ALEXANDER BERZIN Alexander Berzin is a well-known authority on the Kālacakra tradition, having studied for many years directly with Tsenshab Serkong Rinpoche. Dr. Berzin lived for many years in the Tibetan exile community in Dharamsala and was a founding member of the Translation Bureau of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. Among Berzin’s many publications are Taking the Kalachakra Initiation and Kalachakra and Other Six-Session Yoga Texts, both from Snow Lion Publications.
WILLIAM C. BUSHELL Dr. William Bushell recently codirected the conference, “Longevity and Optimal Health: Integrating Eastern and Western Perspectives,” with Robert Thurman and His Holiness the Dalai Lama; the proceedings, edited by Bushell, are to be published by the New York Academy of Sciences in May 2007. Bushell is currently collaborating with the scientists who attended that conference on research into possible regenerative and longevity-enhancing effects of Indo-Tibetan meditation and yoga.
GESHE DRAKPA GELEK Geshe la obtained his degree from Drepung Loseling Monastic University in 1991 and spent the next several years teaching there before relocating to Dharamsala in 1997. Since then he has spent most of his time in solitary retreat and served as a teacher at Namgyal Monastery during its annual summer retreat. Geshe la has received extensive personal instructions from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ling Rinpoche, Trijang Rinpoche, and Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche. He is considered to be one of the important Kālacakra scholars of the younger generation and has enormous skill as a teacher of Western students.
DAVID B. GRAY David Gray is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University since 2005. He earned his doctorate at Columbia University and has distinguished himself as a scholar of the Cakrasaṃvara tradition, publishing articles in Journal of Religious History, Numen, and History of Religions. His first book, The Discourse of Śrī Heruka: A Study and Annotated Translation of the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra is due to be published by the American Institute for Buddhist Studies/Columbia University Press in 2007.
GEORGIOS T. HALKIAS Georgios Halkias recently received his D.Phil from Oxford University with his dissertation, “Transferring to the Land of Bliss: Among Texts and Practices of Sukhavati in Tibet,” studying the canonicity of “Pure Land” doctrinal and ritual developments in Tibet. He has published in Tibet Journal and Eastern Buddhist and been on the faculty of the Antioch College Buddhist Studies in India program.
URBAN HAMMAR Urban Hammar defended his doctoral thesis, “Studies in the Kālacakra Tantra: A History of the Kālacakra Tantra in Tibet and a Study of the Concept of the Ādibuddha, the Fourth Body of the Buddha, and the Supreme Unchanging,” in 2005. He is now working on a text by one of the disciples of Dolpo-pa on the history of Kālacakra Tantra. Hammar is affiliated with the Department of History of Religions at Stockholm University and teaches Tibetan at the Department of Oriental Languages.
LAURA HARRINGTON Laura Harrington completed her doctorate in Religion (Buddhist Studies) at Columbia University in 2002 with the dissertation, “A View of Mañjuśrī: Wisdom and Its Crown Prince in Pala-period India.” She is a contributing editor of two Kālacakra-related books: Kalachakra and Tibetan Astro-Science, both published by Tibet Domani. She is presently a Research Associate at Smith College, Department of Religion.
EDWARD HENNING Edward Henning is well known among Kālacakra scholars as the leading expert on Tibetan calendar-making and astronomy. Based in England, Henning is an independent scholar who travels widely and has consulted on many Kālacakra projects, including the translation of Ornament of Stainless Light. His own book, Kālacakra and the Tibetan Calendar, is due from the American Institute of Buddhist Studies/Columbia University Press in 2007.
JHADO RINPOCHE Jhado Rinpoche served as Abbot of Namgyal Monastery between 1997 and 2004 at the appointment of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Rinpoche is widely recognized as the leading Tibetan authority on Kālacakra among the younger generation of Gelug scholars. Rinpoche was recognized at the age of three as the sixth incarnation of the abbot of Jhado Monastery and, after fleeing into exile, obtained his Geshe Lharampa degree from Sera Je in 1991. Rinpoche then taught at Namgyal Monastery until being appointed its abbot. Rinpoche now travels widely and is well known for his penetrating insight and warm humor.
THUPTEN JINPA Thupten Jinpa Langri has served as translator to His Holiness the Dalai Lama for many years, but he is an accomplished scholar in his own right. Holder of a geshe degree from Ganden and a doctorate from Cambridge, he is currently president of the Tibetan Classics Institute which publishes important volumes from all aspects of Tibetan thought and culture. He has contributed to or edited many important publications, including Mind Training: The Great Collection, and has authored Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy: Tsongkhapa’s Quest for the Middle Way.
GAVIN KILTY Gavin Kilty spent more than a dozen years in Dharamsala , where he studied at the Institute for Buddhist Dialectics. Since 1984 he has lived in the United Kingdom, where he has been affiliated with Jamyang Buddhist Centre. He has also produced translations for the International Kalachakra Network and is currently translating Desi Sangye Gyatso’s Mirror of Vaidurya for the Library of Tibetan Classics. Previous publications include the seminal Ornament of Stainless Light, the first volume for the Library of Tibetan Classics, and Splendor of an Autumn Moon: The Devotional Verse of Tsongkhapa.
KIRTI TSENSHAB RINPOCHE Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche was one of the most important Kālacakra teachers of our time, traveling the world to disseminate these precious teachings. As the only master to escape Tibet with the complete oral transmission of his lineage, Rinpoche preserved the continuity of the tradition. Rinpoche passed away in December 2006 after a short session with liver cancer. Please see the articles about and by Rinpoche for more information.
PHILLIP LECSO Phillip Lecso has been an important translator for the International Kalachakra Network. For many years, Lecso was Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Ohio and published articles on Buddhist attitudes toward biomedical issues. Recently he has had to discontinue these activities due to an aggressive neuromuscular disorder.
JOSEPH LOIZZO Joseph Loizzo M.D., Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Weill College of Medicine, Cornell University, and Visiting Scholar of Religion, Center for Buddhist Studies, Columbia University. Loizzo is also founder and director of Nalanda Institute for Meditation and Healing in Manhattan. Loizzo’s Nagarjuna’s Reason Sixty (including Candrakirti’s commentary) is due to be published by the American Institute of Buddhist Studies/Columbia University Press in 2007.
GIACOMELLA OROFINO Giacomella Orofino is Associate Professor of Indo-Tibetan Religions and Civilizations and Tibetan Language and Literature at the Oriental University of Naples. Orofino has published many articles on Tibetan Buddhism and the Kālacakra tradition specifically. Among these important articles are “On the saḍaṅgayoga and the Realisation of Ultimate Gnosis in the Kālacakratantra,” and “Divination with Mirrors: Observations on a Simile Found in the Kālacakra Literature.” Her books include Sacred Tibetan Teachings on Death and Liberation and Sekoddeśa: A Critical Edition of the Tibetan Translations.
DAVID REIGLE David Reigle is a founding member of the International Kalachakra Network and remains on its Executive Team. Reigle is the author of Kalacakra Sadhana and Social Responsibility (Santa Fe, 1996). He is working on a critical edition in Sanskrit of the Śrī Kālacakra Sādhana by Sadhuputra, along with an English translation.
FRANCESCO SFERRA Francesco Sferra is Associate Professor of Sanskrit and Indology at the Oriental University of Naples and a member of the Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente and other professional institutions. Among his main publications are the edition and English translation of the Saḍaṅgayoga by Anupamarakṣita with its commentary by Raviśrījñana (Rome 2000) and the new critical edition of the Sanskrit text of the Sekoddeśaṭika by Nāropa (Rome 2006). He expects to publish his revised doctoral dissertation with Firenze University Press in 2007.
MIRANDA SHAW Miranda Shaw is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Richmond. Shaw’s first book, Passionate Enlightenment, won both the 1994 James Henry Breasted Prize of the American Historical Association and the 1994 Tricycle Prize for Excellence in Buddhist Scholarship. Years of research have resulted in the recent Buddhist Goddesses of India and the forthcoming Buddhist Goddesses of Tibet and Nepal, both from Princeton University Press.
MICHAEL R. SHEEHY Michael R. Sheehy, Ph.D. is the founder and executive director of Jonang Foundation. An author of several articles on Tibetan Buddhism, his research interests include the formulation of *zhentong* (*gzhan stong*) philosophical thinking within contemplative Jonang literature, the history of the sixfold vajrayoga Kalachakra lineage, and the contemporary Jonang tradition. As a researcher and facilitator of projects hosted by Jonang Foundation, he spends his time living in the Tibetan cultural domains of China and in the United States.
SOFIA STRIL-REVER Sofia Stril-Rever graduated in Indian Studies from Paris University. She received a traditional training from an Indian pandit at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath and from Tibetan lamas in Dharamsala. A writer and poet, she has authored four books on the Kālacakra tradition, including translations from Sanskrit into French of Chapters Two and Five of the Stainless Light (Vimalaprabhā). At Paris Kalachakra Center, she is coordinating a Kalachakra practice group.
IVETTE VARGAS Ivette Vargas is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Austin College. Vargas earned her doctorate from Harvard University in 2003 with the dissertation “Falling to pieces, emerging whole: Suffering illness and healing renunciation in the Dge slong ma Dpal mo tradition.” She has done extensive fieldwork in Tibet with a focus on the intersection of medicine, healing, and religion and published chapters in A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics (Columbia University Press 2006) and Teaching Religion and Healing (Oxford University Press 2006).
VESNA A. WALLACE Vesna Wallace is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Wallace is one of the most important scholars of the Kālacakra tradition, having published the monumental overview The Inner Kalacakratantra: A Buddhist Tantric View of the Individual and several journal articles. She has also published complete translations of chapters two and four of the root text: The Kālacakratantra: The Chapter on the Individual Together with the Vimalaprabhā and The Chapter on the Sādhana, which is due to be published in 2007.
GLENN WALLIS Glenn Wallis is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Georgia, Department of Religion, and is affiliated with The Won Institute of Graduate Studies, Applied Meditation Studies Program. He has published two volumes with Random House, The Dhammapada (2004) and Basic Teachings of the Buddha (2007), as well as the academic study Mediating the Power of Buddhas.
RONIT YOELI-TLALIM Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim wrote her Ph.D. thesis, titled “Contemporary Oral Teachings of the Kālacakra: Dialogue between Tradition and Change” at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She later worked on a research project on “Islam and Tibet: Cultural Interactions” at the Warburg Institute. She is currently working as a research fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London (UK), conducting research on early Tibetan medicine.
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