Archives: Authors
Robert Stevens
Bob Stevens serves as Chair of the Governing Council of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York and Secretary of the Buddhist Council of New York. Bob has been a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche since the early 1980s. A management consultant, he lives in New York City with his wife Anna and son Arthur.
Peter Moretzsohn
Peter Moretzsohn is a poet, musician, gardener and Zen practitioner living with his wife in central Vermont. Born in Pennsylvania, he fell in love with both the Dharma and the Green Mountains as a college student, and his life has been oriented toward them ever since. His poetry and prose have been published in the Philadelphia-based Quaker magazine Friends Journal. His work has always revolved around themes of stillness and silence, and a sense of something uncontrived to be found therein. Since 2019 he has been engaged in formal Zen training as a lay student at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, NY.
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental thinker, activist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocat, is the founder of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (India) and President of Navdanya International. Trained as a Physicist at the University of Punjab, she completed her Ph.D. on the ‘Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory’ from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She later shifted to inter-disciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, which she carried out at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, India. In 1982 she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), an independent research institute that addresses the most significant problems of ecology of our times, and two years later, Navdanya (‘nine seeds’) the movement in defense of biodiversity and small farmers. In 2011 she founded Navdanya International in Italy and is Chairman of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, co-founded with the then President of the Region of Tuscany. Recipient of many awards, including in 1993 the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, and named among the top five “Most Important People in Asia” by AsiaWeek in 2001. She is a prolific writer and author of numerous books and serves on the board of the International Forum on Globalization, and member of the executive committee of the World Future Council.
Tami Simon
Tami Simon is the founder and CEO of Sounds True, a multi-media company that disseminates spiritual wisdom.
Aurelia Santos
Aurelia Santos is an award-winning photographer, nonprofit communications specialist, and dance organizer in Oakland. Passionate about the immigrant experience, social justice, and sex positivity, Aurelia uses storytelling and dancing for her brand of social activism.
Aakash Chowkase
Aakash Chowkase, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Greater Good Science Center, where he is conducting research on bridging differences. Specifically, he is developing a tool to measure social cohesion and then using it to evaluate GGSC’s bridging differences practices.
Maryam Abdullah
Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D., is the Parenting Program Director of the Greater Good Science Center. She is a developmental psychologist with expertise in parent-child relationships and children’s development of prosocial behaviors.
Bradley Donaldson
Formerly a monk, Bradley Donaldson teaches meditation. He’s focused on helping queer and BIPOC folks heal and cultivate connection.
Lama Hun Lye
Lama Hun Lye grew up in Malaysia and has a Ph.D in Religious Studies from University of Virginia. He is a lama in the Drikung Kagyu since being appointed a Dorjé Lopön (lit. “vajra-master”) by H.H. Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang Rinpoché in 2013. He is founder of Urban Dharma NC and Drikung Dharmakirti International Sangha.
Roberval Oliveira
Roberval Oliveira is a mindfulness meditation teacher and the author of <em>Silence: Journals from a Meditation Retreat</em>.
Jan Westerhoff
Jan Westerhoff is Professor of Buddhist Philosophy at the University of Oxford. His research concentrates on Buddhist philosophy (primarily on Madhyamaka) and on contemporary analytic philosophy (mainly on metaphysics). His publications include <em>Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka</em> and <em>The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy</em>.
David Germano
David Germano, PhD, is Executive Director of the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia, where he has taught and researched Tibetan and Buddhist Studies since 1992. A co-leader of the Student Flourishing Initiative, a partnership of UVA, the University of Wisconsin, and Penn State University, he is also lead organizer of an international research community of scholars and translators specializing in the Great Perfection tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
Adrienne Chang
Adrienne Chang is a student in the tradition of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She has co-led Buddhist study and meditation retreats in Europe, North America, and online. She is also a participant in the Milinda Program, a ten-year, multi-sangha, shedra-style teacher training program for Western dharma instructors under the vision and guidance of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (1933-2023) was a jazz brass player and composer, and practiced Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International.
Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock is a jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. He practices Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International. His memoir, Possibilities, was released in 2015.
Anne Seidlitz
Anne Seidlitz has been a writer in documentary film for almost two decades. Her work has appeared on PBS's <i>American Masters, Great Performances,</i> and <i>American Experience </i>series, among others, as well as screened theatrically. Her most recent writing credit is <i>Becoming Frederick Douglass (</i>now streaming on PBS), produced by Firelight Media and Maryland Public Television. Anne has also worked extensively with independent filmmakers, and her particular area of focus has been on Black American social, political, and cultural history. Anne began practicing Buddhism in the early 1980s while still in college, and has been a lead writer on the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library project since 2020. She is currently writing a book about the jazz pianist Hampton Hawes.
John Mifsud
John Mifsud was born on the Island of Malta and identifies as Arab-American. He has practiced Insight Meditation since 2001 and graduated from the Community Dharma Leaders Training Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he served on the Board of Directors for seven years. John has extensive retreat experience and has practiced throughout Asia. He is the founding member of the Deep Refuge Sangha for Alphabet Brothers of Color in Oakland. He has taught internationally with a special interest in delivering mindfulness tools to marginalized communities.
Jonathan C. Gold
Jonathan C. Gold is Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for Culture, Society and Religion at Princeton University. His research focuses on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and he is the author of Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy (2015) and The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet (2007), and co-editor of Readings of Śāntideva’s Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (2019). His research focuses on Buddhist approaches to language, learning, self-cultivation and ethics (which are connected), and seeks to show how Buddhism is relevant to modern conversations. In his current work, he is trying to craft Buddhist tools for contemporary society and politics.