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Biographies of 

Conference

Participants

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ALEXANDER BERZIN Berzin Archives

Alexander Berzin received his PhD in 1972 from HarvardUniversity 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 withmasters from all four Tibetan Buddhist traditions; however, hismain teachers have been His Holiness the Dalai Lama, TsenshapSerkong Rinpoche, and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. He was the principal interpreter for Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche for nine yearsand 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 hisessays, books, and both audio and transcribed versions of his lectures on TibetanBuddhism, history, and culture, and on Buddhist-Muslim relations. The website currentlycontains English, German, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese sections. Preparation isactively 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 lecturesfor online publication.

JOHN CANTI

Padmakara Translation Group

In 1970, while studying medicine at Cambridge University, JohnCanti 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 wereKangyur Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, both of whomhe met soon afterwards. Qualifying meanwhile as a physician, heheld hospital appointments in London and Cambridge. In the late1970s he moved to eastern Nepal to establish tuberculosis programsin 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, PemaWangyal Rinpoche, and Nyoshul Khenpo. Afterwards, he helped found the PadmakaraTranslation Group, of which he is now president.

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He currently lives in semi-retreat in the Dordogne, and has been a Tsadra FoundationFellow 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 Maitreya-

Asanga’s Uttaratantra-shastra.

ANE KUNGA CHODRON

George Washington University / Tsechen Kunchab Ling

Working with Khenpo Kalsang Gyaltsen, Ane Kunga hastranslated many sutric, tantric, and biographical texts. Tantrictexts 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 Sakyascholars. Biographical translations include biographies of all fivefounders 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 tocollege at Harvard University in 1966. There he started studyingTibetan language with then graduate student Robert Thurman.Upon graduation in 1970 he moved to Washington, New Jersey tostudy with the late Geshe Ngawang Wangyal. He studied andworked on translations with Geshe-la until his death in 1983,whereupon he became the director of his Dharma center, theTibetan Buddhist Learning Center. Since then he has lived at theCenter, 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 PanchenLosang Chögyen’s Path to Bliss (bde lam). He is currently translating Geshe Yeshe

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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 aMaster's degree in Buddhist Studies and Tibetan language. In2004 he founded the Rimé Foundation, an organizationdedicated to the translation of Tibetan Buddhist literature andthe dissemination of the Buddha’s teachings. In 2007, withYongey Mingyur Rinpoche, he co-founded the Tergar Institute,a center for the study of meditation, Buddhist philosophy, andTibetan language, located in Bodhgaya, India.

Under the guidance of Chatral Rinpoche, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, and YongeyMingyur 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 withnumerous translators and groups, including the Dharmachakra Translation Committeeand the Nitartha Translation Network, in addition to coordinating a team of translators atthe Tergar Institute.

With his wife Tenzin and little boy Sangye, Cortland divides his time betweenKathmandu, Minneapolis, and Bodhgaya.

CATHERINE DALTON

Rangjung Yeshe Institute

Catherine Dalton has a BA in Religious Studies from MiddleburyCollege (2001) and an MA in Buddhist Studies from KathmanduUniversity (2008). Since 2001 she has been living in Nepal andinvolved with the Rangjung Yeshe Institute Shedra, where shehas served as an oral interpreter for philosophy classes for the past six years, as well as teaching Colloquial and Classical Tibetanlanguage classes and running Summer Tibetan Language Programs for the Institute. Sheis a member of the Dharmachakra Translation Committee, and has participated in thetranslation of the Committee's Middle Beyond Extremes (2007), and a commentary on thes!dhana of bla ma smra ba'i sen g e (forthcoming). Catherine is currently the manager of RYI's new Translator Training Program, where she is involved in program and

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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 UCBerkeley. He received his MA and PhD in Buddhist Studies fromthe University of Michigan. After three years working with the InternationalDunhuang Project at the British Library, he worked for three anda half years as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at YaleUniversity, 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 avisit to Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada by his guru,Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. Following book-based studies begunthat year and an intense immersion period in India and Nepalstarting in 1999, Tyler began serving as a literary translator andoral interpreter in 2000, working with Dzogchen PonlopRinpoche's two main organizations, Nitartha International and Nalandabodhi. He enjoyed the wondrous good fortune of serving as the translator for HisHoliness 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 withhis wife and daughter in Seattle, Washington.

His translations include The Karmapa's Middle Way: Feast for the Fortunate (SnowLion, 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 LodröThaye and the Fifteenth Karmapa, Khakhyab Dorje; translation of Chandrakirti's

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 Lamenting Praise to Avalokiteshvara; Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and  Its Commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye (unpublished); Prayer4Peace practiceliturgy (http://prayer4peace.net): The Meditation and Recitation of Glorious VajrasattvaThat Encompasses the Four Classes of Tantra, part of a Web-based project launched byDzogchen 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 byHis Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa in India from 2001-2006. He iscurrently 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 recognizedas 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 studiedBuddhist philosophy for three years and received a Geshe-Acharya degree in 1972. At the end of 1973 he joined the Libraryof Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, as librarian and research assistant, wherehis main responsibility was to supervise cataloguing and to evolve a proper classificationsystem for Tibetan texts. In 1977 he joined the Private Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama asSecretary, dealing mainly with Tibetan correspondence. He worked there for about fiveyears, 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 Tibetancultural heritage to a wide audience through a diverse range of programs. In 1996 he wasappointed by His Holiness as Director of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility,which was established with the Nobel Peace Prize money to work for universal harmonyand well-being. In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Buddhist Studies bythe Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University of Bangkok.

Since 1997 he has pursued a project of World Festival of Sacred Music, which ushered inthe third millennium under the auspices of Tibet House and Foundation for UniversalResponsibility. This has become a worldwide event, with festivals taking place at severalvenues on the different continents. He is currently engaged in various intercultural andintra-Buddhist dialogue activities at a global level. He is the author of  Buddhist Translations: Problems and Perspectives. 

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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, TsikeChokling Rinpoche, and their late father, Tulku UrgyenRinpoche. He is a founding board member of the Rangjung YesheInstitute 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 Lion2009); 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 TibetanStudies from Copenhagen University and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the Universityof Calgary.

GYURME DORJE

Dr. Gyurme Dorje was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1950. Hereceived a diploma in Tibetan Language in Varanasi in 1971, anMA in Sanskrit and Oriental Studies in Edinburgh in 1972, and aPhD in Tibetan Literature from the School of Oriental andAfrican Studies at the University of London in 1987. He is thedirector of Trans Himalaya Tibet expeditions and cultural tours(www.trans-himalaya.com) and the founder of a small Tibetanresearch library and centre promoting conservation andeducational projects in Tibet.

His translations and publications include Dudjom Rinpoche’s The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History (with Matthew Kapstein); LongchenRabjampa’s Phyogs bcu mun sel , with edition of <<I think some words may be missinghere. JW>> the Guhyagarbhatantra, Tibetan Medical Paintings based on the Blue Berylof 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’sShes bya kun khyab, Book 6, Parts One and Two: Indo-Tibetan Classical Learning and 

 Buddhist Phenomenology. 

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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 ForceAcademy, Amherst College, and Harvard University, where he received his PhD from theCommittee on the Study of Religion in 1999. Before joining Emory's faculty in 2005, hetaught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and previously conducted research at theUniversity 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 inquiryinto 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 mostrecently published work includes an article in the Journal of Indian Philosophy on thetypes of perception cultivated through certain meditative practices. He also recently published a review article, “Attention Regulation and Monitoring Meditation” in Trendsin Cognitive Science, co-authored with Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz, and HeleenSlaegter. With Lutz and Davidson, he also published “Meditation and the Neuroscienceof Consciousness” in the Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. 

His work at the interface of Buddhism and science is often facilitated through theactivities 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 hasserved as co-chair for the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute. He frequently servesas an oral translator for Tibetan scholars, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and heis 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 yearslater 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 retreatand in the intervening years.

Working with Padmakara, he has participated in several translation projects, the moreimportant being the original and revised editions of the Bodhicharyavatara; the sutrasection of Jigme Lingpa's Treasury of Precious Qualities with commentary by Kangyur 

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Rinpoche; the Madhyamakavatara with Mipham Rinpoche's commentary; and theMadhyamakalankara with Mipham Rinpoche's commentary. More recently hecollaborated in the translation of a commentary on the Bodhicharyavatara by KhenpoKunzang 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 hasnot proved entirely useless in the work of trying to translate Buddhist teachings for awestern readership. He is currently working on further Madhyamaka texts by MiphamRinpoche 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 tostudy 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. Shehas 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. Jessieis 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 HerbertGuenther. He has lectured on Buddhist and comparative philosophy for over 25 years in the United States, Asia, andEurope, including the University of California (Berkeley andSanta Barbara), Rice University, Harvard University, theGraduate Theological Union, Nyingma Institute, Naropa University, and Lerab LingShedra (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 inthe View and Practice of Buddhist Psychology (Abhidharma), Snow Lion.

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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) [inRonald 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 tubzang 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 byangchub rdo rje ["The Transmission of Presence: The Tibetan Poetics of IneffableExperience,", in Marit Cranmer, curator, Tibetan Literary Arts Exhibition Catalogue atSmith College, Conway, MA:Shang Shung Institute, 2007].

LAMA KALSANG GYALTSEN

Tsechen Kunchab Ling

As one of the main translators for the Sakya Order, KhenpoKalsang has translated many sutric, tantric, and biographicaltexts. Tantric texts include the Hevajra Cause and Path

 Initiations, various Lam Dre texts, and over 100 sadhanas fromthe Drupthap Kundu. Sutric texts include Bodhicaryavatara bySantideva; Madhyamakavatara by Candrakirti, with classicalcommentaries; and numerous texts by the five founders, andcontemporary 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 BuddhistDialectics, Dharamsala, with daily classes and debates, conductedin Tibetan, on all the major topics of the Gelukpa curriculum.Since 2000 Gavin has been a full-time translator for ThubtenJinpa’s Institute of Tibetan Classics, Montreal, Canada. He alsointerprets for lamas in the West and in India. A professionallytrained language teacher, he teaches Tibetan language in two-month intensive beginner classes, as part of the FPMT two-year translator program, andelsewhere.

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 His translations include Ornament of Stainless Light: an Exposition of the Kalacakra

Tantra by Khedrup Norsang Gyatso; Mirror of Vaidurya: a History of the GloriousScience 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 WisdomPublications, is a freelance editor living in Northern Californiawith 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 Buddhismwith 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 inthe 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 manyauthors 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 RiceUniversity and co-founding director of Dawn Mountain inHouston (www.dawnmountain.org). Her books include Knowing, Naming and Negation (contains Jang-gya’sSautrantika chapter); Path to the Middle: The Spoken

Scholarship of Khensur Yeshe Thupten (extensive oralcommentary on Tsongkhapa’s dbUma dgongs pa rab gsal , 6thchapter); and, with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinopche, translationand discussion of  gTan tshig gal mdo rig pa’i tshad ma, published as Unbounded 

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Wholeness. Forthcoming in the spring of 2009 from Snow Lion is Heart Essence of theVast 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 commencingtranslation 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 theVidyadhara, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1976. In 1980 heserved 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 andSanskrit languages, under the guidance of Prof. Masatoshi Nagatomi. He joined the Nalanda Translation Committee in 1982and worked primarily on the Life of Tilopa by Wangchuk Gyaltsen(unpublished). He worked at Vajradhatu (the precursor to Shambhala) from 1982 to 1987in the Department of External Affairs. He earned an MBA from Columbia BusinessSchool 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 ShedraCenter Core Texts Program. He has worked as controller or CFO of various companiesand nonprofit organizations for almost 20 years.

JAKOB LESCHLY

Siddhartha’s Intent/Khyentse Foundation

Jakob Leschly was born in 1956, began studies of Buddhism in1974, and became a disciple of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in1975. In 1977 he also began studies with Dzongsar KhyentseRinpoche, as well as other lamas, including Chakdud TulkuRinpoche. 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 KhyentseRinpoche, Nyöshul Khen Rinpoche, and other lamas. Since then Jakob has continuedstudies 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 assistedvarious other Tibetan teachers with minor translations into English of spiritual advice andsadhanas. He lives with his family in NSW, Australia.

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 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 inBuddhist philosophical studies and in formal practice. She has aMaster's degree in Biology, Engineering in Protection of theEnvironment.

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 rtsithig 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 byKhenpo Ngawang Pelzang; a commentary on The Words of My Perfect Teacher by PatrulRinpoche, 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 inthe fall of 1976 began studying the Buddhist religion and the Tibetan language at theUniversity of Virginia under the guidance of Dr. Jeffrey Hopkins and the eminent Tibetanlamas invited by the university's Center for South Asian Studies. In 1994 he received adoctoral degree in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. In 2002, Snow LionPublications published his translation of lectures given by Trangu Rinpoche onKamalash " la's Stages of Meditation in the Middle Way School . In 2005, Snow LionPublications published his translation of Karmapa Mikyö Dorje's commentary onChandrak  " 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 isworking on translations of recent literature and oral commentary concerned with theMiddle Way School.

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DAVID LUNSFORD

Bodhi Foundation

David Lunsford is the founder and executive director of theBodhi Foundation, a private non-profit foundation dedicated to

assembling conditions that benefit beings.David received training in computer engineering and advancedtechnology from the University of Texas at Austin in the early1980s. He then spent 18 years in the personal computer industry.Many of those years were spent at Dell Computer leading variousengineering and advanced technology teams. David has also beenon 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 anM 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, shemoved 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, whichincluded developing the Buddhist series at SUNY Press, she moved to Nepal in 1987 tostudy Buddhist philosophy and the Tibetan language.

Over the years, she has edited many volumes on Buddhism and has translated texts fromTibetan while teaching and acting as an oral translator. She is the author of Music in theSky: The Life, Art, and Teaching of the Seventeenth Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje; andtranslator of the root text and general editor of  A Song for the King: Saraha’sMahamudra Meditation and for the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva by NgulchuThogme with commentary by His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa. She alsotranslated 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 ZenBuddhism, did his PhD under Stanley Weinstein at Yale and hastaught at Cornell and Indiana universities, and most recently atKomazawa University in Tokyo. Currently Shinnyo-en VisitingProfessor at Stanford during the winter and spring quarters 2009,

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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 aschair 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 Buddhistmeditation master and scholar, and he is empowered as a senior teacher, or acharya, by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He has beenExecutive Director of the Nalanda Translation Committee since1978, 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 languageteacher (Sanskrit and Tibetan) at Naropa University, and he was a member of theVajradhatu/Shambhala International board of directors for many years.

Larry has a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Michigan, where he majoredin Sanskrit, Pali, and the Indian religious traditions. His Tibetan education washaphazard, although a course during the first summer of Naropa Institute and a longapprenticeship with Trungpa Rinpoche and Lama Ugyen Shenpen were significant. Histranslation work remains focused on Vajrayana practice liturgies and commentaries,songs of realization, and biography, most of which have been collaborative efforts withhis committee. Recent acquisition of over 500 pages of writings and termas of TrungpaRinpoche during his youth in Tibet are exciting current projects.

ELIZABETH NAPPER 

Tibetan Nuns Project

Co-Director of the Tibetan Nuns Project, Elizabeth Napper, has aPhD in Buddhist Studies. She has taught at the University of Virginia, Stanford, and Hawaii, and has four times led Universityof Michigan students in a summer course in Tibet. Since 1991 shehas lived mainly in Dharamsala, India, where she has helped toopen up educational opportunities for Tibetan Buddhist nuns. Her translations include Mind in Tibetan Buddhism by Lati Rinpocheand Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path (three sections in the three-volumetranslation). Her other publications include Dependent-Arising and Emptiness; Fluent 

Tibetan: A Proficiency Oriented Learning System, Novice and Intermediate Levels byWilliam A. Magee and Elizabeth Napper, Jeffrey Hopkins, General Editor; and Kindness,

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Clarity, and Insight by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Co-Editor.

JOAN NICELL

FPMTJoan Nicell was born in Montreal, Canada in 1950 and obtained aBS in physiotherapy from McGill University in 1982. In 1986 shetraveled to Asia, and in Thailand participated in a ten-dayVipassana course. The next year she did the annual month-longDharma course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. In February 1989she received getsul ordination in Dharamsala from His Holinessthe 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 residentialand 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 beentranslating 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 Englishtranslation 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 (thesixth chapter onward; unpublished manuscript, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2001); GesheJampa 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 theGreat Secret (unpublished manuscript, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2003); and numerouslong and short sadhanas, burnt offering rituals, pujas, and prayers. She has also editedtwo books that contain translations of Tibetan commentaries: Everlasting Rain of Nectar:

 Purification Practice in Tibetan Buddhism by Geshe Jampa Gyatso (WisdomPublications, 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 BuddhistResource Center in New York City since 2004. A TibetanBuddhist scholar with expertise in both Buddhist scripture and theextensive commentorial literature, he is an editor of a new editionof the Kangyur, the teaching of the Buddha, and the Tengyur, its

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commentaries, which contain more than 300 volumes. Born in 1966 in Dege, SichuanProvince, China, he became a monk at Dzogchen Monastery. Graduating in 1986 fromSichuan Provincial Tibetan Language School at Dzogchen Monastery, he became aneditor at the Chinese Tibetology Research Center in Beijing.

In 1994, as editor-in-chief of the Comparative Tripitaka Bureau of the ChineseTibetology Research Center in Chengdu, Sichuan, he published the 124-volume editionof the Tengyur and authored a two-volume catalogue of this collection. He taughtBuddhism 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 co-created the beautiful Sambhota font, used worldwide. He has lectured on TibetanTripitaka Comparative Editions at the International Association of Tibetan Studies inLeiden, Netherlands.

ANI JINPA PALMO

Shechen Monastery/Khampagar Monastery

Ani Jinpa Palmo was born in Holland in 1946, and since 1962 hastraveled extensively throughout Europe. In 1968 she traveled toIndia, where in March 1969 she met most of the Tibetan mastersin Dharamsala during the tenth anniversary of the Lhasa uprising.In early 1969 she took refuge with Kalu Rinpoche and later thatyear met her first main teacher, Khamtrul Dongyu Nyima, withwhom she studied until his death in 1980. In December 1969 shereceived nun’s ordination from the Sixteenth Karmapa and alsostudied for 3 years with her second main teacher, Apho Rinpoche, grandson of theDrukpa Kagyu yogi Shakya Shri, until his death in 1974. In 1973 she met her third mainteacher, Dilgo Khyentse, and during the 1970s received numerous teachings from himand also served as his translator during various periods. Between 1982 and 1985 AniJinpa Palmo did a 3-year retreat under Dilgo Khyentse’s guidance in Dordogne, and since1985 usually spends 6 or 7 months in Asia and the rest of the year in Holland or travelingin 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 TranslationCommittee; the Great Image, the Life of Vairotsana the Translator ; and Brilliant Moon,the autobiography of Dilgo Khyentse, both published by Shambhala Publications. Inaddition 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 asinterpreter since 1994. Her present projects are the biography of Gotsangpa, a DrukpaKagyu mahasiddha, as well as various Mindroling sadhanas for Minling KhandroRinpoche.

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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 toIndia 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 afew 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 wentinto three-year retreat under the guidance of Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche inAustralia. 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 whileteaching English at two monasteries. He then studied Tibetan andSanskrit at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London,and met his teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche, in 1995. After graduatingfrom university, he spent four years at the Rangjung YesheInstitute in Kathmandu, studying, teaching Tibetan, and servingas an interpreter. In 2004 he founded Lotsawa House, an onlinelibrary of translations, focusing mainly on the key figures of theRimé movement. Since 2005 he has been the director of the Rigpa Shedra, which iscurrently based at the Palyul retreat centre in Pharping, Nepal, and is headed byKhenchen 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 GaRabjampa 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 LotsawaHouse.

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 spiritualmasters. He is part of the Padmakara Translation Group and hasacted as French interpreter for His Holiness the Dalai Lama since1989. He lives at Shechen Monastery in Nepal, where he servesShechen Rabjam Rinpoche and devotes much of his time to the preservation of the Himalayan cultural heritage (www.shechen.org) and to managing

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thirty humanitarian projects (clinics, schools, elderly people’s home, bridges. etc.) inTibet, 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 andcollaborative research between scientists and Buddhist contemplatives and scholars, andis 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 LionPublications), in collaboration with Jakob Leschly and Erik Pema Kunsang; The Heart 

Treasure of the Enlightened  Ones, teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche on PatrulRinpoche’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 NyingthigGuru 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 DilgoKhyentse Rinpoche on the Thirty-Sevenfold Practice of the Bodhisattva (ShambhalaPublications, 2008); and The Great Medicine that Vanquishes Ego Clinging , teachings byRabjam Rinpoche, (Shambhala Publications, 2007).

INGE RIEBE

Sakya Drolma Phondrang

Inge translates various small and longer items at HH the SakyaTrinzin’s request. Completed translations include pal kye rdo rjergyu’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’ ilam 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 sacredTibetan Buddhist texts as well as instructions from living masters. Currently, RangjungYeshe Publications has 32 books in print; their books have been translated into 13different languages.

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Under the guidance of Tulku Urgyen and Chökyi Nyima Rinpoches, in 1981, Erik andMarcia established Rangjung Yeshe Institute at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling in Boudhanath,which holds seminars and retreats around the world of which one branch has expandedinto a scholastic Buddhist Studies Program.

Additionally, Marcia has helped to develop a retreat center in the USA, Rangjung YesheGomde, in California. She is currently involved in an ongoing archiving project, primarily dedicated to the teachings of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Besides publishingRinpoche’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 asextensive transcripts of his teachings. Marcia continues to work on and bring out booksfor Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, most specifically connected to the Nyingma andKagyü 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 desHautes Études). His main fields of research are Buddhist literature and the archaeologyand history of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia. Other interests include the earlyhistory 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 ÉcoleFrançaise d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) and head of the Buddhist Studies Group of theEFEO. He is also a special lecturer at Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok). In spring2009 he will spend one semester at the University of Sydney (Australia) as VisitingScholar 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 tenMulasarvastivadin texts from the Kanjur. Vol. 3 (in progress) will contain Englishtranslations 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 hetranslates or summarizes about 60 Pali Jatakas. At present he is preparing translations of the Tibetan Kanjur versions of several short Mahayana sutras.

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E. GENE SMITH

Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center  

E. Gene Smith was born in Utah in 1936. He studied at theUniversity of Utah and at the University of Washington in Seattle

from 1960 to 1964, where he also studied Tibetan culture andBuddhism with Deshung Rinpoche. In 1964 he completed hisPhD qualifying exams and traveled to Leiden for advancedstudies in Sanskrit and Pali. In 1965 he went to India under aFord 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 thereprinting of Tibetan books. He was field director from 1980 until 1985, when he wastransferred to Indonesia. In 1994 he was assigned to the Library of Congress in Cairo. InFebruary 1997 he took early retirement from the U.S. Library of Congress to become aconsultant 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 theTibetan 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 HimalayanLibrary

Phillip Stanley received a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to researchthe Tibetan Nyin gma nine-vehicle texts. He is co-director andauthorized teacher of Nitartha Institute that translates and teachesthe Kagyu scholastic (shedra) curriculum. He created a catalogdatabase of the Kanjur/Tanjur canonical collections and is placingit online with a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, incollaboration with the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library(University of Virginia), the Library of Congress and the British Library. He is on theInternational Association of Buddhist Universities board. He is writing a book on theTibetan Buddhist canon and a primer of literary Tibetan.

ROBERT THURMAN

Tibet House / Columbia University

Robert Thurman holds the first endowed chair in BuddhistStudies in the West, the Jey Tsong Khapa Chair in Indo-TibetanBuddhist Studies. After education at Philips Exeter and Harvard,

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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 haslectured widely all over the world. His special interest is the exploration of the Indo-Tibetan 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 theUniversity of Chicago Divinity School. He was educated at Wesleyan and ColumbiaUniversities, 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 greatestinfluences 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. Histranslation efforts have been chiefly devoted to the literature of the gsang ’dus ’phagslugs, including $ryadeva’s Lamp that Integrates the Practices (Cary!mel ! pakaprad "  pa):

The Gradual Path of Vajray!na Buddhism According to the Esoteric Community NobleTradition (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 withcommentaries, the Bhadrap!liparip! cch! Mah! y!nas#tra, and/or some Tibetanhistorical and commentarial works.

JEFF WATT

Himalayan Art Resources 

Jeff Watt, a leading scholar of Himalayan art, acquired hisknowledge of Buddhist, Bon, and Hindu iconography from alongtime study of Buddhism and Tantra. As a teenager, he studiedwith Dezhung Rinpoche (Seattle, Washington) and Sakya Trizin(Dehradun, India), dropping out of school at seventeen to takemonastic vows from the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa. For the nexteleven years, he trained intensively in India, Canada, and theUnited States, with teachers such as Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Kalu

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Rinpoche, and Sakya Jetsun Chimey. In 1985 he gave back his monastic ordinations butcontinued to study and to translate sacred Tibetan and Sanskrit texts, along withcompleting 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 websiteand “virtual museum” featuring more than 30,000 images with detailed descriptions,making it the most comprehensive resource for Himalayan “style” art and iconography inthe 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 housesone 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 NitarthaInstitute since its founding in 1996. In 1998, he was appointed co-director and serves as head of the Translation and PublicationDepartment. A translator of the Buddha-dharma from Sanskritand 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 ColumbiaUniversity in New York, specializing in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies. He is also theexecutive editor for the “Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences” series of translations of works from the Tibetan Tengyur (and associated literature), being co-published by theAmerican 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 UniversityPress.

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 theTibetan Gelug and Sakya traditions. His study and translation of the Creation andPerfection Stage chapters of Tsong Khapa’s Great Stages of Mantra (sngags rim chen

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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.