Property:Bio
From Bodhicitta
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Thubten Losang became interested in Buddhism during the 1990s and sporadically read books on Buddhism and practiced sitting meditation. He first came to Sravasti Abbey in April 2013 for a Sharing the Dharma Day. After that, he began to visit the Abbey almost every month.
In the summer of 2014, he spent 10 days of every month at the Abbey to work in the forest and joined in the Exploring Monastic Life program. Receiving teachings from a qualified teacher (Ven. Chodron), being around other practitioners, being guided and inspired by the monastic community, and establishing a regular meditation schedule turned his sporadic and confused spiritual seeking into a serious and consistent practice.
Ven. Losang moved to the Abbey in December 2014 and took the anagarika precepts the following month. He received śrāmaṇera (novice) ordination on August 10, 2015. See his ordination photos. He received full ordination in Taiwan in 2017. ([https://sravastiabbey.org/community-member/sramanera-thubten-losang/ Source Accessed May 17, 2023]) +
Charles Luk (1898-1978) (simplified Chinese: 陆宽昱; traditional Chinese: 陸寬昱; pinyin: Lù Kuānyù; Wade–Giles: Lu K'uan Yü; Jyutping: Luhk Fūn-Yūk) was an early translator of Chinese Buddhist texts and commentaries into the English language. He was born in Guangdong province, and moved later to Hong Kong, where he wrote most of his books.
Charles Luk often used the title Upāsaka (居士), e.g. "Upāsaka Lu K'uan Yü" (陸寬昱居士), referring to his role as a devout lay follower of Buddhism. His first Buddhist teacher was a tulku of Esoteric Buddhism, the Khutuktu of Xikang. Later he became a disciple of Hsu Yun, the famous inheritor of all five houses of the Chán school in China.[1] Master Hsu Yun personally asked Charles Luk to translate key Chinese Buddhist texts into English, so that Western Buddhists could have access to authentic teachings to assist their practice. Upon his death in 1978, this task was taken on by his British disciple Richard Hunn (1949–2006), also known as Upasaka Wen Shu - who edited the 1988 Element edition of Charles Luk's book entitled ''Empty Cloud: The Autobiography of the Chinese Zen Master Xu Yun''.
Charles Luk contributed broadly to Buddhist publications in India, London, Paris, and New York.
Translations:
*''Shurangama Sutra'' (1966)
*''Platform Sutra''
*''Vimalakirti Sutra'' (1972)
*Some works on Daoist Neidan meditation.
Other works:
*''Ch'an and Zen Teachings, First Series'' (1960),
*''Secrets of Chinese Meditation'' (1964)
*''Ch'an and Zen Teachings, Second Series'' (1971),
*''Practical Buddhism'', Rider, (1971)
*''Ch'an and Zen Teachings, Third Series'' (1973),
*''Taoist Yoga: Alchemy And Immortality'' (1973)
*''Empty Cloud: The Autobiography of the Chinese Zen Master Xu Yun'' (1974)
*''The Transmission of the Mind: Outside the Teaching'' (1974)
*''Master Hsu Yun's Discourses and Dharma Words'' (1996) ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Luk Source Accessed Jan 20, 2022]) +
Nyoshul Lungtok Tenpé Nyima (Tib. སྨྱོ་ཤུལ་ལུང་རྟོགས་བསྟན་པའི་ཉི་མ་, Wyl. smyo shul lung rtogs bstan pa'i nyi ma) (182–1901) received the Dzogchen teachings from Patrul Rinpoche and was his greatest disciple. He was regarded as an emanation of Shantarakshita. ([https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Nyoshul_Lungtok_Tenp%C3%A9_Nyima Source Accessed Feb 11, 2025]) +
Libby Luning (Pema Dechen) is the President of Heart Teachings by Lama Tharchin Rinpoche in Corralitos, CA. Heart Teachings by Lama Tharchin Rinpoche was established in 2000 for the purpose of collecting, cataloging, preserving, and making available Lama Tharchin Rinpoche's Vajrayana Buddhist legacy of teachings, practice and ritual traditions, writings, and art, particularly that of the Nyingma and Dudjom Tersar traditions. +
Märt Läänemets (born July 14, 1962 in Avinurme) is an Estonian orientalist. His main research interests are Mahāyāna Buddhism and the history of Chinese thought. He has published translations from Chinese, Sanskrit, and English. He has written opinion pieces on contemporary Chinese politics.
He was an associate professor (2016–2020) and head of the Oriental Studies Centre at the University of Tartu, and the president of the Estonian Academic Oriental Society. He teaches Mandarin Chinese and Sanskrit at the University of Tartu and has given lecture courses on Eastern topics. One of the authors of the Lexicon of the History of Eastern Thought (together with Linnart Mäll and Teet Toome).
In 2009, he defended his doctoral thesis "Gandavyūha-sūtra as a Historical Source" at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Tartu. Together with Gao Jingyi, he compiled the first Chinese language textbook specifically designed for Estonian learners (Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2015). ([https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A4rt_L%C3%A4%C3%A4nemets Adapted from Source Jan 7, 2025]) +
French Orientalist who wrote on Eastern religion, literature, and history and is particularly noted for his dictionary of Buddhism.
Appointed a lecturer at the school of higher studies in Paris (1886), he taught Sanskrit at the Sorbonne (1889–94) and wrote his doctoral dissertation, ''Le Théâtre indien'' (1890; "The Indian Theatre"), which became a standard treatise on the subject. After his appointment as professor at the Collège de France (1894–1935), he toured India and Japan (1897 and 1898) and published ''La Doctrine du sacrifice dans les Brâhmanas'' (1898; "The Doctrine of Sacrifice in the Brāhmaṇas"). Another book resulting from these travels was ''Le Népal: Étude historique d’un royaume hindou'', 3 vol. (1905–08; "Nepal: Historical Study of a Hindu Kingdom"). In ''L’Inde et le monde'' (1926; "India and the World"), he discussed India's role among nations.
Subsequent travels to East Asia (1921–23) generated his major work, ''Hôbôgirin. Dictionnaire du Bouddhisme d’après les sources chinoises et japonaises'' (1929; "Hōbōgirin. Dictionary of Buddhism Based on Chinese and Japanese Sources"), produced in collaboration with the Japanese Buddhist scholar Takakusu Junjirō.
Lévi also worked with the French linguist Antoine Meillet on pioneer studies of the Tocharian languages spoken in Chinese Turkistan in the 1st millennium AD. He determined the dates of texts in Tocharian B and published ''Fragments de textes koutchéens'' . . . (1933; "Fragments of Texts from Kucha"). ([https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sylvain-Levi Source Accessed Jan 29, 2020]) +
Heinrich Lüders (1869–1943) was a leading German Indologist and philologist, holding professorships at Rostock and Kiel before joining the University of Berlin, where he became a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences and one of the central figures in German Indological scholarship of the early 20th century. His work spanned Sanskrit and Prakrit philology, Indian epigraphy (including major studies of Aśokan inscriptions), and Buddhist manuscript studies, with particular expertise in editing and interpreting fragmentary Sanskrit and Central Asian manuscripts recovered from Silk Road sites such as Turfan. He remained active in Berlin through the difficult final years of his career under the Nazi regime, continuing his scholarship until his death in 1943. +
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Dr. MacDonald is a researcher at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria. Her primary focus is the development of Madhyamaka thought in India and Tibet. Her research on Chandrakirti's ''Prasannapada'' and ''Madhyamakavatarabhaṣya'' is based on newly available manuscripts of these works. ([https://khyentsefoundation.org/anne-macdonald-winner-2016-kf-prize-outstanding-translation/ Source Accessed Apr 7, 2021]) +
Matthew MacKenzie specializes in Buddhist and Indian philosophy, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. His research takes a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary approach to questions of consciousness, selfhood, and embodiment. He has published in numerous journals, including Philosophy East & West, Asian Philosophy, Journal of Consciousness Studies, and Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. He has also contributed book chapters to The Oxford Handbook of Virtue and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology, among other books in cross-cultural philosophy of mind. ([https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/mmackenz/ Source Accessed July 29, 2022]) +
Mary Joanne Rogers Macy (May 2, 1929 – July 19, 2025), known as Joanna Macy, was an American environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology. She was married to Francis Underhill Macy, the activist and Russian scholar who founded the Center for Safe Energy. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Macy Source Accessed May 15, 2026]) +
Richard Mahoney is Principal at Amdakara, Indica et Buddhica Publishers, and Indica et Buddhica Distributors. He received his M.A. (Hons) from the University of Canterbury: Dept. of Philosophy and Religious studies, with an emphasis in Buddhist studies. He holds a B.A.(Hons) in Classical studies from Victoria University of Wellington. His master's thesis was titled "Of the Progresse of the Bodhisattva: The Bodhisattvamārga in the Śikṣāsamuccaya." (University of Canterbury, 2002). ([https://indica-et-buddhica.org/about Adapted from Source Sep 30, 2022]) +
Mahāsumati (also known as Hasumati or Vidyāhasumati) was a Kashmiri paṇḍita who flourished in the 11th century. He served as teacher to the celebrated Tibetan translator Patsab Lotsāwa Nyima Drakpa and collaborated with him on the translation of Candrakīrti's ''Mūlamadhyamakavṛttiprasannapadā'' into Tibetan, a translation subsequently revised by R. Kanakavarman and Patsab Lotsāwa himself. +
Known in Tibetan as the "Lord of Love" or the "Noble Loving One" <span class="tibetan-jomolhari font-size-130-em align-sub">འཕགས་པ་བྱམས་པ།</span> (Pakpa Jampa), the "Loving Protector" <span class="tibetan-jomolhari font-size-130-em align-sub">བྱམས་པའི་མགོན་པོ་</span> (Jampay Gonpo), in Chinese as 弥勒佛 (Mi Le Fo), Japanese as Miroku, and commonly as Maitreya throughout Asia and beyond. Maitreya is the bodhisattva called the "future Buddha" who resides in Tushita heaven until coming to the human realm to take the role of the next Buddha after Śākyamuni Buddha. According to tradition, Asaṅga received teachings from Maitreya and recorded them in the Five Dharma Treatises of Maitreya, which form the basis for buddha-nature teachings and the larger Yogācāra teachings in general.
The list of five is: Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayālaṃkāra, mngon rtogs rgyan, 現觀莊嚴論); Ornament for the Mahāyāna Sūtras (Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, theg pa chen po mdo sde rgyan, 大乘莊嚴經論); Differentiation of the Middle and the Extremes (Madhyāntavibhāga, dbus mtha' rnam 'byed, 辨中邊論頌); Differentiation of Phenomena and Their Nature (Dharmadharmatāvibhāga, chos dang chos nyid rnam 'byed, 辨法法性論); and The Mahāyāna Treatise of the Highest Continuum (Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra, theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos, 分別寶性大乘無上續論). +
Famed Indian Mahāsiddha whose influence was felt in the Tibetan tradition via his student Marpa Chökyi Lodrö, and others. In terms of the ''Uttaratantra'' he is reported to have had visionary interactions with the Bodhisattva Maitreya that led him to discover instructions related to the treatise. However, there is no mention of this in his extant writings. Nevertheless, the lineage of the instructions that reportedly descend from him would form the basis for a meditative tradition of exegesis on this work that became widespread among followers of the Kagyu school. A tradition which feature a unique Mahāmudra approach to the ''Uttaratantra''. +
Maitrīyogi, or Kusalī Jr. (circa 10th), was a dedicated yogi of Maitreya and important mind training teacher of Atiśa. He was reportedly a proponent of the lineage of first equalizing and then exchanging self and others when meditating on the awakening mind. ([https://wisdomexperience.org/lojong-themes/ Source Accessed April 25, 2025]) +
John Makransky is a professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College and a Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher. John has practiced meditations of compassion and wisdom from Tibetan traditions for over thirty years and has developed new ways of bringing them into the worlds of social service and social justice by making them newly accessible to people of all backgrounds and faiths. He has also helped Western Buddhists deepen their contemplative experience of awareness and loving compassion. ([http://www.johnmakransky.org/ Source Accessed Nov 10, 2022]) +
Gunapala Piyasena Malalasekera, OBE, JP (8 November 1899 – 23 April 1973) was a Sri Lankan academic, scholar and diplomat best known for his Malalasekara English-Sinhala Dictionary. He was Ceylon's first Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Ceylon's High Commissioner to Canada, the United Kingdom and Ceylon's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. He was the Professor Emeritus in Pali and Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunapala_Piyasena_Malalasekera Source Accessed Apr 20, 2021]) +
Charlotte Mandell (born 1968) is an American literary translator. She has translated many works of poetry, fiction and philosophy from French to English, including work by Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Jules Verne, Guy de Maupassant, Marcel Proust, Maurice Blanchot, Antoine de Baecque, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Jean-Luc Nancy, Mathias Énard and Jonathan Littell. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Mandell Source Accessed Apr 4, 2025]) +
Mandra [or Mandrasena] (曼陀羅仙, 5th–6th centuries) was a Tripiṭaka master from Funan (扶南), a pre-Angkor Indianized kingdom located around the Mekong delta. In 503, the second year of the Tianjian (天監) years during the Southern Liang Dynasty (502–57), Mandra arrived in Jiankang (建康), present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. With the support of Emperor Wu (梁武帝), he helped Saṅghapāla (僧伽婆羅, 460–524), who was also from Funan, translate Sanskrit texts into Chinese. In 506, Mandra translated the Sūtra of Mahā-Prajña-Pāramitā Pronounced by Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva (T08n0232). Nothing more is known about him. ([http://www.sutrasmantras.info/translators.html#mandra Source Accessed Aug 27, 2021]) +
Stefan Mang, a student of Tibetan Buddhism since 2004, has been studying Buddhist philosophy and literary Tibetan since 2010 at Rigpa Shedra East in Nepal. From 2011 until 2018 he studied at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, where he completed his BA and MA degrees. He works with Lhasey Lotsawa Translations and Publications, their Nekhor project, Lotsawa House, and 84000. (Source: [https://samyeinstitute.org/instructors/stefan-mang/ Samye Institute, Accessed August 28, 2023].) +
