Biographies of Conference Participants

Biographies of
Conference
Participants
ALEXANDER BERZIN
Berzin Archives
Alexander Berzin received his PhD in 1972 from Harvard
University jointly between the Departments of Sanskrit and
Indian Studies and Far Eastern Languages. He resided in India for
29 years, primarily with the Translation Bureau at the Library of
Tibetan Works & Archives in Dharamsala. He has studied with
masters from all four Tibetan Buddhist traditions; however, his
main teachers have been His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tsenshap
Serkong Rinpoche, and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. He was the
principal interpreter for Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche for nine years
and has served as occasional interpreter for H.H. the Dalai Lama.
An international lecturer on Tibetan Buddhism since 1980, he 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. He is the author and manager of www.berzinarchives.com, an encyclopedic,
free-of-charge, multilingual website containing his collected translations, as well as his
essays, books, and both audio and transcribed versions of his lectures on Tibetan
Buddhism, history, and culture, and on Buddhist-Muslim relations. The website currently
contains English, German, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese sections. Preparation is
actively underway for Polish, Chinese, and French sections. Living in Berlin, Germany,
since 1999, his main activity is coordinating the Berzin Archives website project and
preparing new material and the remaining 75% of his manuscripts and recorded lectures
for online publication.
JOHN CANTI
Padmakara Translation Group
In 1970, while studying medicine at Cambridge University, John
Canti first had contact with Buddhist teachers 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. Qualifying meanwhile as a physician, he
held hospital appointments in London and Cambridge. In the late
1970s he moved to eastern Nepal to establish tuberculosis programs
in two remote hill districts.
Beginning in 1980, he underwent two consecutive three-year retreats in the Dordogne,
France, under the guidance of Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Pema
Wangyal Rinpoche, and Nyoshul Khenpo. Afterwards, he helped found the Padmakara
Translation Group, of which he is now president.
He currently lives in semi-retreat in the Dordogne, and has been a Tsadra Foundation
Fellow since 2001. His published translations (all collaborations) include The Heart
Treasure of the Enlightened Ones, The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Journey to
Enlightenment, The Hundred Verses of Advice, and The Heart of Compassion. He is
presently working on a translation of Mipham Rinpoche’s commentary to MaitreyaAsanga’s Uttaratantra-shastra.
ANE KUNGA CHODRON
George Washington University / Tsechen Kunchab Ling
Working with Khenpo Kalsang Gyaltsen, Ane Kunga has
translated many sutric, tantric, and biographical texts. Tantric
texts include the Hevajra Cause and Path Initiations, various Lam
Dre texts, and over 100 sadhanas from the Drupthap Kundu.
Sutric texts include Bodhicaryavatara by Santideva;
Madhyamakavatara by Candrakirti, with classical commentaries;
and numerous texts by the five founders and contemporary Sakya
scholars. Biographical translations include biographies of all five
founders of the Sakya Order. Her current project is co-translating,
with Khenpo Kalsang Gyaltsen, a book of collected biographies of
Sakya Pandita, sponsored by Khyentse Foundation.
JOSHUA W.C. CUTLER
Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center/
Lam Rim Chen Mo Translation Committee
Joshua Cutler grew up in Westwood, Massachusetts and went to
college at Harvard University in 1966. There he started studying
Tibetan language with then graduate student Robert Thurman.
Upon graduation in 1970 he moved to Washington, New Jersey to
study with the late Geshe Ngawang Wangyal. He studied and
worked on translations with Geshe-la until his death in 1983,
whereupon he became the director of his Dharma center, the
Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center. Since then he has lived at the
Center, continuing to study and translate with resident and visiting Tibetan teachers.
Cutler has worked in collaboration with Geshe Wangyal’s students on his three books of
translation, The Door of Liberation, The Jeweled Staircase, and The Prince Who Became
a Cuckoo: A Tale of Liberation. He worked with a translation committee of thirteen other
scholars on the three-volume translation of Tsong-kha-pa’s Great Treatise on the Stages
of the Path to Enlightenment. He has translated an unpublished manuscript of Panchen
Losang Chögyen’s Path to Bliss (bde lam). He is currently translating Geshe Yeshe
Thabkhe’s introduction to Kamalashila’s commentary on the Rice Seedling Sutra
(Salistamba Sutra).
CORTLAND J. DAHL
Rimé Foundation/Tergar Institute
Cortland Dahl graduated from Naropa University in 2000 with a
Master's degree in Buddhist Studies and Tibetan language. In
2004 he founded the Rimé Foundation, an organization
dedicated to the translation of Tibetan Buddhist literature and
the dissemination of the Buddha’s teachings. In 2007, with
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, he co-founded the Tergar Institute,
a center for the study of meditation, Buddhist philosophy, and
Tibetan language, located in Bodhgaya, India.
Under the guidance of Chatral Rinpoche, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, and Yongey
Mingyur Rinpoche, he has translated and published numerous works, including Great
Perfection: Outer and Inner Preliminaries; Great Perfection: Separation and
Breakthrough, Deity, Mantra, and Wisdom: Development Stage Meditation in Tibetan
Buddhist Tantra (with Andreas Doctor); and a new work entitled Gateway to the Great
Perfection: A Guide to the Longchen Nyingtik Preliminaries. He has collaborated with
numerous translators and groups, including the Dharmachakra Translation Committee
and the Nitartha Translation Network, in addition to coordinating a team of translators at
the Tergar Institute.
With his wife Tenzin and little boy Sangye, Cortland divides his time between
Kathmandu, Minneapolis, and Bodhgaya.
CATHERINE DALTON
Rangjung Yeshe Institute
Catherine Dalton has a BA in Religious Studies from Middlebury
College (2001) and an MA in Buddhist Studies from Kathmandu
University (2008). Since 2001 she has been living in Nepal and
involved with the Rangjung Yeshe Institute Shedra, where she
has served as an oral interpreter for philosophy classes for the
past six years, as well as teaching Colloquial and Classical Tibetan
language classes and running Summer Tibetan Language Programs for the Institute. She
is a member of the Dharmachakra Translation Committee, and has participated in the
translation of the Committee's Middle Beyond Extremes (2007), and a commentary on the
s!dhana of bla ma smra ba'i sen ge (forthcoming). Catherine is currently the manager of
RYI's new Translator Training Program, where she is involved in program and
curriculum development, as well as managing and overseeing the daily workings of the
program as a whole.
JAKE DALTON
University of California at Berkeley
Jacob Dalton is Assistant Professor of Tibetan Studies at UC
Berkeley. He received his MA and PhD in Buddhist Studies from
the University of
Michigan. After three years working with the International
Dunhuang Project at the British Library, he worked for three and
a half years as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Yale
University, until moving to Berkeley in 2009. He works on Tibetan religious history,
tantric ritual, paleography, and the Dunhuang manuscripts. He is the author of a
forthcoming study on violence and the formation of Tibetan Buddhism, and is co-author
of Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein
Collection at the British Library (Brill, 2006).
TYLER DEWAR
Nalandabodhi/Nitartha
Tyler Dewar encountered the Tibetan language in 1997 during a
visit to Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada by his guru,
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. Following book-based studies begun
that year and an intense immersion period in India and Nepal
starting in 1999, Tyler began serving as a literary translator and
oral interpreter in 2000, working with Dzogchen Ponlop
Rinpoche's two main organizations, Nitartha International and
Nalandabodhi. He enjoyed the wondrous good fortune of serving as the translator for His
Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa during the Boulder and Seattle portions of
His Holiness's first visit to the United States of America in May and June of 2008.
A founding member of the Nitartha Translation Network, a newly formed group of
translators who work under the guidance of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Tyler lives with
his wife and daughter in Seattle, Washington.
His translations include The Karmapa's Middle Way: Feast for the Fortunate (Snow
Lion, 2008); translation, annotation, and introduction of the Ninth Karmapa, Wangchuk
Dorje's commentary on Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara; Trainings in Compassion:
Manuals on the Meditation of Avalokiteshvara (Snow Lion, 2004); translation of
Thangtong Gyalpo's Chenrezik sadhana and its commentaries by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodrö
Thaye and the Fifteenth Karmapa, Khakhyab Dorje; translation of Chandrakirti's
Lamenting Praise to Avalokiteshvara; Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and
Its Commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye (unpublished); Prayer4Peace practice
liturgy (http://prayer4peace.net): The Meditation and Recitation of Glorious Vajrasattva
That Encompasses the Four Classes of Tantra, part of a Web-based project launched by
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche shortly after September 11, 2001, for the global
accumulation of the mantras of Vajrasattva; and several chapters of Heart Advice of the
Karmapa (Altruism Press), translations of edited transcripts of oral teachings given by
His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa in India from 2001-2006. He is
currently working on selections from the Seventh Karmapa, Chödrak Gyamtso's Ocean of
Texts on Reasoning
LAMA DOBOOM TULKU
Tibet House
Lama Doboom Tulku was born in Tibet in 1941 and recognized
as the incarnation of the previous Doboom Tulku at the age of
three by Ven. Lama Phurchog Jamgon Rinpoche. In 1969 he
joined the Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies at Sarnath. Then,
under the auspices of Sanskrit University, Varanasi, he studied
Buddhist philosophy for three years and received a GesheAcharya degree in 1972. At the end of 1973 he joined the Library
of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, as librarian and research assistant, where
his main responsibility was to supervise cataloguing and to evolve a proper classification
system for Tibetan texts. In 1977 he joined the Private Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama as
Secretary, dealing mainly with Tibetan correspondence. He worked there for about five
years, during which time he accompanied His Holiness the Dalai Lama on visits to Japan,
the USSR, Mongolia, Switzerland, Greece, and the USA.
Since 1981 Lama Doboom Tulku has been Director of Tibet House, Cultural Centre of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, working for the promotion of Tibetan
cultural heritage to a wide audience through a diverse range of programs. In 1996 he was
appointed by His Holiness as Director of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility,
which was established with the Nobel Peace Prize money to work for universal harmony
and well-being. In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Buddhist Studies by
the Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University of Bangkok.
Since 1997 he has pursued a project of World Festival of Sacred Music, which ushered in
the third millennium under the auspices of Tibet House and Foundation for Universal
Responsibility. This has become a worldwide event, with festivals taking place at several
venues on the different continents. He is currently engaged in various intercultural and
intra-Buddhist dialogue activities at a global level. He is the author of Buddhist
Translations: Problems and Perspectives.
ANDREAS DOCTOR
Rangjung Yeshe Institute/
Kathmandu University Centre for Buddhist Studies
Andreas Doctor has studied Buddhism and Tibetan language
since the early 1990s. Since then he has spent most of his time in
Nepal, where he has studied with Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsike
Chokling Rinpoche, and their late father, Tulku Urgyen
Rinpoche. He is a founding board member of the Rangjung Yeshe
Institute and the Director of Studies at Kathmandu University,
Centre for Buddhist Studies at RangjungYeshe Institute.
Andreas is also Director of the Dharmachakra Translation Committee. He is the author
and co-translator of Luminous Essence: A Guide to the Guhyagarbha Tantra (Snow Lion
2009); Deity, Mantra, and Wisdom: Development Stage Meditation in Tibetan Buddhist
Tantra (Snow Lion 2007); and Tibetan Treasure Literature: Revelation, Tradition, and
Accomplishment in Visionary Buddhism (Snow Lion 2005). He holds an MA in Tibetan
Studies from Copenhagen University and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University
of Calgary.
GYURME DORJE
Dr. Gyurme Dorje was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1950. He
received a diploma in Tibetan Language in Varanasi in 1971, an
MA in Sanskrit and Oriental Studies in Edinburgh in 1972, and a
PhD in Tibetan Literature from the School of Oriental and
African Studies at the University of London in 1987. He is the
director of Trans Himalaya Tibet expeditions and cultural tours
(www.trans-himalaya.com) and the founder of a small Tibetan
research library and centre promoting conservation and
educational projects in Tibet.
His translations and publications include Dudjom Rinpoche’s The Nyingma School of
Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History (with Matthew Kapstein); Longchen
Rabjampa’s Phyogs bcu mun sel, with edition of <<I think some words may be missing
here. JW>> the Guhyagarbhatantra, Tibetan Medical Paintings based on the Blue Beryl
of Sangye Gyatso; Tibetan Elemental Divination Paintings, based on the White Beryl of
Sangye Gyatso; An Encyclopedic Tibetan-English Dictionary (with Zenkar Rinpoche);
Karma Lingpa’s Bar do thos grol chen mo, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Penguin);
“Zhakabpa’s Inventory to the Great Temple of Lhasa,” in Jokhang: Tibet’s Most Sacred
Buddhist Shrine; Jamgon Mipham’s sPyi don ‘od gsal snying po; Jamgon Kongtrul’s
Shes bya kun khyab, Book 6, Parts One and Two: Indo-Tibetan Classical Learning and
Buddhist Phenomenology.
JOHN DUNNE
Emory University
John Dunne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Emory University,
where he is Co-Director of the Encyclopedia of Contemplative Practices and the Emory
Collaborative for Contemplative Studies. He was educated at the United States Air Force
Academy, Amherst College, and Harvard University, where he received his PhD from the
Committee on the Study of Religion in 1999. Before joining Emory's faculty in 2005, he
taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and previously conducted research at the
University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies
(India).
His work focuses on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice. In Foundations of
Dharmakirti's Philosophy (2004), he examines the most prominent Buddhist theories of
perception, language, inference, and justification. His current research includes an inquiry
into the notion of "mindfulness" in both classical Buddhist and contemporary contexts,
and he is also engaged in a study of Candrakirti's Prasannapad!, a major Buddhist
philosophical work on the metaphysics of "emptiness." In Buddhist studies, his most
recently published work includes an article in the Journal of Indian Philosophy on the
types of perception cultivated through certain meditative practices. He also recently
published a review article, “Attention Regulation and Monitoring Meditation” in Trends
in Cognitive Science, co-authored with Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz, and Heleen
Slaegter. With Lutz and Davidson, he also published “Meditation and the Neuroscience
of Consciousness” in the Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness.
His work at the interface of Buddhism and science is often facilitated through the
activities of the Mind and Life Institute. He currently serves on MLI’s board of directors,
and in addition to contributing to numerous public events and research initiatives, he has
served as co-chair for the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute. He frequently serves
as an oral translator for Tibetan scholars, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and he
is currently a consultant or co-investigator on various scientific studies of contemplative
practices.
WULSTAN FLETCHER
Padmakara Translation Group/Tsadra Foundation
Wulstan Fletcher took refuge with Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in 1984. Two years
later he joined the three-year retreat in Dordogne and has been living in France ever
since. He began learning Tibetan (the literary, not the spoken, language) while in retreat
and in the intervening years.
Working with Padmakara, he has participated in several translation projects, the more
important being the original and revised editions of the Bodhicharyavatara; the sutra
section of Jigme Lingpa's Treasury of Precious Qualities with commentary by Kangyur
Rinpoche; the Madhyamakavatara with Mipham Rinpoche's commentary; and the
Madhyamakalankara with Mipham Rinpoche's commentary. More recently he
collaborated in the translation of a commentary on the Bodhicharyavatara by Khenpo
Kunzang Pelden, and also on a new translation of the Mulamadhyamaka-karika.
Wulstan’s pre-Buddhist training was in European languages and literature, ancient and
modern, and included also a smattering of philosophy and Christian theology. This has
not proved entirely useless in the work of trying to translate Buddhist teachings for a
western readership. He is currently working on further Madhyamaka texts by Mipham
Rinpoche and also on the tantra section of the Treasury of Precious Qualities.
JESSIE FRIEDMAN
Light of Berotsana
Jessie Friedman is the executive director of the Light of Berotsana Translation Group
comprised of Lama Chönam, Sangye Khandro, and Jules B. Levinson. She began to
study Buddhism under Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1970 and has
been a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche since Suzuki Roshi passed away in 1971.
Jessie has an MA in Psychotherapy and an MA in Art History and Museum Studies. She
has been in private practice as a psychotherapist since 1990. She has three beautiful,
grown children who presently live in Boulder, Colorado where Jessie also resides. Jessie
is dedicated to helping to cultivate the community of translators and the project of
translation.
STEVEN GOODMAN
California Institute of Integral Studies
Steven D. Goodman, PhD, Core Faculty and Co-Director of
Asian and Comparative Studies, received his PhD.(1984) in Far
Eastern Studies from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada,
specializing in Tibetan Buddhism under the guidance of Herbert
Guenther. He has lectured on Buddhist and comparative
philosophy for over 25 years in the United States, Asia, and
Europe, including the University of California (Berkeley and
Santa Barbara), Rice University, Harvard University, the
Graduate Theological Union, Nyingma Institute, Naropa University, and Lerab Ling
Shedra (in France). In 1994 he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for the study of
Tibetan mystical poetry (nyams mgur) at the Rice University Center for Cultural Studies.
He co-edited (with Ronald M. Davidson) Tibetan Buddhism: Reason and Revelation
(SUNY, 1992), and is author of the forthcoming Frogs in the Custard: Explorations in
the View and Practice of Buddhist Psychology (Abhidharma), Snow Lion.
A partial list of his published translation work and studies, primarily historical and
philosophical, includes work on 'Ju Mi Pham's Entrance Into Expertise (mkhas 'jug) [in
Ronald M. Davidson, ed., Wind Horse, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1981]; and
'Jigs med gLing pa's kLong chen sNying Thig [in Goodman and Davidson, ed., Tibetan
Buddhism: Reason and Revelation (SUNY 1992)]. More recent translation work includes
an autobiographical sketch by H.H. the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukchen [In My Crazy Tale,
New Delhi: International Drukpa Publicaton, 1995]; the Samantabhadra Prayer (Kun tu
bzang po smon lam) [in Erik Pema Kunsang and Marcia Binder Schmidt, Quintessential
Dzogchen: Confusion Dawns as Wisdom, Hong Kong: Rangjung Yeshe Publications,
2006]; and poetry by Mi la res pa, Khams smyon dharma sennge, and Nya bla byang
chub rdo rje ["The Transmission of Presence: The Tibetan Poetics of Ineffable
Experience,", in Marit Cranmer, curator, Tibetan Literary Arts Exhibition Catalogue at
Smith College, Conway, MA:Shang Shung Institute, 2007].
LAMA KALSANG GYALTSEN
Tsechen Kunchab Ling
As one of the main translators for the Sakya Order, Khenpo
Kalsang has translated many sutric, tantric, and biographical
texts. Tantric texts include the Hevajra Cause and Path
Initiations, various Lam Dre texts, and over 100 sadhanas from
the Drupthap Kundu. Sutric texts include Bodhicaryavatara by
Santideva; Madhyamakavatara by Candrakirti, with classical
commentaries; and numerous texts by the five founders, and
contemporary Sakya scholars. Biographical translations include
biographies of all five founders of the Sakya Order. His current project is co-translating,
with Ane Kunga Chodron, a book of collected biographies of Sakya Pandita, sponsored
by Khyentse Foundation.
GAVIN KILTY
Institute of Tibetan Classics
Gavin spent fourteen years studying the Dharma in India,
including eight years (1976-1984) at the Institute of Buddhist
Dialectics, Dharamsala, with daily classes and debates, conducted
in Tibetan, on all the major topics of the Gelukpa curriculum.
Since 2000 Gavin has been a full-time translator for Thubten
Jinpa’s Institute of Tibetan Classics, Montreal, Canada. He also
interprets for lamas in the West and in India. A professionally
trained language teacher, he teaches Tibetan language in twomonth intensive beginner classes, as part of the FPMT two-year translator program, and
elsewhere.
His translations include Ornament of Stainless Light: an Exposition of the Kalacakra
Tantra by Khedrup Norsang Gyatso; Mirror of Vaidurya: a History of the Glorious
Science of Medicine by Desi Sangye Gyatso; Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages: Core
Instructions on the Guhyasamaja by Je Tsongkhapa; Golden Chariot; Commentary on
“Sun Illuminating the Transmitted Instructions of Astrology” by Minling Dharma Shri;
and Splendor of an Autumn Moon: Devotional Verse of Je Tsongkhapa, Wisdom, 2000.
DAVID KITTELSTROM
Wisdom Publications, Kurukulla Center
David Kittelstrom, formerly senior editor at Wisdom
Publications, is a freelance editor living in Northern California
with his wife and two children. The bulk of his editing is still
for Wisdom, where he continues as staff editor for both the
Library of Tibetan Classics and the Classics of Indian
Buddhism series. He was until recently the main editor, as well,
for the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.
David got his BA in Religion in 1990 from Carleton College, where he studied Buddhism
with Roger Jackson and Bardwell Smith, and in 1988 he spent a semester in Nepal on a
program directed by Ian Baker, attending his first Tibetan Buddhist course with Chökyi
Nyima Rinpoche. He began working at Wisdom in 1993 after a year spent traveling and
practicing in South Asia. Since then, he has received teachings primarily from teachers in
the FPMT organization, especially Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Sera Je Geshe Tsulga, and Ven.
Robina Courtin, and he served as the director of FPMT’s Kurukulla Center in Boston
between 1999 and 2001. At Wisdom, he learned much from collaboration with his many
authors and especially with series editors Gene Smith, Thupten Jinpa, Tom Tillemans,
José Cabezón, and Andy Rotman.
ANNE CAROLYN KLEIN
Rice University/ Dawn Mountain
Anne Carolyn Klein is Professor of Religious Studies at Rice
University and co-founding director of Dawn Mountain in
Houston (www.dawnmountain.org). Her books include
Knowing, Naming and Negation (contains Jang-gya’s
Sautrantika chapter); Path to the Middle: The Spoken
Scholarship of Khensur Yeshe Thupten (extensive oral
commentary on Tsongkhapa’s dbUma dgongs pa rab gsal, 6th
chapter); and, with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinopche, translation
and discussion of gTan tshig gal mdo rig pa’i tshad ma, published as Unbounded
Wholeness. Forthcoming in the spring of 2009 from Snow Lion is Heart Essence of the
Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission, which includes a chantable English translation of
Jigme Lingpa’s Ngöndro with a CD of English and Tibetan chanting. She is commencing
translation of Mipham Rinpoche’s The Threefold Great Seal: Abiding, Movement and
Awareness (phyag chen pa’i gnas ‘gyur rig gsum), as well as a compendium text by
Khetsun Rinpoche, both including his extensive oral commentary.
DEREK KOLLEENY
TBRC/Nalanda Translation Committee
Derek Kolleeny became a Buddhist and a student of the
Vidyadhara, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1976. In 1980 he
served as assistant national coordinator of the six-month U.S. tour
of HH the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. He earned a BA from
Harvard College in 1982, focusing in Buddhism and Tibetan and
Sanskrit languages, under the guidance of Prof. Masatoshi
Nagatomi. He joined the Nalanda Translation Committee in 1982
and worked primarily on the Life of Tilopa by Wangchuk Gyaltsen
(unpublished). He worked at Vajradhatu (the precursor to Shambhala) from 1982 to 1987
in the Department of External Affairs. He earned an MBA from Columbia Business
School in 1989. In 1999 he became a founding member of the board and the treasurer of
The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. He is the director of the NY Shambhala Shedra
Center Core Texts Program. He has worked as controller or CFO of various companies
and nonprofit organizations for almost 20 years.
JAKOB LESCHLY
Siddhartha’s Intent/Khyentse Foundation
Jakob Leschly was born in 1956, began studies of Buddhism in
1974, and became a disciple of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in
1975. In 1977 he also began studies with Dzongsar Khyentse
Rinpoche, as well as other lamas, including Chakdud Tulku
Rinpoche. In 1980-84 he did three-year retreat in Dordogne,
France, under the guidance of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, H.H.
Dudjom Rinpoche, Tulku Pema Wangyal, Jigme Khyentse
Rinpoche, Nyöshul Khen Rinpoche, and other lamas. Since then Jakob has continued
studies and practice, and has worked as translator, interpreter, and meditation instructor.
Since 1993 he has served Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in various capacities, including
producing an English translation of the root text of the dbu ma la ‘jug pa. He has assisted
various other Tibetan teachers with minor translations into English of spiritual advice and
sadhanas. He lives with his family in NSW, Australia.
GWENOLA LE SERREC
Padmakara Translation Group
During this last year, Gwenola’s work has been as a translator
and corrector for the Padmakara translation group; it consists of
the translation of Tibetan into French.
For the previous 12 years she has spent almost all her time in
Buddhist philosophical studies and in formal practice. She has a
Master's degree in Biology, Engineering in Protection of the
Environment.
She has translated the ninth chapter on wisdom of the commentary on Bodhicharyavatara
by Khenpo Kunzang Palden; with Patrick Carre and Christian Bruyat, Perles d'Ambroisie
- byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa'i tshig 'grel 'jam dbyangs zhal lung bdud rtsi
thig pa; Treasury of Precious Qualities by Kangyur Rinpoche; a commentary on the root
text of Jigme Lingpa, the Quintessence of the Three Paths; with Patrick Carre,
Quintessence - yon tan rin po che'i mdzod kyi mchan 'grel theg gsum bdud rtsi'i nying
khu. Her current projects include A Guide to The Words of My Perfect Teacher by
Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang; a commentary on The Words of My Perfect Teacher by Patrul
Rinpoche, rdzog pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi sngon 'gro'i khrid yig kun bzang
bla ma'i zhal lung gi zin bris; and Gateway to Knowledge by Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche,
mkhas pa'i tshul la 'jug pa'i sgo zhes bya ba'i bstan bcos.
JULES LEVINSON
Light of Berotsana
Jules Levinson graduated from Princeton University in 1975 with a BA in English, and in
the fall of 1976 began studying the Buddhist religion and the Tibetan language at the
University of Virginia under the guidance of Dr. Jeffrey Hopkins and the eminent Tibetan
lamas invited by the university's Center for South Asian Studies. In 1994 he received a
doctoral degree in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. In 2002, Snow Lion
Publications published his translation of lectures given by Trangu Rinpoche on
Kamalash"la's Stages of Meditation in the Middle Way School. In 2005, Snow Lion
Publications published his translation of Karmapa Mikyö Dorje's commentary on
Chandrak"rti's refutation of the Mind Only School in his Entrance to the Middle Way. At
present he lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he works for Light of Berotsana and is
working on translations of recent literature and oral commentary concerned with the
Middle Way School.
DAVID LUNSFORD
Bodhi Foundation
David Lunsford is the founder and executive director of the
Bodhi Foundation, a private non-profit foundation dedicated to
assembling conditions that benefit beings.
David received training in computer engineering and advanced
technology from the University of Texas at Austin in the early
1980s. He then spent 18 years in the personal computer industry.
Many of those years were spent at Dell Computer leading various
engineering and advanced technology teams. David has also been
on the board of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center since 1999.
MICHELE MARTIN
TBRC/Shambhala Publications
In 1966 Michele received a Masters degree in Russian Area Studies, and in 1970 an
M Phil in Comparative Literature, both from Yale University. After founding and
practicing at Jemez Bodhi Mandala Zen Center in New Mexico from 1974 to 1977, she
moved to Kyoto, Japan where she studied at Otani University with Nagao Gadjin and
Nishitani Keiji from 1977 to 1979. After working as an editor for many years, which
included developing the Buddhist series at SUNY Press, she moved to Nepal in 1987 to
study Buddhist philosophy and the Tibetan language.
Over the years, she has edited many volumes on Buddhism and has translated texts from
Tibetan while teaching and acting as an oral translator. She is the author of Music in the
Sky: The Life, Art, and Teaching of the Seventeenth Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje; and
translator of the root text and general editor of A Song for the King: Saraha’s
Mahamudra Meditation and for the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva by Ngulchu
Thogme with commentary by His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa. She also
translated the root text of Gaining Certainty in the View from the Treasury of Knowledge,
with commentary by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche.
JOHN MCRAE
Stanford University
John R. McRae, who primarily studies Chinese Chan and Zen
Buddhism, did his PhD under Stanley Weinstein at Yale and has
taught at Cornell and Indiana universities, and most recently at
Komazawa University in Tokyo. Currently Shinnyo-en Visiting
Professor at Stanford during the winter and spring quarters 2009,
he has published translations of the Vimalak"rti S#tra and Platform S#tra of the Sixth
Patriarch and others from Chinese, and he is part of the S#t# Zen Translation Project,
with shared responsibility for the Japanese text Transmitting the Light. He also serves as
chair of the Publications Committee of the BDK Tripitaka Translation Project.
LARRY MERMELSTEIN
Nalanda Translation Committee/Shambhala Publications
Beginning in 1971, Larry Mermelstein became a close student of
the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist
meditation master and scholar, and he is empowered as a senior
teacher, or acharya, by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He has been
Executive Director of the Nalanda Translation Committee since
1978, the same year he became an editor at Shambhala
Publications, where he continues to serve as a consulting editor.
He was among the founding administrators and later a language
teacher (Sanskrit and Tibetan) at Naropa University, and he was a member of the
Vajradhatu/Shambhala International board of directors for many years.
Larry has a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Michigan, where he majored
in Sanskrit, Pali, and the Indian religious traditions. His Tibetan education was
haphazard, although a course during the first summer of Naropa Institute and a long
apprenticeship with Trungpa Rinpoche and Lama Ugyen Shenpen were significant. His
translation work remains focused on Vajrayana practice liturgies and commentaries,
songs of realization, and biography, most of which have been collaborative efforts with
his committee. Recent acquisition of over 500 pages of writings and termas of Trungpa
Rinpoche during his youth in Tibet are exciting current projects.
ELIZABETH NAPPER
Tibetan Nuns Project
Co-Director of the Tibetan Nuns Project, Elizabeth Napper, has a
PhD in Buddhist Studies. She has taught at the University of
Virginia, Stanford, and Hawaii, and has four times led University
of Michigan students in a summer course in Tibet. Since 1991 she
has lived mainly in Dharamsala, India, where she has helped to
open up educational opportunities for Tibetan Buddhist nuns. Her
translations include Mind in Tibetan Buddhism by Lati Rinpoche
and Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path (three sections in the three-volume
translation). Her other publications include Dependent-Arising and Emptiness; Fluent
Tibetan: A Proficiency Oriented Learning System, Novice and Intermediate Levels by
William A. Magee and Elizabeth Napper, Jeffrey Hopkins, General Editor; and Kindness,
Clarity, and Insight by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Co-Editor.
JOAN NICELL
FPMT
Joan Nicell was born in Montreal, Canada in 1950 and obtained a
BS in physiotherapy from McGill University in 1982. In 1986 she
traveled to Asia, and in Thailand participated in a ten-day
Vipassana course. The next year she did the annual month-long
Dharma course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. In February 1989
she received getsul ordination in Dharamsala from His Holiness
the Dalai Lama. Joan has lived and worked at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa since 1990,
where from 1996 to the present she has acted as coordinator for the institute’s residential
and on-line Masters Program and Basic Program. She studied and learned scriptural
Tibetan at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa and Sera Je Monastery. Since 1994, she has been
translating Tibetan texts into English for the institute’s long-term study programs, regular
Dharma courses, and retreats. In January 2009 she was assigned the job of English
translation coordinator for the new FPMT Translation and Editorial Committee.
Her translations include The First Dalai Lama; Gedun Drub’s Clarifying the Path to
Liberation: An Explanation of the “of Manifest Knowledge’”(unpublished manuscript,
Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2002); Lama Tsongkhapa’s Illumination of the Thought (the
sixth chapter onward; unpublished manuscript, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2001); Geshe
Jampa Gyatso’s A Short Explanation of the Meaning of the Words of “A Treatise of
Instructions on the Perfection of Wisdom: An Ornament for Clear Realization”
(unpublished manuscript, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2001); Kirti Losang Trinle’s The
Condensed Meaning of the Path of the Vajra Vehicle: The Essence of the Nectar of the
Great Secret (unpublished manuscript, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2003); and numerous
long and short sadhanas, burnt offering rituals, pujas, and prayers. She has also edited
two books that contain translations of Tibetan commentaries: Everlasting Rain of Nectar:
Purification Practice in Tibetan Buddhism by Geshe Jampa Gyatso (Wisdom
Publications, 1996); and Becoming a Child of the Buddhas: A Simple Clarification of the
Root Verses of Seven Point Mind Training by Gomo Tulku (Wisdom Publications, 1998).
ZAGTSA PALDOR
TBRC
Zagtsa Paldor has been a librarian at the Tibetan Buddhist
Resource Center in New York City since 2004. A Tibetan
Buddhist scholar with expertise in both Buddhist scripture and the
extensive commentorial literature, he is an editor of a new edition
of the Kangyur, the teaching of the Buddha, and the Tengyur, its
commentaries, which contain more than 300 volumes. Born in 1966 in Dege, Sichuan
Province, China, he became a monk at Dzogchen Monastery. Graduating in 1986 from
Sichuan Provincial Tibetan Language School at Dzogchen Monastery, he became an
editor at the Chinese Tibetology Research Center in Beijing.
In 1994, as editor-in-chief of the Comparative Tripitaka Bureau of the Chinese
Tibetology Research Center in Chengdu, Sichuan, he published the 124-volume edition
of the Tengyur and authored a two-volume catalogue of this collection. He taught
Buddhism at Southwest University in China and co-created the Hua-guang computer
font, the most widely used Tibetan script font, especially in the Comparative Editions of
the Kangyur and Tengyur. Collaborating with Nitartha International in Seattle, he cocreated the beautiful Sambhota font, used worldwide. He has lectured on Tibetan
Tripitaka Comparative Editions at the International Association of Tibetan Studies in
Leiden, Netherlands.
ANI JINPA PALMO
Shechen Monastery/Khampagar Monastery
Ani Jinpa Palmo was born in Holland in 1946, and since 1962 has
traveled extensively throughout Europe. In 1968 she traveled to
India, where in March 1969 she met most of the Tibetan masters
in Dharamsala during the tenth anniversary of the Lhasa uprising.
In early 1969 she took refuge with Kalu Rinpoche and later that
year met her first main teacher, Khamtrul Dongyu Nyima, with
whom she studied until his death in 1980. In December 1969 she
received nun’s ordination from the Sixteenth Karmapa and also
studied for 3 years with her second main teacher, Apho Rinpoche, grandson of the
Drukpa Kagyu yogi Shakya Shri, until his death in 1974. In 1973 she met her third main
teacher, Dilgo Khyentse, and during the 1970s received numerous teachings from him
and also served as his translator during various periods. Between 1982 and 1985 Ani
Jinpa Palmo did a 3-year retreat under Dilgo Khyentse’s guidance in Dordogne, and since
1985 usually spends 6 or 7 months in Asia and the rest of the year in Holland or traveling
in Europe or the United States as an oral interpreter.
Her main publications are two books of oral teachings by Dilgo Khyentse, Pure
Appearance and Primordial Purity, published by the Vajravairochana Translation
Committee; the Great Image, the Life of Vairotsana the Translator; and Brilliant Moon,
the autobiography of Dilgo Khyentse, both published by Shambhala Publications. In
addition to these four books, her main translations are the Yeshe Lama; Nyingtik Mabu;
short and long commentaries on Lhenchik Kyema, a Drukpa Kagyu form of Vajrayogini;
and many sadhanas related to termas by Trulshik Rinpoche, for whom she served as
interpreter since 1994. Her present projects are the biography of Gotsangpa, a Drukpa
Kagyu mahasiddha, as well as various Mindroling sadhanas for Minling Khandro
Rinpoche.
ANI LODRÖ PALMO
Ani Lodrö Palmo was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1941 and grew up in Vermont.
After getting a degree in Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, she went to
India with the Peace Corps to Santiniketan, West Bengal. There she met her teacher, the
Eighth Khamtrul Rinpoche, and stayed on in India and Nepal for many years, traveling a
few times to translate in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the USA. After building a
stupa for the relics of her teacher HH Khyentse Rinpoche in Wutai Shan, China, she went
into three-year retreat under the guidance of Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche in
Australia. The retreat was completed in November 2008.
ADAM PEARCEY
Adam Pearcey traveled to India shortly after leaving school and
stayed near Darjeeling, where he began to learn Tibetan while
teaching English at two monasteries. He then studied Tibetan and
Sanskrit at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London,
and met his teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche, in 1995. After graduating
from university, he spent four years at the Rangjung Yeshe
Institute in Kathmandu, studying, teaching Tibetan, and serving
as an interpreter. In 2004 he founded Lotsawa House, an online
library of translations, focusing mainly on the key figures of the
Rimé movement. Since 2005 he has been the director of the Rigpa Shedra, which is
currently based at the Palyul retreat centre in Pharping, Nepal, and is headed by
Khenchen Namdrol. Adam’s translation of Longchen Rabjam’s bsam gtan ngal gso
appeared in His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s recent book, Mind in Comfort and Ease
(Wisdom, 2007). His current translation projects include a blo sbyong commentary by Ga
Rabjampa Kunga Yeshe (1397-1470), translated at the behest of Khenchen Appey; other
works from the ngal gso skor gsum trilogy,;and several minor texts destined for Lotsawa
House.
MATTHIEU RICARD
Shechen Monastery/Padmakara/Mind and Life Institute
Matthieu Ricard has lived in the Himalayas for forty years,
studying under the guidance of Kyabje Kangyur Rinpoche,
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and other precious spiritual
masters. He is part of the Padmakara Translation Group and has
acted as French interpreter for His Holiness the Dalai Lama since
1989. He lives at Shechen Monastery in Nepal, where he serves
Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche and devotes much of his time to the
preservation of the Himalayan cultural heritage (www.shechen.org) and to managing
thirty humanitarian projects (clinics, schools, elderly people’s home, bridges. etc.) in
Tibet, Nepal, and India (www.karuna-shechen.org). He holds a PhD in molecular
genetics. He is part of the Mind and Life Institute, which is devoted to meetings and
collaborative research between scientists and Buddhist contemplatives and scholars, and
is engaged in various research programs on the effect of mind training on the brain,
conducted at Madison-Wisconsin, Princeton, and other universities.
He is the author of several books and has published numerous translations, including The
Life of Shabkar (State University of New York Press, 1994, reprinted 2001, Snow Lion
Publications), in collaboration with Jakob Leschly and Erik Pema Kunsang; The Heart
Treasure of the Enlightened Ones, teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche on Patrul
Rinpoche’s verses (Shambhala Publications, 1993); Hundred Verses of Spiritual Advice,
teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche on Padampa Sangye’s advice to the people of
Tingri (Shechen Publications, New Delhi, 2003, and Shambhala Publications, 2004); The
Wishfulfilling Jewel, teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche on the Longchen Nyingthig
Guru Yoga, (Shambhala Publications, 1999); The Excellent Path to Enlightenment,
teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche on Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s preliminary
practice (Snow Lion Publications, 1996); The Heart of Compassion, teachings by Dilgo
Khyentse Rinpoche on the Thirty-Sevenfold Practice of the Bodhisattva (Shambhala
Publications, 2008); and The Great Medicine that Vanquishes Ego Clinging, teachings by
Rabjam Rinpoche, (Shambhala Publications, 2007).
INGE RIEBE
Sakya Drolma Phondrang
Inge translates various small and longer items at HH the Sakya
Trinzin’s request. Completed translations include pal kye rdo rje
rgyu’i dang lam kyi wang; bde ched sprin sgra; zhen pa dzhi bral
and commentarial texts; and dpal ldan skya p’i phyag srol ltar gyi
sngon ‘dro. Ongoing translations include kha’ spyod ‘grid pa’i sa
mkhan mdzes par byed pa’i rgyan and thams cad mkhyen pa’ i
lam gyi sgron me. She has just completed a short and longer
Dorje Shonnu sadhana with sections of the Ame zhab commentary.
MARCIA SCHMIDT
Rangjung Yeshe Publications
Marcia Binder Schmidt together with her partner, Erik Pema Kunsang created, in 1986,
Rangjung Yeshe Publications and Translations (www.rangjung.com), which offers sacred
Tibetan Buddhist texts as well as instructions from living masters. Currently, Rangjung
Yeshe Publications has 32 books in print; their books have been translated into 13
different languages.
Under the guidance of Tulku Urgyen and Chökyi Nyima Rinpoches, in 1981, Erik and
Marcia established Rangjung Yeshe Institute at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling in Boudhanath,
which holds seminars and retreats around the world of which one branch has expanded
into a scholastic Buddhist Studies Program.
Additionally, Marcia has helped to develop a retreat center in the USA, Rangjung Yeshe
Gomde, in California. She is currently involved in an ongoing archiving project,
primarily dedicated to the teachings of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Besides publishing
Rinpoche’s books, they have digitized over 400 audiotapes and 50 videotapes and
produced a series of DVDs and CDS of teaching and practice materials as well as
extensive transcripts of his teachings. Marcia continues to work on and bring out books
for Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, most specifically connected to the Nyingma and
Kagyü traditions.
PETER SKILLING
Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation
Peter Skilling is a Canadian citizen (born 1949). He has been a resident of Thailand for
30 years. He received a PhD with honours and a habilitation in Paris (École Pratique des
Hautes Études). His main fields of research are Buddhist literature and the archaeology
and history of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia. Other interests include the early
history of Mahayana Buddhism, the Pali literature of Southeast Asia, and the history of
the Buddhist order of nuns. He has travelled extensively in Asia, and has been a visiting
professor at Harvard University (2000), Oxford University (2002), and the University of
California at Berkeley (2005). At present he is Maître de Conférences with the École
Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) and head of the Buddhist Studies Group of the
EFEO. He is also a special lecturer at Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok). In spring
2009 he will spend one semester at the University of Sydney (Australia) as Visiting
Scholar of Buddhist Studies.
His publications include Mahasutras: Great Discourses of the Buddha (2 vols., Oxford,
The Pali Text Society, 1994 and 1997), an edition of and introduction to ten
Mulasarvastivadin texts from the Kanjur. Vol. 3 (in progress) will contain English
translations of the Mahasutras (mdo chen po). He is the editor of Wat Si Chum,
Sukhothai: Art, Architecture and Inscriptions (River Books, Bangkok, 2008), in which he
translates or summarizes about 60 Pali Jatakas. At present he is preparing translations of
the Tibetan Kanjur versions of several short Mahayana sutras.
E. GENE SMITH
Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center
E. Gene Smith was born in Utah in 1936. He studied at the
University of Utah and at the University of Washington in Seattle
from 1960 to 1964, where he also studied Tibetan culture and
Buddhism with Deshung Rinpoche. In 1964 he completed his
PhD qualifying exams and traveled to Leiden for advanced
studies in Sanskrit and Pali. In 1965 he went to India under a
Ford Foundation grant to study with living exponents of the tradition.
In 1968 he joined the Library of Congress New Delhi Field Office, where he began the
reprinting of Tibetan books. He was field director from 1980 until 1985, when he was
transferred to Indonesia. In 1994 he was assigned to the Library of Congress in Cairo. In
February 1997 he took early retirement from the U.S. Library of Congress to become a
consultant to the Trace Foundation for the establishment of the Himalayan and Inner
Asian Resources (HIAR). In December 1999 he and a group of friends established the
Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center in Cambridge, which has now relocated to New York
City. He is the author of Among Tibetan Texts: History and Literature of the Himalayan
Plateau.
PHIL STANLEY
Naropa University / Nitartha Institute / Tibetan and Himalayan
Library
Phillip Stanley received a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to research
the Tibetan Nyin gma nine-vehicle texts. He is co-director and
authorized teacher of Nitartha Institute that translates and teaches
the Kagyu scholastic (shedra) curriculum. He created a catalog
database of the Kanjur/Tanjur canonical collections and is placing
it online with a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, in
collaboration with the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library
(University of Virginia), the Library of Congress and the British Library. He is on the
International Association of Buddhist Universities board. He is writing a book on the
Tibetan Buddhist canon and a primer of literary Tibetan.
ROBERT THURMAN
Tibet House / Columbia University
Robert Thurman holds the first endowed chair in Buddhist
Studies in the West, the Jey Tsong Khapa Chair in Indo-Tibetan
Buddhist Studies. After education at Philips Exeter and Harvard,
he studied Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism for almost thirty years as a personal student of
His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He has written both scholarly and popular books, and has
lectured widely all over the world. His special interest is the exploration of the IndoTibetan philosophical and psychological traditions, with a view to their relevance to
parallel currents of contemporary thought and science. His published translations include
The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture and The Central Philosophy of
Tibet: A Study and Translation of Jey Tsong Khapa's 'Essence of True Eloquence’.
CHRISTIAN K. WEDEMEYER
University of Chicago Divinity School
Christian K. Wedemeyer is Assistant Professor of the History of Religions at the
University of Chicago Divinity School. He was educated at Wesleyan and Columbia
Universities, studying with J.H. Stone II, Janet Gyatso, and Robert A.F. Thurman. He has
studied and practiced Buddhism from Tibetan, Japanese, and Southern Asian traditions.
His Tibetan teachers and studies have included all the major lineages, but his greatest
influences include Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, Ganden Trisur Lobsang Nyima Rinpoche,
and Namgyel Khensur Wangdak Rinpoche.
Although largely a textual scholar, he has on occasion served as oral translator for
teachings by lamas including H.E. Penor Rinpoche, H.E. Garje Khamtrul Rinpoche,
Khenpo Namdrol, Kusum Lingpa Rinpoche, and Hungkar Dorje Rinpoche. His
translation efforts have been chiefly devoted to the literature of the gsang ’dus ’phags
lugs, including $ryadeva’s Lamp that Integrates the Practices (Cary!mel!pakaprad"pa):
The Gradual Path of Vajray!na Buddhism According to the Esoteric Community Noble
Tradition (2007). He is currently at work on a book titled Tantra and Method: Rhetoric
and Reality in the History and Interpretation of Indian Esoteric Buddhism. At some
point, he may publish an English translation of the Guhyasam!ja Tantra with
commentaries, the Bhadrap!liparip!cch! Mah!y!nas#tra, and/or some Tibetan
historical and commentarial works.
JEFF WATT
Himalayan Art Resources
Jeff Watt, a leading scholar of Himalayan art, acquired his
knowledge of Buddhist, Bon, and Hindu iconography from a
longtime study of Buddhism and Tantra. As a teenager, he studied
with Dezhung Rinpoche (Seattle, Washington) and Sakya Trizin
(Dehradun, India), dropping out of school at seventeen to take
monastic vows from the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. For the next
eleven years, he trained intensively in India, Canada, and the
United States, with teachers such as Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Kalu
Rinpoche, and Sakya Jetsun Chimey. In 1985 he gave back his monastic ordinations but
continued to study and to translate sacred Tibetan and Sanskrit texts, along with
completing over three years of isolated retreat, much of it in the rugged mountains of
British Columbia, Canada.
Watt is the Director and Chief Curator of Himalayan Art Resources (HAR), a website
and “virtual museum” featuring more than 30,000 images with detailed descriptions,
making it the most comprehensive resource for Himalayan “style” art and iconography in
the world. He was also the founding curator and leading scholar at the Rubin Museum of
Art (RMA) in New York City, from October 1999 until October 2007. The RMA houses
one of the largest collections of Himalayan and Tibetan art in North America.
His publications include Female Buddhas: Women of Enlightenment in Tibetan Mystical
Art, with Glenn Mullin (2001); Demonic Devine, with Rob Linrothe (2004); and Bon:
The Magic Word, with Samten Karmey (2007).
SCOTT WELLENBACH
Nalanda Translation Committee/Nitartha Institute
Scott Wellenbach has been part of the leadership of Nitartha
Institute since its founding in 1996. In 1998, he was appointed codirector and serves as head of the Translation and Publication
Department. A translator of the Buddha-dharma from Sanskrit
and Tibetan for more than 20 years, and a long-time member of
the Nalanda Translation Committee, he served as co-translator
and co-editor of the Rain of Wisdom.
THOMAS YARNALL
Columbia University
Dr. Tom Yarnall is an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia
University in New York, specializing in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies. He is also the
executive editor for the “Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences” series of translations of
works from the Tibetan Tengyur (and associated literature), being co-published by the
American Institute of Buddhist Studies (AIBS, founded in 1972 at the suggestion of H.H.
the Dalai Lama and at the behest of the late Ven. Geshe Wangyal), the Columbia Center
for Buddhist Studies, and Tibet House US, and being distributed by Columbia University
Press.
Dr. Yarnall’s own scholarly work has focused on Indian and Tibetan tantric materials,
especially those of the Unexcelled Yoga class, and especially as interpreted by the
Tibetan Gelug and Sakya traditions. His study and translation of the Creation and
Perfection Stage chapters of Tsong Khapa’s Great Stages of Mantra (sngags rim chen
mo) is forthcoming from AIBS. For over three decades Dr. Yarnall has been a student of
lamas from all four orders of Tibetan Buddhism. He lives with his wife and son in the
New York area.