986 to 2015 she was interpreter for various Tibetan Lamas of the Kagyu, Nyingma, and Gelukpa lineages teaching Buddhism mainly in Europe and Asia, and occasionally in the USA and Canada.
1997–2002 she was Teaching Assistant in Tibetan Language Studies, at The Asian Insitute, University of Copenhagen.
1999–2015 she was Associate Professor in Tibetology, Department of Asian Studies, Institute of Cross Cultural & Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen.
1999-2007 she was Research Librarian and Curator, Tibetan Section, Department of Orientalia & Judaica, The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen.
2000 She was Consultant for Tibet, International Development Partners, DANIDA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Lhasa and Denmark.
2001-2015 she was Lecturer on Buddhism and Tibetan Culture at The Public University, Copenhagen & Aarhus.
2002–2010 she was Researcher and Consultant at The Twinning Library Project, between The National Library of Bhutan, Thimphu and The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen.
2004–2005 she was Visiting Professor at Deparmnet of Religion, Naropa University, Boulder, CO.
2005–2015 she was Lecturer on Buddhism at Pende Ling, Center for Tibetan Buddhism, Copenhagen.
2007–2015 she was Lecturer on Buddhist Studies, The Buddhist University, Pende Ling, Copenhagen.
2010 She was for Consultant for Liason Office of Denmark, Thimphu, Bhutan, DANIDA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen.
2011-2013 She was a Culture Guide in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet for Cramon Travels and for Kipling Travels.
2012–2020 She was a translator for the 84000 project.
(Source: Anne Burchardi Email, Jan 18, 2021.)
Robert E. Buswell Jr., Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies in the UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, is the Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Humanities at UCLA, and the founding director of the university’s Center for Buddhist Studies and Center for Korean Studies. From 2009-2011, he served concurrently as founding director of the Dongguk Institute for Buddhist Studies Research (Pulgyo Haksurwon) at Dongguk University in Seoul, Korea.<br> He is widely considered to be the premier Western scholar on Korean Buddhism and one of the top specialists on the East Asian Zen tradition. Buswell also served as editor-in-chief of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Macmillan Reference, 2004), and coeditor (with Donald S. Lopez, Jr.) of the [now published] one-million word [Princeton] Dictionary of Buddhism. In 2009, Buswell was awarded the Manhae Prize from the Chogye Order in recognition of his pioneering contributions to Korean Buddhist Studies in the West. Buswell was elected president of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) for 2008-2009, the first time a Koreanist or Buddhologist has ever held the position, and served as past-president and past-past-president in subsequent years. ([https://www.alc.ucla.edu/person/robert-e-buswell/ Source Accessed Nov 25 2019]) +
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José Ignacio Cabezón is XIVth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies, and former chair of the Religious Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara. He has published a dozen books and numerous articles related to Tibetan and Buddhist Studies including several translations. His most recent books include [https://wisdomexperience.org/product/sera-monastery/ ''Sera Monastery''] (Wisdom 2019), [https://wisdomexperience.org/product/sexuality-classical-south-asian-buddhism/ ''Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism''] (Wisdom 2017), [https://www.shambhala.com/the-just-king-14972.html ''The Just King''] (Snow Lion 2017), [https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199958603.001.0001/acprof-9780199958603 ''The Buddhist Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles''] (Oxford 2012), and [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tibetan-ritual-9780195392821?q=Tibetan%20Ritual&lang=en&cc=us ''Tibetan Ritual''] (Oxford 2010). +
Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin, stands as a beacon of pioneering spirit, being the first American woman and the first of African Japanese descent to attain full ordination as a Nichiren priest. She holds the esteemed position of bishop for the Nichiren Shu Buddhist Order of North America, the first woman and westerner to do so. Her guidance emanates from Houston, where she leads as the principal teacher of Myoken-ji Temple. She is among the few westerners, specifically one of three, to undertake and complete the rigorous Aragyo [ascetic practice] at Saijo Inari in Okayama, Japan.
Passionate about bringing Buddhism beyond temple walls, Myokei Shonin actively supports three prison sanghas within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system. Her interfaith endeavors have seen her as a Fellow with Interfaith America, championing dialogue between Buddhists and Muslims in incarceration. Her roles extend to being a board member of Lion’s Roar Magazine and Dharma Relief 2: Healing Racial Trauma.
She's actively engaged in programs such as Healing Warrior Hearts, Texas for Heroes, The Gathering, and the International Western Dharma Teachers Gathering. Beyond these, her contributions span across various socio-religious platforms, underlining her commitment to spreading compassionate teachings. As a writer, her voice echoes through publications in Lion’s Roar and Tricycle magazines, and she has made notable contributions to The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women. ([https://www.sfzc.org/teachers/myokei-caine-barrett Source Accessed April 25, 2024]) +
Elizabeth has been engaged in contemplative training and Tibetan Buddhist studies for more than 35 years. A Tsadra Fellow since 2002, she has engaged in both written translation and oral interpretation including working closely with Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso, as well as completing two three-year retreats at Kagyu Thubten Chöling, New York. Elizabeth specializes in translating texts related to mahāmudrā and esoteric tantric commentaries. Her most recent publication is Dakpo Tashi Namgyal’s ''Moonbeams of Mahāmudrā'' (''Phyag chen zla ba’i ‘od zer'') and the Ninth Karmapa’s ''Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance'' (''Ma rig mun sel''). Elizabeth is also the director of advanced study scholarships at Tsadra Foundation and is the executive director of [http://www.ktgrinpoche.org/marpa-network/marpa-foundation Marpa Foundation].
'''Current Projects as a Tsadra Foundation Fellow:'''
*''The Treasury of Precious Instructions: Essential Teachings of the Eight Practice Lineages of the Tibetan Buddhism, Vol. 7 & 8'' – Marpa Kagyu Tradition, various authors collected by Jamgön Kongtrul.
'''Completed Projects as a Tsadra Foundation Fellow:'''
*''The Treasury of Knowledge: Book VI, Part 3; Frameworks of Buddhist Philosophy'', Jamgön Kongtrul
*''The Profound Inner Principles'', Karmapa Rangjung Dorje, with commentary by Jamgön Kongtrul
*''Moonbeams of Mahāmudrā'', Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, with ''Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance'' by Wangchuk Dorje, the Ninth Karmapa
'''Previously Published Translations:'''<br>
*''Mahamudra: Ocean of Definitive Meaning'', the Ninth Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorje [http://www.tsadra.org/translators/elizabeth-callahan/ Source: Tsadra.org] +
Radu Claudiu Canahai was born on January 21, 1971 in Salonta, Bihor County. He graduated from the Faculty of Geography at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, class of 1997, with a bachelor's thesis on traditional occupations in Tei Beiusului. As an amateur, he is concerned with the theoretical and practical aspects of Eastern mystical traditions, Hellenistic astrology and its cultural metamorphoses, the history of the American West, the history of culture and civilization. He worked as a journalist for a local weekly. ([https://www.edituraherald.ro/autori/radu-claudiu-canahai Adapted from Source Dec 10, 2021]) +
John Canti is a Buddhist practitioner, translator, physician and the current Editorial Director of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. John first had contact with Buddhist teachers while studying medicine at Cambridge University in England, and started to practice under their guidance. In 1972, he met Dudjom Rinpoche, who became one of his three principal teachers. The others were Kangyur Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, both of whom he met soon afterwards.
In 1980 John undertook 2 consecutive three-year retreats retreats in the Dordogne, France, practicing under the guidance of Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Pema Wangyal Rinpoche, and Nyoshul Khenpo. Inspired by their teachers and with the aim of making some of the major works of Tibetan Buddhism available to Western readers, John and some of his fellow retreatants formed the Padmakara Translation Group, of which he is now president. He also had the honor of serving Dudjom Rinpoche as physician during his final years, and subsequently coordinated the medical care of other lamas and practitioners in India, Nepal, and Europe, as well as that of three-year retreatants in the Dordogne.
Still based in the Dordogne, he has continued his translation work with Padmakara, and for many years was also a Tsadra Foundation Fellow. In 2009, John was appointed Editorial Chair of the 84000 project by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. ([https://84000.co/public-talk-sunday-dec-15th-berlin/ Source Accessed Jan 15, 2020]) +
Patrick Carré holds a Masters and Ph.D. in Chinese (honorable mention), Paris VII. He completed a three-year retreat with Pema Wangyal Rinpoché from 1981–1983. He is a poet and author, the former director of the “Trésors du bouddhisme” collection at Éditions Fayard, and a member of Padmakara Translation Group. He has been a Tsadra Foundation Fellow since 2002.
'''Current Projects as a Tsadra Foundation Fellow:'''
*''Le Trésor de précieuses qualitiés, Book II'', by Jigme Lingpa, commentary Kangyour Rinpoche
'''Completed Projects as a Tsadra Foundation Fellow:'''
*''Une Lampe sur la chemin de la libération'', Dudjom Rinpoche
*''Soûtra de l’Entrée dans la dimension absolue, Gandavyuha sûtra''
*''Traité de la Continuité suprême du Grand Véhicule - Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra, avec le commentaire de Jamgön Kongtrul Lodreu Thayé L'Incontestable Rugissement du lion''. Plazac: Éditions Padmakara, 2019
.
'''Previously Published Translations as a member of l’Association Padmakara, grantee of Tsadra Foundation:'''
*''Petites instructions essentielles'', Dudjom Rinpoche
*''Perles d’ambroisie'', (3 vols.), Kunzang Palden (with Christian Bruyat)
*''Bodhicaryavatara, La Marche vers l’Éveil'', Shantideva (with Christian Bruyat)
*''Les Stances fondamentales de la Voie médiane, Mûlamadhyamakakârikâ'', Nagarjuna
*''Le Trésor de précieuses qualités'', Jigmé Lingpa, commentary by Longchen Yéshé Dorjé Kangyour Rinpoche (with Gwénola le Serrec)
*''Le Lotus blanc, Explication détaillée de la Prière en Sept Vers de Gourou Rinpoche'', Mipham Namgyal (trans. Patrick Carré)
*''Les Cent conseils de Padampa Sangyé'', Dilgo Khyentse (trans. from English)
*''Mahasiddhas, La vie de 84 sages de l’Inde'', Abhayadatta (with Christian Bruyat)
*''Les Larmes du bodhisattva, Enseignements bouddhistes sur la consommation de chair animale'', Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol (from the English translation by Helena Blankleder and Wulstan Fletcher, trans. with Kim-Anh Lim and Vincent Horeau)
*''Au coeur de la compassion'', Gyalsé Thogmé Zangpo, commentary by Dilgo Khyentse (with Kim-Anh Lim
*Soûtra des Dix Terres: Dashabhûmika. Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2004. ([http://www.tsadra.org/translators/patrick-carre/ Source Accessed Jan 29, 2020])
Sylvie Carteron is a translator of scholarly works into French. She has translated a number of books on the subjects of Buddhism and psychology and Tibetan Buddhism in particular. Her translations include ''Esprit Zen, Esprit Neuf'' by Shunryu Suzuki, ''Le Bouddhisme Tantrique du Tibet'', by John Blofeld, ''Transformation et guérison: Le Sutra des Quatre Établissements de l'attention'' by Thich Nhat Hanh, ''La médecine tibétaine bouddhique et sa psychiatrie'' by Terry Clifford, and ''Le Bouddha du Dolpo'' by Cyrus Stearns. +
An early supporter of Buddhism in America and the proponent of the "religion of science": a faith that claimed to be purified of all superstition and irrationality and that, in harmony with science, would bring about solutions to the world's problems. Carus was born in Ilsenberg in Harz, Germany. He immigrated to America in 1884, settling in LaSalle, Illinois, where he assumed the editorship of the Open Court Publishing Company. He attended the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and became friends with several of the Buddhist delegates, including Dharmapāla and Shaku Sōen, who were among the first to promote his writing.Later, Shaku Sōen's student, Daisetz Teitaro Susuki, woudld spend eleven years working with and for Carus in LaSalle. In 1894, Carus published ''The Gospel of Buddha according to Old Records'', an anthology of passages from Buddhist texts drawn from contemporary translations in English, French, and German, making particular use of translations from the Pāli by Thomas W. Rhys Davids, as well as translations of the life of the Buddha from Chinese and Tibetan sources. Second only to Edwin Arnold's ''Light of Asia'' in intellectual influence at the time, ''The Gospel'' was arranged like the Bible, with numbered chapters and verses and a table at the end that listed parallel passages from the New Testament. ''The Gospel'' was intended to highlight the many agreements between Buddhism and Christianity, thereby bringing out "that nobler Christianity which aspires to the cosmic religion of universal truth." Carus was free in his manipulation of his sources, writing in the preface that he had rearranged, retranslated, and added emendations and elaborations in order to make them more accessible to a Western audience; for this reason, the translated sources are not always easy to trace back to the original literature. He also makes it clear in the preface that his ultimate goal is to lead his readers to the Religion of Science. He believed that both Buddhism and Christianity, when understood correctly, would point the way to the Religion of Science. Although remembered today for his ''Gospel'', Carus wrote some seventy books and more than a thousand articles. His books include studies of Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Chinese thought. (Source: The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 2014, 168)
Honorary Professor, Department of Philosophy, Brock University, Canada +
Garma Chen-Chi Chang was Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the Pennsylvania State University and a renowned Buddhist scholar. His books include ''The Buddhist Teaching of Totality'' and ''The Practice of Zen'', as well as his English translation of the Tibetan classic, ''The 100,000 Songs of Milarepa''. ([https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-00341-3.html Source Accessed May 20, 2021]) +
Christian Charrier holds a Masters degree in English and a diploma in psycholinguistics. He was a translator for Geshe Tengye in France, and he completed a three-year retreat under Lama Gendun Rinpoche in le Bost, France. He has been a translation consultant for Tsadra Foundation from 2002–2003 and has been a Tsadra Foundation Fellow since 2004.
'''Current Projects as a Tsadra Foundation Fellow:'''<br>
*''Le Voyage et son but'', Jamgön Kongtrul
*''La pratique des tantras bouddhistes'', Jamgön Kongtrul
'''Completed Projects as a Tsadra Foundation Fellow:'''<br>
*''Marpa, maître de Milarépa, sa vie, ses chants'', Tsang Nyeun Hérouka
*''Vie de Jamgœun Kongtrul, écrite par lui-même'', Jamgön Kongtrul
*''L’Ondée de sagesse, Chants de la lignée Kagyu'', Karmapa Mikyeu Dorje, Tènpai Nyinjé
*''Rayons de lune, Les étapes de la méditation du Mahamudra'', Dakpo Tashi Namgyal
*''Au Coeur du ciel Vol I and II'', Pawo Rinpoche, the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje (from the English translation by Karl Brunnhölzl – ''The Centre of the Sunlit Sky'')
*''Lumière de diamant'', de Dakpo Tashi Namgyal
*''Mémoires: La Vie et l’œuvre de Jamgön Kongtrul'', by Jamgön Kongtrul, new edition
*''Traité de la Continuité suprême du Grand Véhicule - Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra, avec le commentaire de Jamgön Kongtrul Lodreu Thayé L'Incontestable Rugissement du lion''. Plazac: Éditions Padmakara, 2019.
*''Les Systèmes Philosophiques Bouddhistes'', Éditions Padmakara, 2020.
'''Previously Published Translations:'''<br>
*''Kalachakra'', Dalai Lama
*''La Roue aux lames acérées'', Dharmarakshita, commentary by Geshé Tengyé
*''La Voie progressive vers l’éveil'', Jé Tsong Khapa ([http://tsadra-wp.tsadra.org/translators/christian-charrier/ Source: Tsadra.org]) +
Shinge-shitsu Roko Sherry Chayat (born 1943) is the current abbot of the Zen Studies Society, based at the International Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji monastery, outside Livingston Manor, NY, and at the New York Zendo Shobo-Ji on the upper east side of Manhattan. She is also the abbot of the Zen Center of Syracuse Hoen-ji. Chayat is an advocate for the use of meditation in medical settings, with Hoen-ji running the program ''Well/Being Contemplative Practices for Healing'' for healthcare professionals. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Chayat Source Accessed Nov 15, 2019]) +
Shuman Chen’s primary research is Chinese Tiantai Buddhist philosophy. Her secondary research interests include Chan/Zen Buddhism, Buddhist art, and Daoist philosophy. With a hermeneutic approach, her dissertation explores the idea of the Buddha-nature of insentient beings in the Chinese and Japanese Buddhist traditions, with a focus on the philosophy of Jingxi Zhanran in the Tang dynasty. Her dissertation also covers East Asian art with a discussion on how plants are portrayed as sages and why pagodas and relics might be considered sentient. From an environmental perspective, she also examines how to appreciate the insentient world’s Buddha-nature, hoping to increase our awareness of the mutual relationship between human beings and nature. ([https://sites.northwestern.edu/asgc/graduate-students/ Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]) +
Shu-hui Jennifer Chen completed her doctorate in Buddhist studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998. According to her dissertation, her major advisor was Professor Gudrun Biihnemann. She also worked closely with Professor Minoru Kiyota, who introduced her to the topic of tathāgatagarbha. In addition, she also worked with Professor Tsai-fa Cheng, Professor Geshe Sopa, and Professor Muhammad Memon. +
François Chenique is a French essayist and author of studies on esotericism. He was a professor of computer science at Sciences-Po Paris and participated in the creation of one of the first computer management services within the Society of Pont-à-Mousson. He is a specialist in classical and modern logic and has written several books on this subject.
Chenique also held a doctorate in Religious Sciences from the University of Strasbourg. He devoted himself mainly to the study of Christian esotericism in the traditionalist tradition initiated by René Guénon. ([https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Chenique Source Accessed Oct 18, 2019]) +
Mario Poceski received both his MA (1995, Chinese Language and Culture) and PhD (2000, Buddhist Studies) at UCLA. His main research areas include Chinese Buddhist history, literature, and philosophy, with a focus on the Tang period (618–907). He also has research and teaching interests in medieval Chinese history, Chan/Zen Buddhism, Korean and Japanese Buddhism, monastic culture and institutions, religious pluralism, and globalization of Buddhism. He has published extensively, including four books: ''Introducing Chinese Religions'' (2009), ''Ordinary Mind as the Way: The Hongzhou School and the Growth of Chan Buddhism'' (2007), ''Manifestation of the Tathāgata: Buddhahood According to the Avatamsaka Sūtra'' (1993), and ''Sun-Face Buddha: The Teachings of Ma-tsu and the Hung-chou School of Ch'an'' (1993, 2000) (the latter two of which are published under the name, Cheng Chien Bhikshu). Dr. Poceski is currently Associate Professor in the Religion Department of University of Florida. ([https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/MarioPoceski.html Source Accessed Nov 23, 2020]) +
Ching Keng 耿晴 is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. His field of research is Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha thought in India and China during the medieval period. He has been part of various research projects studying Dharmapāla’s ''Commentary on the Viṃśikā of Vasubandhu'' and Dharmapāla’s ''Commentary on the Ālambanaparīkṣā of Dignāga'', Wŏnch’uk’s ''Commentary on the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra'', and the development of the Three-Nature theory (''trisvabhāva-nirdeśa'') in Yogâcāra. Among his publications are: his PhD dissertation, entitled “Yogâcāra Buddhism Transmitted or Transformed? Paramârtha (499-569 CE) and His Chinese Disciples” (2009); and journal articles such as "A Fundamental Difficulty Embedded in the Soteriology of Tathāgatagarbha Thought? – An Investigation Focusing on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (2013), and "The Dharma-body as the Disclosure of Thusness: On the Characterization of the Dharma-body in the ''Nengduan jin’gang banruo boluomi jing shi''." (2014) (both written in Chinese). (Source: [https://buddhanature.tsadra.org/index.php/Books/A_Distant_Mirror ''A Distant Mirror''], 530–31) +
Eun-su Cho (趙恩秀) is a professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Seoul National University in Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of California and was an assistant professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan before she joined SNU in 2004. Her research interests include Indian Abhidharma Buddhism, Korean Buddhist thought, and women in Buddhism. She has written articles and book chapters, including "Wŏnch’ŭk’s Place in the East Asian Buddhist Tradition," "From Buddha’s Speech to Buddha’s Essence: Philosophical Discussions of Buddha-vacana in India and China," "Re-thinking Late 19thCentury Chosŏn Buddhist Society," and "The Uses and Abuses of Wŏnhyo and the ‘T’ong Pulgyo’ Narrative." Recently her article titled “Repentance as a Bodhisattva Practice—Wŏnhyo on Guilt and Moral Responsibility” was published in ''Philosophy East & West'' (2013). She co-translated the Jikji simgyeong into English, and edited a volume ''Korean Buddhist Nuns and Laywomen – Hidden Histories and Enduring Vitality'' (SUNY Press, 2011). She was the founding director of the International Center for Korean Studies at SNU in 2007-2008, had served as the chair of the Editorial Subcommittee of the MOWCAP (Asia/Pacific Regional Committee for the Memory of the World Program) of UNESCO in 2007-2009, and was the elected president of the Korean Society for Buddhist Studies (Bulgyohak yŏn’guhoe) from 2012-2014. ([https://snu-kr.academia.edu/EunsuCho Source Accessed Nov 27, 2019]) +
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]) +
Potprecha Cholvijarn, also known as Achan Jak, holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Bristol, in the UK. He is the author of '''Nibbana as Self or not-Self: Some Contemporary Thai Discussions''', ‘Meditation Manual of King Taksin of Thonburi’ and ‘Ayutthaya period meditation manual from Wat Pradusongtham’. He is currently a special lecturer at the Thai Studies Centre, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. (Personal Communication, March 28, 2022.) +
Ann Chávez is a long-time student of Geshe Lhundub Sopa. She helped translate ''The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems'' by Nyima Chökyi Thuken, an extensive survey of Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophical system found in Asia. ([https://fpmt.org/mandala/archives/mandala-for-2013/january/like-a-waking-dream/ann-chavez/ Source Accessed June 19, 2020]) +
Khenmo Trinlay Chödron is a senior student of Khenchen Rinpoche. She teaches at the Tibetan Meditation Center in Fredrick, Maryland, as well as at affiliated centers in the United States and Sweden. ([https://www.shambhala.com/authors/a-f/khenmo-trinlay-chodron.html Source Accessed Sept 4 2020]) +
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is a world-renowned teacher and meditation master in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in Tibet in 1951 as the oldest son of his mother Kunsang Dechen, a devoted Buddhist practitioner, and his father Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, an accomplished master of Buddhist meditation. As a young child, Chokyi Nyima—"Sun of the Dharma"—was recognized as the 7th incarnation of the Tibetan meditation master Gar Drubchen.
In 1959, following the Chinese occupation of Tibet, Rinpoche's family fled to India where Rinpoche spent his youth studying under some of Tibetan Buddhism’s most illustrious masters, such as His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa, Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen, and his father, Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.
In 1974, Rinpoche left India to join his parents in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he assisted them in establishing Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery. Upon its completion in 1976, H.H. the Karmapa enthroned Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche as the monastery's abbot. To this day, Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling remains the heart of Rinpoche’s ever-growing mandala of activity. (Source: [https://shedrub.org/about-us/ Shedrub.org]) +
Thomas Cleary passed away on June 20, 2021. https://www.shambhala.com/remembering-thomas-cleary
:Of his passing, renowned Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman wrote on Facebook:
::“There is no doubt in my mind that Thomas Cleary is the greatest translator of Buddhist texts from Chinese or Japanese into English of our generation, and that he will be so known by grateful Buddhist practitioners and scholars in future centuries. Single-handedly he has gone a long way toward building the beginnings of a Buddhist canon in English.”
Cleary became interested in Buddhism when he was a teenager; his researches into Buddhist thought began with a desire to learn during this time of his life. When he began translating, he chose either untranslated works or—as in the case of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War''—books whose extant translations were "too limited".
Cleary earned a Ph.D in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and a JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Since completing his doctoral studies, Cleary has had little involvement with the academic world. In a rare interview, Cleary stated: "There is too much oppression in a university setting . . . I want to stay independent and reach those who want to learn directly through my books."
Cleary's brother Jonathon also completed his doctoral work in EALC at Harvard. The two brothers worked together to translate the koan collection ''The Blue Cliff Record''; Shambhala published the translation in 1977.
Thomas Cleary's most widely disseminated translation has been of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War'' (''Sunzi Bingfa'').
He also translated the monumental ''Avatamsaka Sutra'' (also called ''Huayan Jing'', or the ''Flower Ornament Scripture'').
Another major translation was of the commentaries of the 18th century Taoist sage Liu Yiming, who explains the metaphoric coding of the main Taoist texts dealing with the transformation of consciousness, and the fusion of the human mind with the mind of Tao.
In 2000, Cleary's various translations of Taoist texts were collected into four volumes by Shambhala Publications as ''The Taoist Classics''. Following the success of these publications, a five-volume collection of Buddhist translations was collected as ''Classics of Buddhism and Zen''. Another translation from the Muslim wisdom tradition is ''Living and Dying with Grace''. In 1993 Cleary published a translation of Miyamoto Musashi's ''Book of Five Rings''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cleary Source Accessed Sept 18, 2020])
Alan Cole is the author of a number of books in the field of Religious/Buddhist Studies, including ''Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism'' (Stanford University Press 1998), ''Text as Father: Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature'' (University of California Press 2005), ''Fathering Your Father: The Zen of Fabrication in Tang Buddhism'' (University of California Press 2009), ''Fetishizing Tradition: Desire and Reinvention in Buddhist and Christian Narratives'' (SUNY Press, 2015), and, most recently, ''Patriarchs on Paper: A Critical History of Medieval Chan Literature'' (University of California Press, 2016). He was Professor of Religious Studies at Lewis & Clark College from 2006–2012 and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at National University of Singapore from 2013–2014. ([https://independent.academia.edu/ColeAlan/CurriculumVitae Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]) +
Dr. James William Coleman was born in Los Angeles and raised in the San Fernando Valley. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Cal State Northridge (then called San Fernando Valley State College) and his master's and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His areas of specialization were criminology and the sociology of religion. . . .
His dissertation was an attempt to explain the process by which heroin addicts were able to give up drugs and change their lives, but his interest in criminology soon shifted to white collar crime. He first published ''The Criminal Elite: The Sociology of White Collar Crime'' in 1985, and it eventually went to six editions. His textbook, ''Social Problems'', which he originally co-authored with his dissertation advisor, Donald R. Cressey, and later with Harold R. Kerbo, Professor Emeritus, first came out in 1980 and had a total of 10 editions.
Later in his career, Coleman's interest turned back to the sociology of religion, and more specifically, to the amazing growth of Buddhism in the west. He published ''The New Buddhism: The Western Transformation of an Ancient Tradition'' in 1991, and continues to be involved with Buddhist theory and practice. He edited the talks of Reb Anderson Roshi into a booked entitled ''The Third Turning of the Wheel: The Wisdom of the Samdhnirmocana Sutra'', which was published in 2012. His latest book, ''The Buddha’s Dream of Liberation: Freedom, Emptiness and Awakened Nature'' came out in June 2017. ([https://socialsciences.calpoly.edu/newsletter-2017/coleman-retires Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]) +
Steven Collins (1951-2018) was Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities in the University of Chicago’s Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and in the Divinity School’s History of Religions program. A world-renowned scholar of the Pali Buddhist traditions of south and southeast Asia, he contributed greatly to the University of Chicago’s unusual strength in Buddhist studies. ([https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/memory-steven-collins Source Accessed Jan 17, 2020]) +
Paul Condon is an associate professor of psychology at Southern Oregon University. He has also served as a visiting lecturer for the Centre for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, and is a fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. His research examines the relational basis for empathy, compassion, wellbeing, and prosocial action, and the influence of compassion and mindfulness training on those capacities. His writing and teaching also explore the use of diverse scientific theories in dialogue with contemplative traditions to inform meditation practices of compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom. Paul teaches meditation practices adapted from the Tibetan Nyingma and Kagyu traditions for multi-faith and secular application. ([https://paulcondon.org/ Source Accessed April 25, 2024]) +
Edward Conze (1904-1979) was born in London and educated in Germany. He gained his Ph.D from Cologne University in 1928, and then studied Indian and European comparative philosophy at the Universities of Bonn and Hamburg. From 1933 until 1960 he lectured in psychology, philosophy and comparative religion at London and Oxford Universities. Between 1963 and 1973 he held a number of academic appointments in England, Germany and the USA, and was also a Visiting Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster, as well as Vice-President of the Buddhist Society. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Edward_Conze Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]) +
Francis Dojun Cook was born and raised in a very small town in upstate New York in 1930. He was lucky to be an ordinary kid with ordinary parents. By means of true grit and luck, he managed to acquire several academic degrees and learn something about Buddhism. More luck in the form of a Fulbright Fellowship enabled him to study in Kyoto, Japan, for a year and a half, where he would have learned more had he not spent so much time admiring temple gardens. He now teaches Buddhism at the University of California, Riverside, and is director of translations at the Institute for Transcultural Studies in Los Angeles. He remains ordinary, but to his credit it can be said that he raised four good kids, has a great love for animals, and cooks pretty well. A sign that at last he is becoming more intelligent is that he became a student of Maezumi Roshi several years ago, the best thing he ever did. He is also the author of ''Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra'', and of various articles on Buddhism in scholarly journals. ([https://wisdomexperience.org/content-author/francis-dojun-cook/ Source Accessed Mar 18, 2021]) +
Philippe Cornu (b. 1957) began studying Tibetan at the age of 18 and became a Buddhist in 1978. He was one of the first Rigpa students in France and has studied and practised Tibetan Buddhism with Dudjom Rinpoche, Sogyal Rinpoche, Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, and other teachers of the Nyingma tradition.
Philippe is an author and translator from Tibetan into French of several books on the Nyingma school and Dzogchen. He has also devoted a large part of his career to teaching and transmitting Buddhist philosophy in French speaking universities such as the French National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO), and at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain), as well as in different Buddhist centres. He joined Rigpa's new Vision Board in 2019. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Philippe_Cornu Source Accessed June 10, 2021]) +
Jamie is a graduate student in Tibetan Studies at the Institute of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, where he is currently completing his MA thesis on the life of Gö Lotsawa Shönu Pal. Jamie provides administrative support for the Translation Teams and is our source text researcher and catalogue curator.
Jamie’s research focuses mainly on the philosophical literature of Tibetan Buddhism, in particular the different Tibetan Madhyamaka interpretations, Tibetan biography writing, the Kadam teachings on mind training (blo sbyong), and experiential songs (mgur). He has also contributed to several translation projects, such as Study Buddhism (Berzin Archives) and 84000.
Jamie currently lives in Vienna, where he has found the ideal environment to spend his free time pursuing his interest in classical music and playing the double bass. ([https://www.khyentsevision.org/team/jamie-creek/ Source Accessed Sep 7, 2021]) +
Cuong Tu Nguyen received his PhD from Harvard University (specializing in Indian Buddhism). His works on Vietnamese Buddhism include "Rethinking Vietnamese Buddhist History: Is the ''Then Uyen Tap Anh'' a 'Transmission of the Lamp Text'?" "Tran Thai Tong and Khoa Hu Lue: A Study of Syncretic Ch'an in 13th Century Vietnam," and ''Zen in Medieval Vietnam: A Study and Translation of the Thien Uyen Tap Anh.'' With A. Charles Muller he co-edited ''Wonhyo's Philosophy of Mind'', Volume II, (University of Hawai'i Press). He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at George Mason University. +
D
Daehaeng Kun Sunim (대행, 大行; 1927–2012) was a Korean Buddhist nun and Seon (禪) master. She taught monks as well as nuns, and helped to increase the participation of young people and men in Korean Buddhism. She made laypeople a particular focus of her efforts, and broke out of traditional models of spiritual practice, teaching so that anyone could practice, regardless of monastic status or gender. She was also a major force for the advancement of Bhikkunis (nuns), heavily supporting traditional nuns’ colleges as well as the modern Bhikkuni Council of Korea. The temple she founded, Hanmaum Seon Center, grew to have 15 branches in Korea, with another 10 branches in other countries. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daehaeng Source Accessed Nov 24, 2020]) +
Cortland J. Dahl received a Ph.D. in Mind, Brain and Contemplative Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and also completed an MA degree in Buddhist Studies and Tibetan language at Naropa University. He has worked as an instructor at Kathmandu University's Center for Buddhist Studies, located in Kathmandu, as well as an interpreter for various lamas, including Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. He currently serves as president of Tergar International and as a senior instructor in the Tergar Meditation Community. He lives with his wife and son in Madison, Wisconsin. +
Born in 1974, he joined the main Sakya Monastery in North India as a young boy and learned prayers and rituals. He also received empowerments, teachings, and training in the sūtra and tantric teachings in the Sakya tradition. In 1991, he joined Sakya College in Dehradun and pursued higher education in Buddhist Studies, after which he taught in the same college for some years. In 2002, according to the wishes of H.H. Sakya Trichen Rinpoche, he was appointed as the Sakya lecturer in the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. He has served there as a lecturer for over 22 years and was conferred the Khenpo title by H.H. Sakya Trichen and his sons. He has regularly participated in conferences and seminars and has written articles on the wheel of Dharma, Sakya meditation practice, store consciousness, the luminous nature of the mind, the two truths, the view and Middle Way theory in the Sakya tradition, lower and higher abhidharma, bodhicitta, the twelve links of dependent origination, the four tenet systems, etc. +
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. He is the spiritual leader of Tibet. He was born on 6 July 1935, to a farming family, in a small hamlet located in Taktser, Amdo, northeastern Tibet. At the age of two, the child, then named Lhamo Dhondup, was recognized as the reincarnation of the previous 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.
The Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are realized beings inspired by a wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, who have vowed to be reborn in the world to help humanity. ([https://www.dalailama.com/the-dalai-lama/biography-and-daily-life/brief-biography Read more here . . .]) +
Born in Gasa in northern Bhutan, he became a monk at the age of 10 in a local Drukpa Kagyu monastery and learned prayers and rituals in the Drukpa Kagyu tradition. At 15, he joined Lekshey Jungney College in Punakha, and studied language, grammar, poetics, Middle Way, Perfection Studies, etc. under Dralop Lekshey Gyatso and others. In 2010, he entered Tago Buddhist University and finished years of higher Buddhist studies and went to India for further study. He spent five years in Sera Je Khenyen Monastery undertaking rigorous study and returned to Bhutan to continue his study for five more years at Tago Buddhist University. In 2021, he finished his studies and he currently serves as a lecturer at Tago Dorden Buddhist University. +
Dan Smyer Yü is Kuige Professor of Ethnology, School of Ethnology and Sociology and the National Centre for Borderlands Ethnic Studies in Southwest China at Yunnan University. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Davis in 2006. Prior to his current faculty appointment, he was the Founding Director of the Center for Trans-Himalayan Studies at Yunnan Minzu University, a Senior Researcher/Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, a core member of the Transregional Research Network (CETREN) at University of Göttingen, and a New Millennium Scholar at Minzu University of China, Beijing. He is the author of ''The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in China: Charisma, Money, Enlightenment'' (Routledge 2011) and ''Mindscaping the Landscape of Tibet: Place, Memorability, Eco-aesthetics'' (De Gruyter 2015), and the co-editor of ''Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China'' (Routledge 2014) and ''Trans-Himalayan Borderlands: Livelihoods, Territorialities, Modernities'' (Amsterdam University Press 2017). His research interests are religion and ecology, environmental humanities, trans-Himalayan studies, sacred landscapes, climate change and mass migration, modern Tibetan studies, and comparative studies of Eurasian secularisms. His externally funded projects are "Trans-Himalayan Environmental Humanities" (ICIMOD), "India-China Corridor Project" (the Swedish Research Council), "Cultural and Ecological Diversity of the Trans-Himalayas in the Context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative" (National Social Sciences Foundation of China), and "Sustainable Lives in Scarred Landscapes: Heritage, Environment, and Violence in the China-Myanmar Jade Trade" (The British Academy Sustainable Development Program). ([https://www.issrnc.org/2020/06/04/meet-issrnc-board-member-dan-smyer-yu/ Source Accessed Aug 10, 2020]) +
Daosheng (Chinese: 道生; pinyin: Dàoshēng; Wade–Giles: Tao Sheng), or Zhu Daosheng (Chinese: 竺道生; Wade–Giles: Chu Tao-sheng), was an eminent Six Dynasties era Chinese Buddhist scholar. He is known for advocating the concepts of sudden enlightenment and the universality of the Buddha nature.
Born in Pengcheng, Daosheng left home to become a monk at eleven. He studied in Jiankang under Zhu Fatai, and later at Lushan (Mount Lu) monastery with Huiyuan, and from 405 or 406 under Kumārajīva in Chang'an, where he stayed for some two years perfecting his education. He became one of the foremost scholars of his time, counted among the "fifteen great disciples" of Kumārajīva.
Sengzhao reports that Daosheng assisted Kumārajīva in his translation of the ''Lotus Sutra'', Daosheng wrote commentaries on the ''Lotus Sutra'', the ''Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra'' and the ''Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra'' (the last of which has been lost). In 408, he returned to Lushan, and in 409 back to Jiankang, where he remained for some twenty years, staying at the Qingyuan Monastery (青园寺) from 419.
Daosheng controversially ascribed Buddha-nature to the icchantikas, based on his reading on a short version of the ''Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra'', which in that short form appears to deny the Buddha-nature to icchantikas; the long version of the ''Nirvāṇa Sūtra'', however (not yet known to Daosheng), explicitly includes the icchantikas in the universality of the Buddha-nature. Daosheng's bold doctrine of including icchantikas within the purview of the Buddha-nature, even before that explicit teaching had actually been found in the long ''Nirvāṇa Sūtra'', led to the expulsion of Daosheng from the Buddhist community in 428 or 429, and he retreated to Lushan in 430.
With the availability of the long ''Nirvāṇa Sūtra'' after 430, through the translation of Dharmakshema, Daosheng was vindicated and praised for his insight. He remained in Lushan, composing his commentary on the ''Lotus Sūtra'' in 432, until his death in 434.
Daosheng's exegesis of the ''Nirvāṇa Sūtra'' had an enormous influence on interpretations of the Buddha-nature in Chinese Buddhism that prepared the ground for the Chán school emerging in the 6th century.<br>([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daosheng Source Accessed Sept. 2 2020])
''Dates from The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton University Press, 2014)''
The late Geshe Lobsang Dargyay was trained at Drepung Monastery in Tibet. He got his doctorate in Buddhist and Tibetan Studies from the Ludwig Maximilians Universität and held teaching and research positions in Vienna, Hamburg, and Calgary. Geshe-la was the first Tibetan to receive a doctorate from a Western university. He passed away in 1994. ([https://wisdomexperience.org/content-author/geshe-lobsang-dargyay/ Source Accessed Sept 23, 2020])
For a more complete biography, see [https://books.google.com/books?id=Xzc6AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT11&lpg=PT11&dq=Freedom+From+Extremes/In+Memoriam:+Geshe+Lobsang+Dargyay+(1935-94)by+Eva+Neumaier&source=bl&ots=a2vMqwcDeb&sig=ACfU3U1uAhLezrS11HGmbnKtWcEX30VAsQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi4m_PKy4jnAhUJGc0KHXxeDagQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Freedom%20From%20Extremes%2FIn%20Memoriam%3A%20Geshe%20Lobsang%20Dargyay%20(1935-94)by%20Eva%20Neumaier&f=false "In Memoriam: Geshe Lobsang Dargyay (1935–94)"] by Eva Neumaier, in ''Freedom from Extremes: Gorampa's "Distinguishing the Views" and the Polemics of Emptiness'' (Wisdom Publications, 2007), xi–xiv. +
Bret W. Davis is Professor and Thomas J. Higgins, S.J. Chair in Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, where he teaches courses on Western, Asian, and cross-cultural philosophy. His research focuses on Japanese philosophy (esp. the Kyoto School and Zen Buddhism), on Continental philosophy (esp. Heidegger, phenomenology, and hermeneutics), and on issues in cross-cultural philosophy and comparative philosophy of religion.
Along with earning a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University, he has studied and taught for more than a year in Germany and for more than a dozen years in Japan. In Japan, he studied Buddhist thought at Otani University, completed the coursework for a second Ph.D. in Japanese philosophy at Kyoto University, taught philosophy and related courses in Japanese at various universities, and practiced Zen Buddhism at Shōkokuji, one of the main Rinzai Zen training monasteries in Kyoto.
In addition to authoring more than 75 articles in English and Japanese, as well as translating many articles from Japanese and German, he is author of Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (Northwestern University Press, 2007); translator of Martin Heidegger’s Country Path Conversations (Indiana University Press, 2010, paperback edition 2016); editor of The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2020) and of Martin Heidegger: Key Concepts (Acumen, 2010, Routledge, 2014); coeditor with Fujita Masakatsu of Sekai no naka no Nihon no tetsugaku (Japanese Philosophy in the World) (Shōwadō, 2005); and coeditor with Brian Schroeder and Jason Wirth of Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (Indiana University Press, 2011) and of Engaging Dōgen’s Zen: The Philosophy of Practice as Awakening (Wisdom Publishing, 2017).
His current projects include a book manuscript on Zen Buddhism and another on the Kyoto School and interpersonal as well as intercultural dialogue. He was the Director of the 2017 Collegium Phaenomenologicum, is Associate Officer of The Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, serves on the board of directors of the Nishida Philosophy Association (Nishida tetsugakkai) as well as on the editorial boards of several journals and book series, and is coeditor of Indiana University Press’s series in World Philosophies. ([https://loyola.academia.edu/BretDavis Source Accessed Nov 25, 2019])
Khenpo Dawa Tsering was born in 1987 in Tichurong Drigung Gonpa in the Dolpo region of Nepal. At 11, he started learning Tibetan and in 2000 he met H.H. Senge Tenzin and joined Drigung Monastery in India. He received his novice ordination from H.H. Drigung Kyapgon Thinley Lhundrup and undertook monastic education. In 2005, he joined Kagyu Buddhist University and finished his education in common sciences and Buddhist Studies in general and Kagyu systems, including the Single Intent, Five Verse Mahāmudra, etc., in particular under Khenchen Koncho Gyaltsen, Khenchen Nyima Gyaltsen, and H.H. Nubri Rinpoche. Since grade seven, he also taught language and grammar, and in 2014 he finished his education and taught at Samtenling Nunnery for eight years. In 2019, he was conferred the Khenpo title. He currently serves as the disciplinarian at Drigung Jangchubling Monastery. +
Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff) is an American Buddhist monk of the Kammatthana (Thai Forest) Tradition. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1971 with a degree in European Intellectual History, he traveled to Thailand, where he studied meditation under Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, himself a student of the late Ajaan Lee. He ordained in 1976 and lived at Wat Dhammasathit, where he remained following his teacher's death in 1986. In 1991 he traveled to the hills of San Diego County, USA, where he helped Ajaan Suwat Suvaco establish Metta Forest Monastery (Wat Mettavanaram). He was made abbot of the Monastery in 1993. ([https://www.dhammatalks.org/index.html Source Accessed Aug 7, 2020]) +
Yasuo Deguchi is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Kyoto University in Japan. His research interests include: Philosophy of Mathematical Sciences that include Probability Theory and Statistics, Scientific Realism, Philosophy of Computer Simulation and Chaos Studies, Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics, Skolem’s Philosophy, and Analytic Asian Philosophy. ([http://www.philosophy.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/staff/deguchi/ Source Accessed Dec 2, 2019]) +
Paul Demiéville (13 September 1894 – 23 March 1979) was a Swiss-French sinologist and Orientalist known for his studies of the Dunhuang manuscripts and Buddhism and his translations of Chinese poetry, as well as for his 30-year tenure as co-editor of ''T'oung Pao''.
Demiéville was one of the foremost sinologists of the first half of the 20th century, and was known for his wide-ranging contributions to Chinese and Buddhist scholarship. His influence on Chinese scholarship in France was particularly profound, as he was the only major French sinologist to survive World War II.
Demiéville was one of the first sinologists to learn Japanese to augment their study of China: prior to the early 20th century, most scholars of China learned Manchu as their second scholarly language, but Demiéville's study of Japanese instead was soon followed by nearly every major sinologist since his day. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Demi%C3%A9ville Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]) +
Mark Dennis is Associate Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth Texas. He earned his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006, focusing on early Japanese Buddhism. Before joining the Religion Department at TCU in 2007, he taught for four years at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. He has lived in Japan and India for eight years where he studied Buddhism and Hinduism, and has traveled widely in Asia. His research focuses on the reception history of Japanese Buddhist texts, looking particularly at notions of authorship, textuality, and canon. He has published a translation of the ''Shomangyo-gisho'', a Japanese Buddhist text written in classical Chinese and attributed to Japan’s Prince Shotoku (574–622 CE). He has also written articles looking at the reception of this text in various periods of Japanese history. One of these articles examines the different ways in which four medieval Japanese monks understood and used the text, while another considers modern representations of it in Japanese manga, or comic books. He has also coedited a volume of essays on Shusaku Endo's novel ''Silence'' that was published in 2014 by Bloomsbury-Continuum. ([https://www.rug.nl/research/centre-for-religious-studies/centre-religion-culture-asia/about/associate-fellows/textual Source Accessed Jun 6, 2019]) +
Dharmakṣema. (C. Tanwuchen; J. Donmusen; K. Tammuch'am 曇無讖 (385-433 CE). Indian Buddhist monk who was an early translator of Buddhist materials into Chinese. A scion of a brāhmaṇa family from India, Dharmakṣema became at the age of six a disciple of Dharmayaśas (C. Damoyeshe; J. Donmayasha) (d.u.), an Abhidharma specialist who later traveled to China c. 397–401 and translated the ''Śāriputrābhidharmaśāstra''. Possessed of both eloquence and intelligence, Dharmakṣema was broadly learned in both monastic and secular affairs and was well versed in mainstream Buddhist texts. After he met a meditation monk named "White Head" and had a fiery debate with him, Dharmakṣema recognized his superior expertise and ended up studying with him. The monk transmitted to him a text of the ''Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra'' written on bark, which prompted Dharmakṣema to embrace the Mahāyāna. Once he reached the age of twenty, Dharmakṣema was able to recite over two million words of Buddhist texts. He was also so skilled in casting spells that he earned the sobriquet "Great Divine Spell Master" (C. Dashenzhou shi). Carrying with him the first part of the ''Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra'' that he received from "White Head," he left India and arrived in the Kucha kingdom in Central Asia. As the people of Kucha mostly studied Hīnayāna and did not accept the Mahāyāna teachings, Dharmakṣema then moved to China and lived in the western outpost of Dunhuang for several years. Juqu Mengxun, the non-Chinese ruler of the Northern Liang dynasty (397–439 CE), eventually brought Dharmakṣema to his capital. After studying the Chinese language for three years and learning how to translate Sanskrit texts orally into Chinese, Dharmakṣema engaged there in a series of translation projects under Juqu Mengxun's patronage. With the assistance of Chinese monks, such as Daolang and Huigao, Dharmakṣema produced a number of influential Chinese translations, including the ''Dabanniepan jing'' (S. ''Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra''; in forty rolls), the longest recension of the sūtra extant in any language; the ''Jinguangming jing'' ("Sūtra of Golden Light"; S. ''Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra''; in four rolls); and the ''Pusa dichi jing'' (S. ''Bodhisattvabhūmisūtra''; in ten rolls). He is also said to have made the first Chinese translation of the ''Laṅkāvatārasūtra'' (C. ''Ru Lengqie jing'', but his rendering had dropped out of circulation at least by 730 CE, when the Tang Buddhist cataloguer Zhisheng (700–786 CE) compiled the Kaiyuan Shijiao Lu. The Northern Wei ruler Tuoba Tao, a rival of Juqu Mengxun's, admired Dharmakṣema's esoteric expertise and requested that the Northern Liang ruler send the Indian monk to his country. Fearing that his rival might seek to employ Dharmakṣema's esoteric expertise against him, Juqu Mengxun had the monk assassinated at the age of forty-nine. Dharmakṣema's translation of Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese had a significant impact on Chinese Buddhism; in particular, the doctrine that all beings have the buddha-nature (''foxing''), a teaching appearing in Dharmakṣema's translation of the ''Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra'', exerted tremendous influence on the development of Chinese Buddhist thought. (Source: "Dharmakṣema." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 247–48. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
Dharmamitra ［曇摩蜜多・曇無蜜多］ (356–442) (Skt; Jpn Dommamitta or Dommumitta): A monk from Kashmir in ancient India who translated Buddhist sutras into Chinese. He entered the Buddhist Order while young and traveled through various kingdoms to pursue study of the sutras. He dedicated himself to the practice of meditation and, passing through Kucha and Tun-huang, went to China in 424, where he exhorted people to practice meditation. In 433 he went to Chien-k’ang, the capital of the Liu Sung dynasty, and in 435 founded Ting-lin-shang-ssu temple, where he lived. He converted the empress and crown prince of the Liu Sung dynasty. His works include ''The Secret Essentials of Meditation'' and Chinese translations of the ''Universal Worthy Sutra'' and the ''Meditation on Bodhisattva Space Treasury Sutra''. ([https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/dic/Content/D/55 Source Accessed July 15, 2021]) +
Bhikshu Dharmamitra (ordination name "Heng Shou" - 釋恆授) is a Chinese-tradition translator-monk and one of the earliest American disciples (since 1968) of the late Guiyang Ch'an patriarch, Dharma teacher, and pioneer of Buddhism in the West, the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua (宣化上人). He has a total of 34 years in robes during two periods as a monastic (1969‒1975 & 1991 to the present). Dharmamitra's principal educational foundations as a translator of Sino-Buddhist Classical Chinese lie in four years of intensive monastic training and Chinese-language study of classic Mahāyāna texts in a small-group setting under Master Hsuan Hua (1968-1972), undergraduate Chinese language study at Portland State University, a year of intensive one-on-one Classical Chinese study at the Fu Jen University Language Center near Taipei, two years of course work at the University of Washington's Department of Asian Languages and Literature (1988-90), and an additional three years of auditing graduate courses and seminars in Classical Chinese readings, again at UW's Department of Asian Languages and Literature. Since taking robes again under Master Hua in 1991, Dharmamitra has devoted his energies primarily to study and translation of classic Mahāyāna texts with a special interest in works by rya Nāgārjuna and related authors. To date, he has translated more than fifteen important texts comprising approximately 150 fascicles, including most recently the 80-fascicle Avataṃsaka Sūtra (the "Flower Adornment Sutra"), Nāgārjuna's 17-fascicle Daśabhūmika Vibhāṣā ("Treatise on the Ten Grounds"), and the Daśabhūmika Sūtra (the "Ten Grounds Sutra") . . . ([https://www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Bhikshu-Dharmamitra# Source Accessed July 15, 2021]) +
Vorenkamp, a member of the Lawrence religious studies department since 1997, specializes in Asian religions, especially Buddhism. His teaching was recognized with the Lawrence Freshman Studies Teaching Award in 2000 and his scholarly research has been published in the Encyclopedia of Monasticism, the Journal of Asian Studies and the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, among others. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ([https://blogs.lawrence.edu/news/tag/dirck-vorenkamp Source Accessed April 15, 2020]) +
Divākara (地婆訶羅, 613–87), or Rizhao (日照) in Chinese, was born in central India in the Brahmin Caste.
He became a Monk when he was just a child, and he spent many years at the Mahābodhi Temple and the Nālandā Monastery. He was an accomplished Tripiṭaka master, excelled in the five studies and especially in Mantra practices.
Already in his sixties, Divākara went to Chang-an (長安), China, in 676, the first year of the Yifeng (儀鳳) years of the Tang Dynasty (618–907).
Emperor Gaozong (唐高宗) treated him as respectfully as he had treated the illustrious Tripiṭaka master Xuanzang.
In 680, the first year of the Yonglong (永隆) years, the emperor commanded ten learned Monks to assist Divākara in translating sūtras from Sanskrit into Chinese.
In six years Divākara translated eighteen sūtras, including the ''Sūtra of the Buddha-Crown Superb Victory Dhāraṇī'' (T19n0970), the ''Sūtra of the Great Cundī Dhāraṇī'' (T20n1077), and the ''Mahāyāna Sūtra of Consciousness Revealed'' (T12n0347).
Longing to see his mother again, he petitioned for permission to go home.
Unfortunately, although permission was granted, he fell ill and died in the twelfth month of 687, the third year of the Chuigong (垂拱) years, at the age of seventy-five.
Empress Wu (武后則天) had him buried properly at the Xiangshan Monastery (香山寺) in Luoyang (洛陽).
([http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?title=Div%C4%81kara Source Accessed Aug 18, 2020]) +
Prof. Lucia Dolce is Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhism in the Department of Religions and Philosophies, School of History, Religions and Philosophies at SOAS, University of London. She is the Chair of the Centre of Buddhist Studies and the Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions.
Lucia Dolce specialises in Japanese religions and thought, with a particular research interest in the religiosity of the medieval period, including millenarian ideas and prophetic writings, the esotericisation of religious practice, and kami-Buddhas associations. She is also interested in Chinese Buddhist thought and in popular religion in contemporary Japan. ([https://ceres.rub.de/en/people/lucia-dolce/ Source Accessed Sep 21, 2021]) +
For six months each year, Don Handrick serves as the resident teacher at Thubten Norbu Ling, in Santa Fe, NM, a center affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT). During that time, he also teaches at Ksitigarbha Tibetan Buddhist Center in Taos, NM, and volunteers for the Liberation Prison Project, teaching Buddhism once a month at a local prison. Since 2012 he has been an active member of the Interfaith Leadership Alliance of Santa Fe.<br><br>
Don spends the other half of each year as a touring teacher for the FPMT, visiting centers around the world. In 2015, Don had the honor of being selected to lead the renowned November Course, a one month teaching and meditation retreat held annually at Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal.<br><br>
Don's study of Buddhism began in 1993 after reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Over the next two years he practiced with Sogyal Rinpoche's organization, until he began attending classes in 1996 with Venerable Robina Courtin at Tse Chen Ling in San Francisco.<br><br>
Don left the Bay Area in 1998 to attend the FPMT's Masters Program of Buddhist Studies in Sutra and Tantra, a seven-year residential study program conducted at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Tuscany, Italy, taught by the scholar and kind Spiritual Friend, Geshe Jampa Gyatso. He successfully completed all five subjects of this program in 2004, receiving an FPMT final certificate with high honors. Don then moved to Santa Fe, serving as the Spiritual Program Coordinator for Thubten Norbu Ling before being appointed resident teacher in 2006.<br><br>
Don has received teachings from many esteemed lamas in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Ribur Rinpoche, Choden Rinpoche, and Khensur Jampa Tegchok. ([https://www.donhandrick.com/about Source Accessed Nov 12, 2020]) +
Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche was born in the Dhoshul region of Kham in eastern Tibet on June 10, 1950. On that summer day in the family tent, Rinpoche’s birth caused his mother no pain. The next day, his mother, Pema Lhadze, moved the bed where she had given birth. Beneath it she found growing a beautiful and fragrant flower which she plucked and offered to Chenrezig on the family altar.
Soon after his birth three head lamas from Jadchag monastery came to his home and recognized him as the reincarnation of Khenpo Sherab Khyentse. Khenpo Sherab Khyentse, who had been the former head abbot lama at Gochen Monastery, was a renowned scholar and practitioner who lived much of his life in retreat.
Rinpoche’s first dharma teacher was his father, Lama Chimed Namgyal Rinpoche. Beginning his schooling at the age of five, he entered Gochen Monastery. His studies were interrupted by the Chinese invasion and his family's escape to India. In India his father and brother continued his education until he entered the Nyingmapa Monastic School of Northern India, where he studied until 1967.
He then entered the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, which was then a part of Sanskrit University in Varanasi, where he received his B.A. degree in 1975. He also attended Nyingmapa University in West Bengal, where he received another B.A. and an M.A. in 1977.
In 1978 Rinpoche was enthroned as the abbot of the Wish-fulfilling Nyingmapa Institute in Boudanath, Nepal by [[H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche]], and later became the abbot of the Department of Dharma Studies, where he taught poetry, grammar, philosophy and psychology. In 1981, H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche appointed Rinpoche as the abbot of the Dorje Nyingpo Center in Paris, France. In 1982 he was asked to work with H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche at the Yeshe Nyingpo Center in New York. During the 1980s, until H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche’s mahaparinirvana in 1987, Rinpoche continued working closely with him, often traveling as his translator and attendant.
In 1988, Rinpoche and his brother founded the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center. Since that time he has served as a spiritual director at the various Padmasambhava centers throughout the world. He maintains an active traveling and teaching schedule with his brother, Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche.
Khenpo Tsewang Rinpoche has authored two books of poetry on the life of Guru Rinpoche, including ''Praise to the Lotus Born: A Verse Garland of Waves of Devotion'', and a unique two-volume cultural and religious history of Tibet entitled ''The Six Sublime Pillars of the Nyingma School'', which details the historical bases of the dharma in Tibet from the sixth through ninth centuries. At present, this is one of the only books written that conveys the dharma activities of this historical period in such depth. Khenpo Rinpoche has also co-authored a number of books in English on dharma subjects with his brother Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche, including ''Ceaseless Echoes of the Great Silence: A Commentary on the Heart Sutra''; ''Prajnaparamita: The Six Perfections''; ''Door to Inconceivable Wisdom and Compassion''; ''Lion's Gaze: A Commentary on the Tsig Sum Nedek''; and ''Opening Our Primordial Nature''. ([http://www.padmasambhava.org/teach/longkhenpo.html Source Accessed Jan 29, 2015])
Gary Donnelly is an academic advisor at the University of Manchester, and lectures in Indic Religious Traditions at Liverpool Hope University. He holds a PhD in Indian Philosophy, specializing in Theravada, Madhyamaka, Yogacara, and Vedanta traditions. ([https://www.lionsroar.com/author/gary-donnelly/ Source Accessed April 25, 2024]) +
His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa Orgyen Trinley Dorje is the head of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu Lineage and guide to millions of Buddhists around the world. Orgyen Trinley Dorje is a Tibetan practitioner and scholar, a painter, poet, songwriter and playwright, an environmental and social justice activist, and world spiritual leader who uses modern technology, such as Facebook and other digital platforms, to teach Buddhism and bring the Karma Kagyu lineage’s activities fully into the 21st century. You can see some of the projects he has initiated on Adarsha or Dharma Treasures: [https://digital-toolbox.dharma-treasure.org/ Digital Toolbox] & [https://dharmaebooks.org/ Dharma Books]
[https://kagyuoffice.org/news/ News and links to teachings from His Holiness]
*[https://kagyuoffice.org/joint-long-life-prayer-for-kunzig-shamar-rinpoches-reincarnation/ Long Life Prayer for Shamar Rinpoche with HH Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje]
*[https://www.facebook.com/karmapa/ Facebook - Live Teachings and News]
*[http://www.kagyuoffice.org/karmapa.html Karmapa Biography from kagyuoffice.org]
*[https://kagyu.org/gyalwang-karmapa-ogyen-trinley-dorje/ Karmapa Biography from kagyu.org]
[[Category:Karmapas]] +
Gyurme Dorje (1950 – 5 February 2020) was a Scottish Tibetologist and writer. He was born in Edinburgh, where he studied classics (Latin and Greek) at George Watson's College and developed an early interest in Buddhist philosophy. He held a PhD in Tibetan Literature (SOAS) and an MA in Sanskrit with Oriental Studies (Edinburgh). In the 1970s he spent a decade living in Tibetan communities in India and Nepal where he received extensive teachings from Kangyur Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. In 1971 Dudjom Rinpoche encouraged him to begin translating his recently completed ''History of the Nyingma Schoo''l (རྙིང་མའི་སྟན་པའི་ཆོས་འབྱུང་) and in 1980 his ''Fundamentals of the Nyingma School'' (བསྟན་པའི་རྣམ་གཞག) - together this was an undertaking that was to take twenty years, only reaching completion in 1991. In the 1980s Gyurme returned to the UK and in 1987 completed his 3 volume doctoral dissertation on the ''Guhyagarbhatantra'' and Longchenpa's commentary on this text at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.
From 1991 to 1996 Gyurme held research fellowships at London University, where he worked with Alak Zenkar Rinpoche on translating (with corrections) the content of the Great Sanskrit Tibetan Chinese Dictionary to create the three volume ''Encyclopaedic Tibetan-English Dictionary''. From 2007 until his death he worked on many translation projects, primarily as a Tsadra Foundation grantee. He has written, edited, translated and contributed to numerous important books on Tibetan religion and culture including ''The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History'' (2 vols.) (Wisdom, 1991), ''Tibetan Medical Paintings'' ( 2 vols.) (Serindia, 1992), ''The Tibet Handbook'' (Footprint, 1996), the first complete translation of the ''Tibetan Book of the Dead'', and ''A Handbook of Tibetan Culture'' (Shambhala, 1994). ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyurme_Dorje Source Accessed Jul 14, 2020])
