Archives: Authors
Joy Brennan
Joy Brennan is a Soto Zen priest with the Mount Vernon Zen Sangha in Mount Vernon, Ohio, as well as a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Kenyon College. Her academic work focuses on Buddhist conceptions of identity construction, such as those found in early Yogacara teachings, and the ways in which human beings construct their own worlds of experience.
Lauren Leve
Lauren Leve is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of <em>The Buddhist Art of Living in Nepal: Ethical Practice and Religious Reform</em>. Her research interests include modern Buddhism, the cultural dynamics of globalization, gender, and the internationalized lineage of S. N. Goenka.
Sarah Jacoby
Sarah H. Jacoby is an associate professor in the religious studies department at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she specializes in Tibetan Buddhism. Her research interests include Buddhist revelation, gender and sexuality, the history of emotions, and the history of eastern Tibet. She is the author of <em>Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro</em>.
Cecilia Mitra
Cecilia Mitra is the author of <em>Opens Like a Flower, Cut it With a Knife: A Buddhist Mother's Journey Through Grief</em> and former president of the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils.
Donald Brackett
Donald Brackett is a Vancouver-based popular culture journalist and curator who writes about music, art and films. In addition to numerous essays, articles and radio broadcasts, he is also the author of several artist biography titles, among them <em>Back to Black: Amy Winehouse’s Only Masterpiece</em> (2016); <em>Tumult!: The Incredible Life and Music of Tina Turner</em> (2020); and <em>Yoko Ono: An Artful Life</em> (2022). His most recent book, <em>Double Solitaire: The Films of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder</em>, is being published by Rowman Littlefield in September 2023.
Emily McRae
Emily McRae is the Editorial Assistant intern for LionsRoar.com. She recently graduated from the University of King’s College with a journalism degree, and plans to work in the publishing industry.
Mihiri Tillakaratne
Mihiri Tillakaratne (she/her) is an associate editor at Lion's Roar. She has a PhD in Ethnic Studies and Gender, Women, and Sexuality (UC Berkeley), a M.A. in Ethnic Studies (UC Berkeley), and a M.A. in Asian American Studies (UCLA). She learned Pali and studied Sinhala Buddhist nationalism in post-independence Sri Lanka at Harvard. Mihiri is the director of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEw5BQq_ENM">I Take Refuge</a>, a documentary on Sri Lankan American Buddhist identity, and the founder of <a href="https://www.srilankanamericansforsocialjustice.com/">Sri Lankan Americans for Social Justice</a>.
Mary Ray Cate
Mary Ray Cate is a physician, artist, and graduate of the Buddhist chaplaincy program at Upaya Zen Center. In addition to having a grown son, she has been a foster mom to many children.
Butterfly Tony Pham
Butterfly (Tony Pham) (they/he) is a meditation instructor, compassion teacher, and healer that occupies the intersection of queer and Asian/BIPOC identities. Butterfly stewards spiritual spaces where they offer practices rooted in compassion, indigeneity, and sacred lineages. They are a current student of Arinna Weisman (Theravada/Vipassana) and Lama Rod Owens (Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism) in addition to participating in the East Bay Meditation Center’s PiTA8 program for social justice activists. Tony previously received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in Vietnam; he has also completed compassion cultivation, death doula and non-violent communication training. Butterfly is honored to currently serve as treasurer on the board of directors of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. They now reside in Brooklyn (occupied Canarsie/Munsee Lenape land). For more information, please visit <a href="https://tonyopham.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer">tonyopham.com</a>
Ken Kessel
Ken Kessel (Zen Master Jok Um) received transmission in the Kwan Um School of Zen. He’s a licensed clinical social worker, specializing in infant mental health.
Wendy Garling
Wendy Garling is an independent scholar with a BA from Wellesley College and MA specializing in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is author of the award-winning <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Raised-Buddha-Extraordinary-Mahaprajapati/dp/1611806690/ref=d_pd_sbs_sccl_4_1/131-6364331-1937914?pd_rd_w=sYQT1&content-id=amzn1.sym.d8274306-8eaa-4da3-9175-aca6400f9aa9&pf_rd_p=d8274306-8eaa-4da3-9175-aca6400f9aa9&pf_rd_r=Z3BTXPE4776634P3CJCY&pd_rd_wg=FD5yx&pd_rd_r=f42ad314-8770-4a16-bfb3-b73f27755407&pd_rd_i=1611806690&psc=1"><em>The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati,</em></a> with Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Shambhala Publications, 2021) and <a href="https://shop.taramandala.org/products/stars-at-dawn"><em>Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life </em></a> (Shambhala Publications, 2016).
Meido Moore
Meido Moore is abbot of Korinji, a Rinzai Zen monastery in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.
Roxanne Dault
Roxanne Dault is a guiding teacher at True North Insight (Voie Boréale) in Canada.
Jisho Sara Siebert
Jisho Sara Siebert is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest and teacher at Zen Fields in Ames, Iowa. Led to Buddhism by the suffering she saw in her work to prevent domestic and sexual violence, she found her way to Los Angeles, where she first met her teacher, then to Papua New Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, monasteries in Japan, and Haiti. She now works for Beyond Borders, an organization committed to preventing violence against girls and women and ending child slavery.
Bhikkhu Analayo
Bhikkhu Analayo is a German monk and scholar, ordained in 1995 in Sri Lanka. His books include <em>Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization </em> and <em>Mindfully Facing Climate Change </em>.
Pawan Bareja
Pawan Bareja, PhD, is a mindfulness teacher and graduate of the Spirit Rock Teacher Training program. As a trauma resolution practitioner, she works with a diverse population of clients.
Arisika Razak
Arisika Razak RAZAK is Professor Emerita at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where she also served as the director of the Women’s Spirituality MA and PhD program and as Director of Diversity. She has been an inner-city midwife for over two decades, has performed nationally and internationally as a spiritual dancer, and has led embodied healing workshops for over thirty-five years. She teaches at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland.
Lynette Monteiro
Lynette Monteiro is a clinical psychologist and coauthor of <em>Mindfulness Starts Here</em>:<em> An Eight-Week Guide to Skillful Living</em>. She blogs at <a href="http://www.108zenbooks.com">108zenbooks.com</a>.