Property:Bio
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Karma Dorje (Rabjampa) is a member of the Alexander Csoma de Kőrös Translation Group along with Krisztina Teleki, Zsuzsa Majer, William Dewey, and Beáta Kakas. ([https://84000.co/grants Source Accessed Sep 30, 2022]) +
Tulku Sherdor is Executive Director of Blazing Wisdom Institute. Born in Montreal, Canada in 1961, he began studying Buddhist Insight meditation from a very young age, and met his principal teacher, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, in Nepal in 1981. He was fortunate to study with other pre-eminent masters of the 20th century, including His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Khetsun Zangpo Rinpoche, Dung Say Trinley Norbu Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, and many others. He completed a 3-year lama retreat in the Karma and Shangpa Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and a year-long solitary retreat in the Chogling Tersar practice lineage held by Tulku Urgyen. Over the past 18 years he has traveled far and wide, teaching and working with and translating for a great number of distinguished Nyingma and Kagyu meditation masters, such as helping Trangu Rinpoche establish the monastic retreat program at Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the early 1990s; helping Kenpo Sonam Topgyal Rinpoche re-establish the vajrayana Buddhist tradition for the Chinese community in Thailand in the mid-1990s; and working closely with his precious teacher, His Holiness Orgyen Kusum Lingpa, to advance many philanthropic projects in Tibet dedicated to world peace. (Source: [http://www.blazingwisdom.org/id1.html Blazing Wisdom Institute]) +
Lama Kunzang Dorjee Rinpoche was born in 1970 into the sacred Nyo lineage of Gyalwang Lhanangpa. Lama Kunzang Dorjee Rinpoche is the Head Lama of the Jangsa Dechen Choling Monastery in Kalimpong, India. He also heads Lhundrup Dechenling Monastery in Eastern Bhutan, and Pema Yoedling Monastery in Southern Bhutan.
Besides overseeing his monasteries in India and Bhutan, Lama Kunzang Dorjee Rinpoche raises interest in animal saving. Rinpoche founded Jangsa Animal Saving Trust, an NGO in Bhutan, in the year 2000, after a personal experience of auspicious coincidence when five bulls appeared to seek refuge from a local slaughterhouse at Rinpoche’s monastery–Jangsa Dechen Choling in Kalimpong. Rinpoche is a cousin of H.H. the Je Khenpo, who is the Head of the Drukpa Kagyu in Bhutan.
Lama Kunzang Dorjee Rinpoche holds the spiritual lineages of the Dudjom Tersar and of the Longchen Nyingthig traditions. From his first days, he received the blessings of many great lamas and as a boy, he received many important empowerments and transmissions from H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche in person. Rinpoche’s father, Lama Pema Longdrol, gave him many teachings and transmissions, including the detailed instructions on the tantric deity of Vajrakilaya. He has been blessed to receive Dzogchen and other teachings from Kyabje Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche and from H.H. Kyabje Dungse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche.
At the age of 14, Lama Kunzang joined H.H. Kyabje Dodrupchen Rinpoche’s monastery in Gangtok, where he studied and trained in meditation for 13 years. He received all the transmissions for the Nyingma School’s sacred texts. As well as studying with the monastery’s renowned scholars and meditation masters, he also had personal instruction and guidance from H.H. Kyabje Dodrupchen Rinpoche himself. Lama Kunzang Dorjee Rinpoche then completed the three year retreat under the guidance of H.H. Kyabje Chatral Rinpoche. ([https://www.jangsaanimalsaving.org/rinpoche/ Source Accessed May 14, 2026]) +
Geshe Pema Dorjee is an internationally recognized authority, scholar, and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. His fluent English, keen intellect, clear and practical explanations, warm-hearted nature, and infectious sense of humor enrich his talks and discussions with meaning and inspiration.
He was born into a nomadic family in Tibet in 1951. They escaped from the invading Chinese, and he settled in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile and the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
From 1973 to 1981 at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics founded by H.H. the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, he completed an undergraduate degree and two Masters degrees in Buddhist Philosophy, one in Prajnaparamita (the Perfection of Wisdom) and one in Madhyamika (the Middle Way).
For the next 16 years, he dedicated himself to the Tibetan Children’s Village School located in Dharamsala. For nine of those years, he taught Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture. In 1990, he was appointed Principal of the school, and from 1993 to 1997 he was its Director.
In 1995, he earned his Geshe degree at the Drepung Loseling Monastery.
Geshe Pema Dorjee served for two years as the Principal of the Tibetan Teachers Training Center. He was then named the first Principal of the College for Higher Tibetan Studies, and he remained in charge of that College from 1997 to 2002.
The Tibetan government-in-exile asked him to undertake various tasks. The Cabinet, for example, appointed him to the Higher Level Textbook Review Committee. His Holiness appointed him as a member of the Public Service Commission. The Department of Health appointed him as spiritual counselor to former political prisoners who had been tortured.
In 2001, H. H. the Dalai Lama asked Geshe Pema Dorjee to revive an important part of Tibetan Buddhism that had fallen into desuetude, the Bodong tradition. Fulfilling this task required him to establish both a scholarly project and a very practical one. To find the lost writings of that ancient tradition, to study them, translate them, and publish them, he founded in 2003 and continues to direct the [[Bodong Research and Publication Center]] in Dharamsala. To educate new monks in the Bodong tradition, he founded and continues to direct the Bodong monastery and school known as Porong Pelmo Choeding in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Although he insists that he is only a simple monk, Geshe Pema Dorjee lives the compassionate life about which he preaches. He travels to the most remote and impoverished regions of Himalayan India and Nepal. After a thorough analysis of what is most needed, he creates, organizes, directs, and raises funds for numerous humanitarian projects.
These projects include establishing schools, arranging medical care for the sick and injured, providing care for the elderly, creating an orphanage, supporting a drug rehabilitation center, educating villagers to protect them from human trafficking, creating a safe house for street girls, helping young people in Tibetan refugee camps, introducing new agricultural techniques, and providing safe water, toilets, and smokeless cookstoves.
Since 1997, he has donated much of his time to teaching and lecturing about Buddhist philosophy in countries around the world, including Sweden, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Norway, France, Estonia, India, Nepal, and Israel.
Since 2009, Geshe Pema Dorjee has lectured and taught in cities across the United States, including New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Miami, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston and Cambridge. (Source: [https://tibethouse.us/presenter/geshe-pema-dorjee/ Tibet House US])
Sarita Doveton is a translator of Buddhist texts, particularly those related to Tibetan Buddhism. She has worked on translating important Buddhist works, including ''Shantideva's Guide to Awakening'', a commentary on the ''Bodhicharyāvatāra''. Doveton has collaborated with other translators, such as Manu Bazzano, on Buddhist translations. +
Patrick Dowd is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on the culture of Tibetan language within the world of Tibetan Buddhism. He has spent several years studying, researching, and collaboratively working with Tibetan communities in Tibet, India and Nepal. (Source: [https://www.lotsawahouse.org/translators/patrick-dowd/ Lotsawa House]) +
Keith Dowman is a translator and teacher of Dzogchen. A student of the great Dzogchen lamas Dudjom Rinpoche and Kanjur Rinpoche, he has lived in Banares, India, and Kathmandu, Nepal, for 50 years. His translations include SkyDancer, and Longchenpa’s Natural Perfection and Spaciousness.
A cultural refugee from his native England, Keith Dowman arrived in Banares, India in 1966, after travelling overland from Europe. Apart from an occasional foray back to the West he has spent a lifetime in the sub-continent, engaged in existential buddha dharma. In India and Nepal, not always in Tibetan refugee society, he has lived as a yogin, monk, pilgrim, and then as a householder, and as a scholar and poet gloriously free from western academia and cultural institutions of all shapes and sizes.
In India in the ‘sixties he was fortunate enough to encounter the grandfather-lama refugees just after their arrival in India in the wake of the Chinese invasion of Tibet. In those heady years when the old lamas were totally receptive to the solicitation of western disciples seeking confirmation of the validity of their existential trajectories, he received initiation, empowerment, pith instruction and personal guidance from Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdral Yeshe Dorje and Kanjur Rinpoche Longchen Yeshe Dorje, who became his root gurus, among many other Nyingma lamas and lamas of other schools, notably Khamtrul Rimpoche and the 16th Karmapa Rikpai Dorje. As Chogyal Namkhai Norbu remarked "In communion with many great masters [Keith Dowman] has fortuitously absorbed the realization of Dzogchen."
Settled in Kathmandu, in the ‘eighties he translated the Rabalaisian hagiography of The Divine Madman (Drukpa Kunley) and also that of the Guru’s Consort, Yeshe Tsogyel, in Skydancer, both of which remain in print. Entering Tibet immediately after it opened to foreign travelers, his three years of seasonal trekking in central Tibet resulted in The Pilgrim’s Guide to Central Tibet. The Power Places of Kathmandu was also written in the ‘eighties, description of pilgrimage in the Kathmandu Valley. Masters of Mahamudra: the Legends of the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas was the fruit of his connection with the Kagyu school. More recently, spending less time in the polluted Kathmandu Valley, leaving Vajrayana behind, he has concentrated exclusively on the translation of Dzogchen texts: The Flight of the Garuda, Natural Perfection, Maya Yoga, The Great Secret of Mind, and Spaciousness: Longchenpa’s Treasury of the Dharmadhatu. Guru Pema Here and Now, The Mythology of the Lotus-Born, his most recent book, reverts to the imagery of the myth of Padmasambhava to illustrate the reality of Dzogchen.
Teaching the Dharma since 1992, his original concern was to assist in bridge building from East to West, a conduit for the lamas’ buddha-dharma. Now that aim has been achieved, leaving even the Dzogchen that is embedded in Vajrayana behind, the essence of Dzogchen which he calls radical Dzogchen is his primary concern and the main content of his teaching.
Still based in Kathmandu, he leads a nomadic lifestyle, teaching Dzogchen nonmeditation worldwide. This Dzogchen, derived from the early Nyingma tantras, free of the tendency toward the spiritual materialism so evident in western Buddhism, nonculturally specific, easily assimilable into Western culture, can, he believes provide a key to a renaissance, or at least a reformation, of Western mysticism in the existential mold. ([http://keithdowman.net/footer-pages/about-keith-dowman.html Source Accessed Feb 3, 2021])
A well known scholar of the Dge lugs tradition from Bla brang bkra' shis 'khil in Amdo. The place of his birth was Dpa' ri. He was a teacher of the 13th Dalai Lama and a close friend of the Zhwa dmar pa. He famously criticized Mipam Rinpoche's commentary to the ninth chapter of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'', ''The Ketaka Gem'' (''Nor bu ke ta ka''). +
Indian Paṇḍita who lived in the 11th century and was one of Ngok Lotsāwa Loden Sherab's teachers, instructing him in "the ''Abhisamayālaṃkāra'' together with its commentary, the seven treatises of epistemology [by Dharmakīrti], and the 'Four Later Treatises of Maitreya[nātha] (Leonard van der Kuijp, ''Contributions to the Development of Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology: From the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century'' [Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1983], 33. Pal Gomi Chime collaborated with Ngok on a revised translation of the ''Abhisamayālaṃkāra''. Ngok went on to write two Tibetan commentaries on the ''Abhisamayālaṃkāra'', playing a major role in establishing its transmission in Tibet. (Apple, ''Stairway to Nirvāṇa'', 2008, 32) +
A renowned scholar born in Chisa in the Amdo Rebgong region. A student of Dzong Ngon Lodoe Tshang, Tsang Geshe Tshang, Zhwamar Pandita, Jampa Lobsang, Dzoge Lobsang Gyatsho, Horchen Yeshe Gyatsho, etc. He was an important holder of Tsongkhapa's transmission of the Whisper Lineage (''snyan rgyud''). His primary students were Tulku Jamyang Thinle Wangpo, Dzongkar Jigme Sherab Dagpa, Tulku Jigme Thinle Lhundup, Nangso Kukey, and Khaso Chogtrul. +
Carmen Dragonetti (born in Argentina, 1937) and Fernando Tola (born in Peru, 1915) are the most prestigious Indologists in the Spanish-speaking world, both being researchers from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, Argentina. They were President and Vice-President, respectively, of the Institute of Buddhist Studies Foundation (FIEB).
Both were professors at universities in Peru and Argentina. Dedicated to Indology and the study of Buddhism, they published a large number of books and articles in Spanish and English, containing highly reliable translations of Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese and/or Tibetan texts, such as the unsurpassed Tola versions of the ''Gita Govinda'' and the ''Bhagavad Gita'', and Dragonetti's ''Dhammapada'', which are remarkable for their beauty and clarity, one of the most relevant qualities of these authors as writers.
Other translations by the same authors include ''Five Mahayana Sutras'', also published by Primorda Media, the ''Udana'' and ''The Sutra of Infinite Meanings'', ''Wu liang i ching''. ([https://www-librosbudistas-com.translate.goog/autor/carmen-dragonetti-fernando-tola?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en Adapted from Source Oct 4, 2022]) +
Martina Draszczyk holds a PhD in Buddhist Studies and Tibetology. Her doctoral thesis at the Department for South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies of the University of Vienna dealt with the integration of the notion of buddha-nature in meditation practice. She trained in Buddhist philosophy and meditation with both Tibetan Buddhist and Theravāda teachers and acted as an interpreter for Tibetan masters for many years. In her research projects she focuses on Tibetan Madhyamaka, Mahāmudrā, and buddha-nature theories mainly in the context of the Bka’ brgyud tradition. She also teaches in Buddhist centers in Europe as well as in the field of secular mindfulness. ([https://conference.tsadra.org/past-event/2019-vienna-symposium/ Source Accessed Jul 21, 2020]) +
Dr. David Drewes is an Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Manitoba. +
Georges B. J. Dreyfus (born 1950 in Switzerland) is an academic in the fields of Tibetology and Buddhology, with a particular interest in Indian Buddhist philosophy. In 1985 he was the first Westerner to receive the Geshe Lharampa degree, the highest available within the Tibetan scholastic tradition.
He currently is Jackson Professor of Religion at Williams College, Massachusetts. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Dreyfus Source Accessed March 13, 2024]) +
Driessens is a Belgian Tibetologist and translator who worked closely with Geshé Rabten at the Centre bouddhiste tibétain Yiga Tcheudzin in Paris from the late 1970s onward, and produced a substantial body of translations from Tibetan — the BCA (''Vivre en héros''), Nāgārjuna's ''La perfection de la sagesse'', Tsongkhapa's ''Grand livre de la progression vers l'éveil'' (with Michel Zaregradsky), and others for Éditions du Seuil's Points Sagesses series and Vajra Yogini. +
Khenmo Nyima Drolma is the Abbess of Vajra Dakini Nunnery. She has trained with the foremost spiritual teachers of our time including H.H. Dalai Lama, H.H. Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche (the head of the Drikung Kagyu Lineage). She is a heart student of Ven. Dhyani Ywahoo, studying closely with her for over 25 years. She spent two years in training at Gampo Abbey guided by Ven. Pema Chödrön. In 2002 she took full ordination as a Buddhist nun in Taiwan becoming the first woman in the Drikung lineage to do so. In 2004 she was installed as a Khenmo in the Drikung lineage, becoming the first westerner in her lineage to hold the responsibility of abbot. Since then she has worked continuously to establish Vajra Dakini Nunnery and teach the Dharma internationally.
Khenmo Drolma, a breast cancer survivor, has spent many years in the Hospice field. She served as an Art Fellow at the Connecticut Hospice and board member of the Addison Respite Care Home in Vermont and Maine Respite Home. ([https://new.vajradakininunnery.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/final-consecration-booklet_revised.pdf Source Accessed Mar 4, 2025]) +
Lama Palden was one of the first Western women to be authorized as a lama in 1986, by her primary teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, following her completion of the traditional Tibetan three year, three month retreat. She has been a student and practitioner of Buddhism and of Comparative Mysticism for over 40 years. She is the founding teacher of Sukhasiddhi Foundation http://www.sukhasiddhi.org in the SF Bay Area, a Tibetan Buddhist center in the Shangpa and Kagyu lineages. Lama Palden has a deep interest in helping to make the teachings and practices of Vajrayana Buddhism accessible and practical for Westerners in order to help students actualize our innate wisdom, love and joy. As a teacher, she is committed to each student's unique unfolding and blossoming.
In 1993 Lama Palden completed a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley. After licensing as a psychotherapist, she engaged in facilitating clients psycho-spiritual integration and development, through bringing together understandings and methods from Buddhism and Psychology, as well as from the Diamond Heart work, that she engaged with and trained in for many years. ([https://www.amazon.com/Lama-Palden-Drolma/e/B07NLJ87GM%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Source Accessed August 13, 2020]) +
"After the death of 'Jam dbyangs chos kyi grags pa (the 3rd Drukchen or Gyalwang Drukpa), monks found the rebirth in the house of a minor aristocrat of Kongpo, to the disappointment of both the families of Rwa lung and Bya. This child, the sprul sku Ngag dbang nor bu, was to be the great Padma dkar po. Padma dkar po was one of those rare renaissance men. The breadth of his scholarship and learning invites comparison with the Fifth Dalai Lama. It was Padma dkar po who systematized the teaching of the 'Brug pa sect. It is no wonder that the 'Brug pa Bka' brgyud pa always refer to him as Kun mkhyen, the Omniscient, an epithet reserved for the greatest scholar of a sect. Padma dkar po was a shrewd and occasionally ruthless politician. His autobiography is one of the most important sources for the history of the sixteenth century. Padma dkar po was a monk and insisted on adherence to the vinaya rules for his monastic followers. He also held that in the administration of church affairs the claims of the rebirth and the monastic scholar took priority over those of the scion of a revered lineage. Although he preached often at both Rwa lung and Bkra shis mthong smon, the seats of his two immediate predecessors, he never exercised actual control over these monasteries and their estates. He founded his monastery at Gsang sngags chos gling in Byar po, north of Mon Rta dbang, which became the seat of the subsequent Rgyal dbang 'Brug pa incarnation." (Gene Smith, ''Among Tibetan Texts'', 81) +
Drupa Rinpoche Lobsang Yeshi, who is 7th in the lineage of Drupa Rinpoches, is the head of Drupa Monastery in Kham, Eastern Tibet. The present Drupa Rinpoche was born in India and recognized by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in the year of 1988 as the reincarnation of 6th Drupa Rinpoche Shedrup Tenpai Gyaltsen.
Drupa Rinpoche joined Drepung Loseling Monastery in 1988 and completed his monastic studies by receiving his Geshe degree in 2005. Rinpoche is trilingual (Tibetan, English and Hindi) which enabled him to successfully pursue a Bachelor in Psychology (Hons) degree from HELP University, Malaysia and thereafter, a Master of Science in Positive Psychology (MSPP) from Life University, GA, USA. Rinpoche presented his research paper titled “Are materialism and spirituality two sides of the happiness coin? A mixed-methods study” at the 31st International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Yokohama, Japan. Rinpoche has been inducted as a member of Psy Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology. ([https://www.khacholing.org/w/teachers/drupa-rinpoche-lobsang-yeshi-bio/ Source Accessed Oct 28, 2021]) +
Prof. Yadunātha Prasād Dubey holds an MA and D. Phil in Sanskrit and is Āchārya in Sāhitya, Pāli, Prākrit, and Jaināgama, Sāhityaratna. He is a professor of Bauddha Darshan Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi. +
