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 Rinpoches commentary to Maitreya-Asangas 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 Wangyals 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-pas Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. He has translated an unpublished manuscript of Panchen Losang Chgyens Path to Bliss (bde lam). He is currently translating Geshe Yeshe

Thabkhes introduction to Kamalashilas commentary on the Rice Seedling Sutra (Salistamba Sutra).

CORTLAND J. DAHL

Rim 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 Rim Foundation, an organization dedicated to the translation of Tibetan Buddhist literature and the dissemination of the Buddhas 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 Lodr 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 Lodr 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, Chdrak 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 Geshe-Acharya 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 Chkyi 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 Rinpoches The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History (with Matthew Kapstein); Longchen Rabjampas Phyogs bcu mun sel, with edition of 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 Lingpas Bar do thos grol chen mo, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Penguin); Zhakabpas Inventory to the Great Temple of Lhasa, in Jokhang: Tibets Most Sacred Buddhist Shrine; Jamgon Miphams sPyi don od gsal snying po; Jamgon Kongtruls 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 MLIs 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. Wulstans 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 Chnam, 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 Chgyam 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 Jinpas 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 two-month 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 Chkyi 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 FPMTs 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, Jos Cabezn, 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-gyas Sautrantika chapter); Path to the Middle: The Spoken Scholarship of Khensur Yeshe Thupten (extensive oral commentary on Tsongkhapas dbUma dgongs pa rab gsal, 6th chapter); and, with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinopche, translation and discussion of gTan tshig gal mdo rig pai 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 Lingpas Ngndro with a CD of English and Tibetan chanting. She is commencing translation of Mipham Rinpoches The Threefold Great Seal: Abiding, Movement and Awareness (phyag chen pai 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

Siddharthas 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, Nyshul 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, Gwenolas 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 Miky 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: Sarahas 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 Chgyam 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 institutes 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 institutes 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 Drubs Clarifying the Path to Liberation: An Explanation of the of Manifest Knowledge(unpublished manuscript, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2002); Lama Tsongkhapas Illumination of the Thought (the sixth chapter onward; unpublished manuscript, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, 2001); Geshe Jampa Gyatsos 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 Trinles 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 co-created 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 nuns 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 Khyentses 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 LODR PALMO

Ani Lodr 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 Rim 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. Adams translation of Longchen Rabjams bsam gtan ngal gso appeared in His Holiness the Dalai Lamas 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 peoples 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 Rinpoches verses (Shambhala Publications, 1993); Hundred Verses of Spiritual Advice, teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche on Padampa Sangyes 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 Wangpos 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 Trinzins request. Completed translations include pal kye rdo rje rgyui dang lam kyi wang; bde ched sprin sgra; zhen pa dzhi bral and commentarial texts; and dpal ldan skya pi phyag srol ltar gyi sngon dro. Ongoing translations include kha spyod grid pai sa mkhan mdzes par byed pai 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 Chkyi 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 Rinpoches 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 Kagy 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 (cole Pratique des Hautes tudes). 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 Matre de Confrences with the cole Franaise dExtrme-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 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 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 $ryadevas 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 co-director 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. Yarnalls 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 Khapas 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.