Per Kvaerne is Director of the Institute for the Comparative Research in Human Culture, Oslo, and Professor of the History of Religions and Tibetology, University of Oslo. He has been a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters since 1976 and was Convenor of the Sixth Conference of the International Association for Tibetan Studies in 1992. Besides a particular interest in the history, literature and art of the Bon religion, his field of research is late Indian tantric Buddhism and he has published An Anthology of Buddhist Tantric Songs: A Study of the Caryagiti, Oslo, 1977.

Jeffrey Hopkins (1940-2024), PhD, served for a decade as the interpreter for the Dalai Lama. A Buddhist scholar and the author of more than thirty-five books, he was Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, where he founded the largest academic program in Tibetan Buddhist studies in the West.

Guy Newland is Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Central Michigan University, where he has taught since 1988. He has authored, edited, and translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism, including the three-volume translation of The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment.

Donald S. Lopez Jr. is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. He specializes in late Indian Mahayana Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism and is the author of numerous books, including A Study of Svatantrika, The Madman’s Middle Way, and Prisoners of Shangri-La.

David Jackson is Professor of Tibetan Studies at Hamburg University. He is the author of A Saint in Seattle and A History of Tibetan Painting. He lives in Hamburg, Germany.

Jules Levinson holds a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. He currently teaches at Naropa University and lives in Boulder, Colorado.

John Makransky, PhD, has been a professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, senior academic advisor at Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal, president of the Society of Buddhist-Christian studies, fellow of the Mind & Life Institute, and senior editor for the Buddhism section of the St. Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology. John’s scholarly writings focus on connections between devotion, compassion, and wisdom in Buddhism, adapting Buddhist practices to meet contemporary minds, and theoretical issues in interfaith learning. In 2000, John was ordained as a lama in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism—a teacher of innate love and wisdom practices. For the past twenty-five years, John has taught meditations of innate compassion and wisdom adapted from Tibetan Buddhism for modern Buddhists, those in other spiritual traditions, and for people in caring roles and professions. In consultation with participants from those settings, John developed the Sustainable Compassion Training model of contemplative practice (SCT) to help Western Buddhists, people of diverse faiths, and those in caring roles and professions generate a more sustaining and unconditional power of compassion and awareness to support their lives and work.

Daniel Cozort is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Dickinson College, where he teaches the religions of India.

Jose Ignacio Cabezon is the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. Formerly a Buddhist monk at Sera Monastery in South India, Professor Cabezón has authored a number of works on Tibetan literature, Buddhist philosophy, and sexuality. He is originally from Cuba and currently resides in California.

ROGER R. JACKSON, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies and Religion at Carleton College. He has nearly 50 years of experience with the study and practice of Buddhism, particularly in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. His special interests include Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and ritual; Buddhist religious poetry; religion and society in Sri Lanka; the study of mysticism; and contemporary Buddhist thought. Roger is a highly respected and beloved scholar, Dharma teacher, and writer. He has authored many scholarly books and articles, and is a frequent contributor to Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, and Tricycle magazines.