DIANE ACKERMAN is a poet, essayist, and naturalist, and the best-selling author of A Natural History of the Senses, The Zookeeper’s Wife, Dawn Light, and, most recently, One Hundred Names for Love, excerpted in this anthology. Ackerman lives in Ithaca, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, with her partner of more than forty years, the novelist Paul West.
NANCY BAKER is a Zen teacher in the White Plum Asanga and a professor of philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College. She is a member of the Zen Peacemakers and a dharma heir of Roshi Bernard Glassman. In 1996 she founded No Traces Zendo, a group with no fixed location that currently gathers at various locations in New York.
Although CALLIE BATES’S cancer is well into remission, she still wears her purple wig when she wants to feel like a rock star. A recent graduate of the International Harp Therapy Program, she lives in Wisconsin. Her other writing projects include a nonfiction book reflecting on her cancer experience and diverse novels. Her selection in this anthology, “The Purple Wig,” is her first published work.
MELISSA MYOZEN BLACKER is a guiding teacher of Boundless Way Zen, a multi-lineage Zen community in New England, and resident teacher at Boundless Way Temple in Worcester, Massachusetts. She was a director of programs and senior teacher at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School for eighteen years. She is coeditor, with James Ishmael Ford, of The Book of Mu: Essential Teachings on Zen’s Most Important Koan, and it is her own teaching from that book that is excerpted here.
VEN. BHIKKHU BODHI was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka in 1972, the same year he received a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School. He has many important publications to his credit, as an author, translator, and editor, and has translated several major works from the Pali Canon, including the Samyutta Nikaya (The Connected Discourses of the Buddha). He is the president of the Buddhist Publication Society and chair of the Buddhist Global Relief organization.
BARRY BOYCE is editor-in-chief of the new magazine Mindful and was previously senior editor of the Shambhala Sun. He is editor of the anthologies The Mindfulness Revolution and In the Face of Fear: Buddhist Wisdom for Challenging Times. He is also coauthor of The Rules of Victory: How to Transform Chaos and Conflict—Strategies from “The Art of War.”
YANGZOM BRAUEN is an actress, model, and political activist. She lives in Los Angeles and Berlin and has appeared in many German and American films. As president of the Tibetan Youth Association, she organized public demonstrations and cultural events promoting the Tibetan cause and was arrested in Moscow for protesting the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The German edition of her memoir, Across Many Mountains, excerpted here, was on Europe’s Spiegel Bestseller list for more than forty weeks.
COLLEEN MORTON BUSCH received her MFA in poetry but writes fiction and nonfiction as well. A yoga student and Zen practitioner, Busch was a senior editor of Yoga Journal and blogs for the Huffington Post. She is currently working on a novel about forgiveness.
PEMA CHÖDRÖN is one of America’s leading Buddhist teachers and the author of many best-selling books, including The Places That Scare You, When Things Fall Apart, and Start Where You Are. Born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, she raised a family and taught elementary school before becoming ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1981. Pema Chödrön’s root teacher was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Since his death in 1987, she has studied with Trungpa Rinpoche’s son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and her current principal teacher, Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche.
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA is the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a statesman, spiritual teacher, and deeply learned Buddhist scholar who advocates a universal “religion of human kindness” that transcends sectarian differences.
ZOKETSU NORMAN FISCHER is founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation, whose mission is to open and broaden Zen practice through what he calls “engaged renunciation.” Fischer practiced and taught at the San Francisco Zen Center for twenty-five years and served as abbot from 1995 to 2000. His many books of prose and poetry include Sailing Home: Using Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls and I Was Blown Back.
SHODO HARADA is abbot of Sogenji monastery in Okayama, Japan, where he has taught since 1982. He is heir to the teachings of Rinzai sect Zen Buddhism as passed down in Japan from Hakuin and his successors. Harada Roshi teaches throughout Asia, Europe, and North America, and leads regular sesshins at Tahoma One Drop Zen Monastery on Whidbey Island in Washington State.
LIN JENSEN is the author of Bad Dog!: A Memoir of Love, Beauty, and Redemption in Dark Places; Together Under One Roof: Making a Home of the Buddha’s Household; and Deep Down Things: The Earth in Celebration and Dismay. He is Senior Buddhist Chaplain at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, California, and founder of the Chico Zen Sangha, in Chico, California, where he lives with his wife, Karen.
ANDY KARR is a photographer and Buddhist teacher who trained with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He is coauthor of The Practice of Contemplative Photography, excerpted in this anthology, and author of Contemplating Reality, a series of Madhyamika investigations into the nature of mind and the phenomenal world.
TAIGEN DAN LEIGHTON is a Soto Zen priest in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He received dharma transmission in 2000 from Tenshin Reb Anderson. Leighton is author of Faces of Compassion, Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dogen and the Lotus Sutra, and Zen Questions, excerpted here. He is cotranslator and editor of several Zen texts, including Dogen’s Extensive Record, Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi, and Dogen’s Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation of Eihei Shingi. He is resident dharma teacher at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago.
NOAH LEVINE is author of Dharma Punx, Against the Stream, and, most recently, The Heart of the Revolution, excerpted in this anthology. He teaches meditation classes, workshops, and retreats nationally, as well as leading groups in juvenile halls and prisons. Levine holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology and has studied with many prominent teachers in both the Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist traditions.
DAVID ROBERT LOY is a professor, writer, and teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Zen Buddhism. His writings and lectures focus primarily on the encounter between Buddhism and contemporary political, social, and ecological issues. His many books include The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory; A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency, and The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons, coauthored with his wife, Linda Goodhew. Loy is on the advisory boards of Buddhist Global Relief, the Clear View Project, and Zen Peacemakers.
ANDREA MILLER is a deputy editor of the Shambhala Sun and editor of the anthology Right Here with You: Bringing Mindful Awareness into Our Relationships.
THICH NHAT HANH is one of the most renowned Buddhist teachers of our time. He is a Zen master, poet, prolific author, and founder of the Engaged Buddhist movement. A social and antiwar campaigner in his native Vietnam, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by Martin Luther King, Jr. Still actively teaching in his eighties, Thich Nhat Hanh resides at practice centers in France and the United States.
BRUCE RICH is a Washington-based attorney who has served as senior counsel on international finance and development issues for major environmental organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council. He has published extensively in environmental and policy journals, as well as in newspapers and magazines such as The Financial Times, The Nation, and The Ecologist. He is the author of Mortgaging the Earth, a widely acclaimed critique of the World Bank and reflection on the philosophical and historical evolution of economic development in the West.
SHARON SALZBERG is one of Western Buddhism’s best-known teachers and a founder of the Insight Meditation Society. She experienced a childhood of considerable loss and turmoil, but an early realization of the power of meditation to overcome personal suffering determined her life direction. Her teaching and writing now communicate that power to a worldwide audience of practitioners from widely diverse backgrounds. Among her best-selling books are Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness; Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience; and, excerpted here, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation.
ELIHU GENMYO SMITH began his Zen training in 1974 at the Zen Studies Society in New York with Soen Nakagawa Roshi and Eido Shimano Roshi. After completing formal koan study with Maezumi Roshi in 1984, he continued his training with Charlotte Joko Beck, from whom he received dharma transmission in 1992. He is a cofounder of the Ordinary Mind Zen School and resident teacher at the Prairie Zen Center, in Champaign, Illinois. He is the author of Ordinary Life, Wondrous Life and Everything Is the Way: Ordinary Mind Zen.
MICHAEL STONE is a yoga instructor, Buddhist teacher, writer, and activist. He leads Centre of Gravity in Toronto and teaches courses to health care professionals that integrate Buddhist teachings and practices with contemporary approaches to clinical work. He’s the author of several books on yoga and Buddhism, including Awake in the World and The Inner Tradition of Yoga.
MICHAEL A. STUSSER is a Seattle-based freelance writer, playwright, and game inventor. His “Accidental Parent” column in ParentMap magazine won the Gold Award at the Parents Publication Awards, and his month-long organic journey for Seattle Weekly won the SPJ Award. His first book, The Dead Guy Interviews: Conversations with 45 of the Most Accomplished, Notorious, and Deceased Personalities in History, was published by Penguin. He is the cocreator, with Garry Trudeau of “The Doonesbury Game,” which Games magazine called the “best party game of the year,” and creator of “Earth Alert: The Active Environmental Game.”
JOAN SUTHERLAND is a Zen teacher and founder of The Open Source, a network of practice communities in the western United States emphasizing the confluence of Zen koans, creativity, and companionship. Before becoming a Zen teacher, she worked as a scholar and teacher in the field of archaeomythology, and for nonprofit organizations in the feminist antiviolence and environmental movements. Sutherland is interested in what becomes possible when ancient methods of meditation and inquiry are brought into contemporary Western lives.
STEPHAN TALTY is a widely published journalist who has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Men’s Journal, Details, and many other publications. He is the New York Times best-selling author of Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama’s Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero, Empire of Blue Water, and The Illustrious Dead.
JOHN TARRANT directs the Pacific Zen Institute. He has a PhD in psychology, and after teaching Zen in a traditional way for twenty years, developed a new way of teaching koans that opens them to people with no experience of meditation. He is the author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life and The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul and the Spiritual Life.
KHENCHEN THRANGU RINPOCHE is a leading teacher in the Kagyu lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism. Following the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, he was called to Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, the seat of the Kaygu lineage in exile, and given the task of preserving the teachings of the Kagyu school. He worked to recover and preserve ancient texts and was a principal teacher of young Kagyu tulkus, many of whom are prominent teachers today. He has established monasteries in Nepal and India and centers in twelve countries around the world. Thrangu Rinpoche is known for making complex teachings accessible to Western students. His many books include Essentials of Mahamudra, Pointing Out the Dharmakaya, and Vivid Awareness, excerpted in this anthology.
TENZIN WANGYAL RINPOCHE, founder and spiritual director of Ligmincha Institute, is a highly respected teacher in the Bön Dzogchen tradition. Fluent in English, he is renowned for his clear, engaging teaching style and ability to make the ancient Tibetan teachings relevant to the lives of Westerners. Among his books are Awakening the Sacred Body; Tibetan Yogas of Body, Speech, and Mind; and Tibetan Sound Healing.
MICHAEL WOOD is a photographer and teacher who developed the Miksang practice of contemplative photography. In 1979, after eighteen years as a commercial photographer, he became frustrated with conventional photography and started to synthesize his photographic training, meditation practice, and study of the Dharma Art teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He created a series of assignments and visual exercises for a course that he called “Miksang,” a Tibetan term meaning “good eye,” which became the basis for the approach presented in The Practice of Contemplative Photography, excerpted here.