Archives: Authors
Ayya Khema
Ayya Khema, born Ilse Ledermann in Berlin in 1923, was a pioneering Buddhist nun in the Theravada tradition from her ordination in 1979 to her death in 1997. The author of more than two dozen books, she established Buddhist centers in Australia, Sri Lanka and Germany, and was instrumental in the creation of Sakyadhita, a worldwide Buddhist women's organization.
Ajahn Brahmavamso
Ajahn Brahmavamso was born in London in 1951. After completing a degree in theoretical physics and teaching for a year, he traveled to Thailand to become a monk. He was ordained at age 23 and he spent the next nine years studying and training in the forest meditation tradition under Venerable Ajahn Chah. In 1983, he was asked to assist in establishing a forest monastery near Perth, Western Australia. Ajahn Brahm is now the abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery and the spiritual director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia.
Bhante Bodhidhamma
Bhante Bodhidhamma is a British Theravadin monk trained in the tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw. He is a former resident teacher of Gaia House Meditation Centre in Devon, England, and currently the spiritual director of Satipanya Buddhist Trust, which is in the process of raising funds to set up a Mahasi meditation center in Wales.
Andrew Olendzki
Andrew Olendzki, PhD, was trained in Buddhist Studies at Lancaster University in England, as well as at Harvard and the University of Sri Lanka. Olendzki is the former executive director of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS) in Barre, Massachusetts, and former executive editor of the Insight Journal. He is a professor at Lesley University, and the Director of their Mindfulness Studies program.
Sayadaw U Silananda
Sayadaw U Silananda was born in Burma(now Myanmar) and became a novice monk at age 16. In 1979, while traveling in the US with Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw, U Silananda was requested to remain in San Francisco to serve the Burmese community there. Currently he is Spiritual Advisor to the Theravada Buddhist Society of America (TBSA), which has a growing meditation center in Half Moon Bay, California, and Spiritual Director for a number of centers in California and Florida. U Silananda is the author of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness and many articles in both English and Burmese.
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk, president of the Buddhist Association of the United States, and the founder and chair of Buddhist Global Relief, as well as the former editor and president of the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, Sri Lanka. His extensive translations of the Pali canon have informed dharma practice in the English-speaking world for decades.
Ajahn Jayasaro
Ajahn Jayasaro was ordained as a monk by Ajahn Chah in 1980. From 1997 to 2002 he served as abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat, an international monastery in the Thai Forest Tradition. Currently he lives in a hermitage in central Thailand.
Robin Kornman
Robin Kornman, PH.D., was a professor of comparative literature and a Tibetan Buddhist translator. He studied Slavic literature and Eastern European government, and was a Library of Congress fellow in international studies.
Erik Braun
Erik Braun is the author of <em>The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw</em>, published by University of Chicago Press, November 2013. He is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia
Bruce Tift
Bruce Tift, MA, LMFT has been in private practice since 1979, taught at Naropa University for 25 years, and has given presentations in the US, Mexico, and Japan. He has been practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism for more than 35 years.
Thupten Jinpa
Thupten Jinpa is a former Tibetan monk who holds a B.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in religious studies, both from Cambridge University. Since 1985, he has been the principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama and has translated and edited numerous books by the Dalai Lama, including the New York Times Bestsellers<em> Ethics for the New Millennium</em> and <em>The Art of Happiness</em>. Jinpa’s own publications include works in Tibetan, English translations as well as books, including<em> A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives</em> and <em>Tsongkhapa: A Buddha in the Land of Snows</em>. Jinpa is the general editor of The Library of Tibetan Classics series, the main author of CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training), an eight-week formal program developed at Stanford University, and the founder and president of the Compassion Institute. He is the Chair of Mind and Life Institute, founder of the Institute of Tibetan Classics, and an adjunct professor at the School of Religious Studies at McGill University. Jinpa lives in Montreal and is married with two daughters.
David Chadwick
David Chadwick is the author of Crooked Cucumber, a biography of Shunryu Suzuki, and Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki. His website, cuke.com, is an archive of the world of Suzuki Roshi and those who knew him.
Colleen Morton Busch
Colleen Morton Busch holds an MFA in poetry, but she also writes nonfiction and fiction. Her work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including literary magazines, HuffPost, the Washington Post, Yoga Journal, Wild Hope and Orion. She’s the author of Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire, an acclaimed narrative account of the 2008 fire that threatened to destroy Tassajara monastery. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Karen Connelly
Karen Connelly is an award-winning Canadian author. For the full story of her brother’s accident, visit gofundme.com/BringDaveyHome.
Stephen Holoviak
Stephen Holoviak is a professor of management at Penn State University, Mont Alto, and the father of four children, one of whom has autism. He lives in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
Rachel Neumann
Rachel Neumann is a literary agent and the director of strategy at Idea Architects. She’s the author of <em>Not Quite Nirvana: A Skeptic’s Journey to Mindfulness</em>.
Kyo Maclear
Kyo Maclear is a visual arts writer and author of two novels, <em>Stray Love</em> and <em>The Letter Opener</em>. She lives in Toronto.