84000 Team

His Majesty the King of Bhutan is an Honorary Patron of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

Her Royal Highness, Princess Kesang Wangmo Wangchuck of Bhutan is an Honorary Patron of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.

Kapila Vatsyayan (1928-2020) was a leading scholar of Indian classical dance, art, architecture, and art history. She was formerly a member of parliament and bureaucrat in India, and served as the founding director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

Vatsyayan received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1970, the highest honor conferred by the India’s national academy for music, dance and drama. In the same year she was awarded a fellowship from the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund to survey cultural institutions and contemporary art developments in the United States and Indonesia. Dr. Vatsyayan was awarded the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1975; in 1992, the Asian Cultural Council honored her with the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award for outstanding professional achievement and her significant contribution to the international understanding, practice, and study of dance and art history in India. This was followed by many other awards in India culminating in 2011, when Kapila was awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India, the country’s second highest civilian honor.

Vatsyayan was the author of many books, including The Square and the Circle of Indian Arts (1997), Bharata: The Natya Sastra (1996), and Matralaksanam (1988).

She earned an MA in English literature from Delhi University, a second MA in Education from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a PhD from Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi).

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is a student of important Tibetan Buddhist lamas including Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Kyabje Sakya Trizin, Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche, and the16th Karmapa. He is the head of the renowned Dzongsar Monastery and Dzongsar College. Rinpoche is currently responsible for the care and education of over 2,000 monks distributed between six monasteries and institutes in Asia.

In addition, Rinpoche oversees Siddhartha’s Intent and contemporary teaching and practice centers established in several continents as well as the non-profit organizations Khyentse Foundation, 84000, and Lotus Outreach. Also, Rinpoche has authored several books on following the Buddhist path in the contemporary world.

Daniel is CEO/Publisher of Wisdom Publications and is an experienced business executive with decades of insights gathered from corporate and consumer marketing executive roles working for multinationals such as Canon, and large financial firms such as Westpac.

While pursuing his business career, Daniel continued to foster his life long interest in Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan language, and its literature. This has taken him across Australia, America, India, Nepal, and Tibet to pursue a deeper understanding of Buddhist theory and practice with masters from the living tradition. Daniel also has a PhD in Buddhist Philosophy.

Erik Pema Kunsang is a dharma teacher and translator of tantric texts and pith instructions of the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages. Early in life, a deep curiosity about the nature of reality led him to connect with the tradition of Buddha Shakyamuni, and of Padmasambhava, which he has studied, practiced and served ever since. Under the guidance of his main teachers, the dzogchen master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Erik has translated numerous dharma texts in simple language. He is the co-founder of Rangjung Yeshe Publications, Rangjung Yeshe Institute (Nepal), and several Gomde retreat centers across Europe. Appointed to teach the dharma by Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, he now guides retreats on simplicity, naturalness, love, and insight.

In 2016 Erik founded Bodhi Training in Denmark, a two-year education initiative that explores all levels of insight into the Buddha’s teachings, giving participants an opportunity to connect with the dharma in a gradual, experiential, and interactive way.

These days he enjoys a quiet life with his wife Tara, singing mantras and buddhist songs, and doing no-dig gardening. It brings him deep happiness to make the original poetry of dharma possible to chant in English, especially the sadhana texts of Padmasambhava.

Sara L. McClintock, PhD, is Associate Professor of Religion at Emory University in Atlanta where she teaches courses in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and narrative traditions. Her published work includes a monograph, Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason (2010), and a co-authored volume with Georges Dreyfus, The Svātantrika-Prāsaṅgika Distinction (2003).

Her doctorate is from Harvard University (2002), and she has conducted research at the Central University for Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India; the University of Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia at the Austrian Academy of Science in Vienna, Austria.

She is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and a Research Fellow at the Mind and Life Institute. She is a recent (2019) recipient of a Robert H. N. Ho foundation Buddhist Studies Research Fellowship for work she is conducting on a new book project entitled Transactional Reality, Transactional Truth.

Her dharma practice includes instruction from a wide range of teachers in diverse lineages. Sara joined the Board of 84000 in 2011.

Ivy Ang has over 30 years of extensive experience in international business and organizational development. Her professional background includes VP Human Resources roles in the fields of high technology, biotechnology, branding, consulting and finance. She held VP HR positions for global industry leaders such as Genentech, AIG, Madge Networks and Landor Associates. She also has extensive experience consulting with for-profit and non-profit organizations. Ivy is the founder of Visionlinc, a consulting agency dedicated to linking vision, people and strategies. She is a strategic planner and executive coach to CEOs and their teams.

Her areas of expertise include strategic visioning and planning, leadership and management, executive coaching and team building with emphasis on creating high performing teams and innovative cultures to achieve organizational mission.

At the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Ivy facilitated the 5-day Translating the Words of the Buddha conference in March, 2009 in Bir, India. The conference culminated in the birth of the historic 84000 project, with the 100-year goal of translating the words of the Buddha into modern languages, making it accessible to all: “Working with Rinpoche’s mandala has been the single most inspirational and fulfilling experience in my life”

Nonprofit organizations include: Khyentse Foundation, 84000, The Gross National Happiness Project in Bhutan, BDRC, MBA project, Gap coaching and other community projects.

Huang Jing Rui has been the appointed Executive Director since 84000 began as the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project in 2009. Prior to that, Jing Rui worked in the non-profit sector as a social worker in a community-based family service center in Singapore.

In part to seek alternative answers to the ills of urban living and in part to pursue her childhood dreams, she gave up her career to volunteer in a remote village named Bir in the Indian Himalayas. It was in these hills that she, most unexpectedly, stumbled upon the opportunity to take part in 84000—a hundred-year undertaking that will last beyond her lifetime.

Huang Jing Rui has been the appointed Executive Director since 84000 began as the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project in 2009. Prior to that, Jing Rui worked in the non-profit sector as a social worker in a community-based family service center in Singapore.

In part to seek alternative answers to the ills of urban living and in part to pursue her childhood dreams, she gave up her career to volunteer in a remote village named Bir in the Indian Himalayas. It was in these hills that she, most unexpectedly, stumbled upon the opportunity to take part in 84000—a hundred-year undertaking that will last beyond her lifetime.

Ivy Ang has over 30 years of extensive experience in international business and organizational development. Her professional background includes VP Human Resources roles in the fields of high technology, biotechnology, branding, consulting and finance. She held VP HR positions for global industry leaders such as Genentech, AIG, Madge Networks and Landor Associates. She also has extensive experience consulting with for-profit and non-profit organizations. Ivy is the founder of Visionlinc, a consulting agency dedicated to linking vision, people and strategies. She is a strategic planner and executive coach to CEOs and their teams.

Her areas of expertise include strategic visioning and planning, leadership and management, executive coaching and team building with emphasis on creating high performing teams and innovative cultures to achieve organizational mission.

At the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Ivy facilitated the 5-day Translating the Words of the Buddha conference in March, 2009 in Bir, India. The conference culminated in the birth of the historic 84000 project, with the 100-year goal of translating the words of the Buddha into modern languages, making it accessible to all: “Working with Rinpoche’s mandala has been the single most inspirational and fulfilling experience in my life”

Nonprofit organizations include: Khyentse Foundation, 84000, The Gross National Happiness Project in Bhutan, BDRC, MBA project, Gap coaching and other community projects.

Khenpo Choying Dorjee is assisted in this role by Sonam Jamtsho.

Khenpo Choying Dorjee is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar known for his fresh and engaging way of presenting Buddhist philosophy. He was a devoted student of the late Khen Rinpoche Kunga Wangchuk. Khenpo Choying Dorjee joined the Dzongsar Khyentse Chokyi Lodro Institute (DKCLI) in 1992, receiving his Khenpo title in 2002, and his Khenpo degree (the monastic education equivalent to a PhD in Buddhism) in 2004. He then spent many years in various teaching and leadership roles at DKCLI, and in 2010, was appointed as a teacher to Sakya Dungsay Avikrita Rinpoche.

In 2011 Khenpo was sent to UC Berkeley (USA) as a visiting scholar by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, and was also appointed by Rinpoche as the head principal of DCKLI for the 2013-2016 term. Since then Khenpo has been directed by Khyentse Rinpoche to give teachings and to lead practices around Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. His rich knowledge and deep understanding of Buddhism have benefited the many students who have attended his teachings.

Ivy Ang has over 30 years of extensive experience in international business and organizational development. Her professional background includes VP Human Resources roles in the fields of high technology, biotechnology, branding, consulting and finance. She held VP HR positions for global industry leaders such as Genentech, AIG, Madge Networks and Landor Associates. She also has extensive experience consulting with for-profit and non-profit organizations. Ivy is the founder of Visionlinc, a consulting agency dedicated to linking vision, people and strategies. She is a strategic planner and executive coach to CEOs and their teams.

Her areas of expertise include strategic visioning and planning, leadership and management, executive coaching and team building with emphasis on creating high performing teams and innovative cultures to achieve organizational mission.

At the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Ivy facilitated the 5-day Translating the Words of the Buddha conference in March, 2009 in Bir, India. The conference culminated in the birth of the historic 84000 project, with the 100-year goal of translating the words of the Buddha into modern languages, making it accessible to all: “Working with Rinpoche’s mandala has been the single most inspirational and fulfilling experience in my life”

Nonprofit organizations include: Khyentse Foundation, 84000, The Gross National Happiness Project in Bhutan, BDRC, MBA project, Gap coaching and other community projects.

Huang Jing Rui has been the appointed Executive Director since 84000 began as the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project in 2009. Prior to that, Jing Rui worked in the non-profit sector as a social worker in a community-based family service center in Singapore.

In part to seek alternative answers to the ills of urban living and in part to pursue her childhood dreams, she gave up her career to volunteer in a remote village named Bir in the Indian Himalayas. It was in these hills that she, most unexpectedly, stumbled upon the opportunity to take part in 84000—a hundred-year undertaking that will last beyond her lifetime.

John Canti studied medicine and anthropology at Cambridge University (UK) and qualified as a doctor in 1975. While still a medical student he met and began to study with some of the great Tibetan Buddhist masters of the older generation, especially Kangyur Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. After some years of medical work in northeastern Nepal in the late 1970s he went to the Dordogne, France, to complete two three-year retreats at Chanteloube, and has remained primarily based there ever since.

John is a founding member of the Padmakara Translation Group, was a Tsadra Foundation Fellow from 2001-2012, and was awarded the 2016 Khyentse Foundation Fellowship. In 2009, when 84000 first started, he was appointed Editorial Chair of 84000, and in 2020 has become Editorial Co-Director.

His interest in the Kangyur and Tengyur has continued to grow as the project has taken shape, and he feels more and more fascinated by their origins and history, their range of content, and above all by the significance of the extraordinary body of literature the two collections have preserved.

Andreas Doctor (PhD 2004, University of Calgary) lives with his family in a small village in Denmark. He has been involved in translating and editing for 84000 since the very early days and is currently serving as editorial co-director.

For a number of years, Andreas has studied Buddhist history and philosophy under the guidance of Tibetan monks and lamas, mostly in Nepal at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery. As a founding member of Rangjung Yeshe Institute (www.ryi.org), he spent fifteen years teaching at the Institute and for most of this period he served as Director of Studies at Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies, located at Rangjung Yeshe Institute.

Andreas is Director of Dharmachakra Translation Committee (www.dharmachakra.net) where he has participated in numerous translation projects, most recently in the translation of sutras and tantras from the Tibetan canon. He is also a founding member of Rangjung Yeshe Gomde Denmark (www.gomde.dk).

Dominic Latham grew up in the beautiful countryside of Warwickshire in the UK. His father was a green grocer and his mother a florist who battled with a chronic lung disease. Together, these are some of the conditions that led to Dominic’s early appreciation of family, order, beauty and hard work.

After finishing school, he moved to London and gained degrees in Fine Art, Cultural Studies and Digital Media and began working as a programmer and software designer. He co-founded a company pioneering the use of the internet to make online bookings which grew to become a leading service provider. This experience gave him the opportunity to work closely with a large and diverse group of talented people.

He now has 25 years experience building technical solutions for organisations. As Technical Lead for 84000, he particularly likes to engage with readers, editors and translators and then develop elegant tools to suit their respective needs. He still likes to draw, mostly as a way to practice seeing things as they are – an ambition closely linked to his Buddhism. Dominic lives in Berlin with his German wife and their three children.

With a decade of varied experience across South and Southeast Asia as a development professional and as a cultural heritage advocate, Pema was recently awarded a major project grant by The British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme to lead a local team in preserving and making available 100,000+ pages of the history of the former Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim.

Previously, Pema had been working on systemic rights and post-conflict issues in South Asia with Human Rights Watch (New York; New Delhi); The Asia Foundation (Nepal); and International Crisis Group (London). Prior to this, in New York, she worked in the arts at the International Center of Photography, among other galleries and publications.

Pema holds an MSc Conflict Studies, specializing in International Human Rights Law, from London School of Economics; and BAs in History and Art History from NYU, where she focused on cultural shifts in Central and South Asia.

Now based in Thailand, she is on the board of the Neilson Hays Library (Bangkok), but mostly considers herself fortunate to have entered the dharma as a child under the kindness of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche – who among other things, piqued her interest in Monday night boxing and blueberry pancakes.

John Canti studied medicine and anthropology at Cambridge University (UK) and qualified as a doctor in 1975. While still a medical student he met and began to study with some of the great Tibetan Buddhist masters of the older generation, especially Kangyur Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. After some years of medical work in northeastern Nepal in the late 1970s he went to the Dordogne, France, to complete two three-year retreats at Chanteloube, and has remained primarily based there ever since.

John is a founding member of the Padmakara Translation Group, was a Tsadra Foundation Fellow from 2001-2012, and was awarded the 2016 Khyentse Foundation Fellowship. In 2009, when 84000 first started, he was appointed Editorial Chair of 84000, and in 2020 has become Editorial Co-Director.

His interest in the Kangyur and Tengyur has continued to grow as the project has taken shape, and he feels more and more fascinated by their origins and history, their range of content, and above all by the significance of the extraordinary body of literature the two collections have preserved.

Andreas Doctor (PhD 2004, University of Calgary) lives with his family in a small village in Denmark. He has been involved in translating and editing for 84000 since the very early days and is currently serving as editorial co-director.

For a number of years, Andreas has studied Buddhist history and philosophy under the guidance of Tibetan monks and lamas, mostly in Nepal at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery. As a founding member of Rangjung Yeshe Institute (www.ryi.org), he spent fifteen years teaching at the Institute and for most of this period he served as Director of Studies at Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies, located at Rangjung Yeshe Institute.

Andreas is Director of Dharmachakra Translation Committee (www.dharmachakra.net) where he has participated in numerous translation projects, most recently in the translation of sutras and tantras from the Tibetan canon. He is also a founding member of Rangjung Yeshe Gomde Denmark (www.gomde.dk).

Ryan began working with 84000 in 2013 as a translator with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Dharmachakra Translation Committee, for whom he translated the Mahāmāyā Tantra and The Dhāraṇī: Entering into Non-conceptuality. He joined the 84000 editorial team in 2017, specializing in esoteric literature. Beyond his translation and editorial work, Ryan has taught courses in Classical Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Translation Studies at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu and Rangjung Yeshe Gomde in northern California. He earned his doctorate in Sanskrit and South Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2021.

David Fiordalis has had a lifelong personal interest in the religions, cultures, and history of Asia, especially South Asia and the Himalayan region. He began a formal study of Sanskrit while attending Carleton College for his undergraduate degree and won a Fulbright fellowship to investigate Sanskrit educational practices in India in 1998-99. In graduate school he began to learn Pāli, Tibetan, and Japanese, and went on to earn a doctorate in Asian languages and cultures with a focus on Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan. Since 2011, he has taught at Linfield University in Oregon, where he is a tenured associate professor. He has also taught at Buddhist institutions of higher education, such as Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, Nepal, and Maitripa College in Portland, Oregon.

His publications include studies, editions, and translations of Buddhist narrative literature, particularly on the topic of the fantastic, as well as work on Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice. As someone with deep respect for the Buddhist tradition and its literary heritage, he feels tremendous gratitude for the opportunity to contribute to the work of the 84000 project.

Rory Lindsay is a research editor at 84000 and an assistant professor in the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. He is also a visiting scholar at the Buddhist Texts Translation Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His forthcoming book Saving the Dead: Tibetan Funerary Rituals in the Tradition of the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Tantra (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, 2022) examines the history of Kunrik funerary practices in Tibet and the intersecting forms of agency—human, nonhuman, and material—that are described in Kunrik ritual manuals. Rory completed his BA and MA degrees at the University of Toronto and his PhD at Harvard University.

Nathaniel studied philosophy and history as an undergraduate in Texas, and completed an MA and PhD in religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara with an academic focus on the intellectual and institutional history of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He is currently investigating the place of sūtra literature in the historical development of Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and is especially interested in developing course materials for the study of the Kangyur in both undergraduate classrooms and Buddhist communities.

Joie is currently a PhD candidate in Buddhist Studies (Study of Religion) at Harvard University, where her research interests include pre-modern Tibetan religious life writing, institutional history, travel literature, and Buddhist art.

She holds a BA in Film Studies and English from Yale University and an MPhil in Tibetan & Himalayan Studies from the University of Oxford. She is an associate editor at 84000, and supports the communications team as Chinese translations coordinator; and the book reviews editor for Buddhadharma magazine.

Line was born and grew up in Denmark but has spent a large part of her life living and working in other European countries. Her interest in different cultures and ways of life brought her to study ethnography and anthropology at the Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (France) and Aarhus University (Denmark), from where she graduated with a master’s degree in 2001.

She then worked for two decades in various types of international organizations, together with colleagues from all over the world. During this time she gained extensive experience in areas such as document management, project management, human resources, general administration and more.

In March 2020 she joined 84000 to take up the position of Editorial Manager in the Editorial team. When she is not busy keeping everyone and everything organized, she loves going for walks in the Danish countryside where she now lives.

Catherine Dalton has worked as an oral interpreter and textual translator of Tibetan Buddhist teachings since the early 2000s. She earned her doctorate in Buddhist Studies at UC Berkeley in 2019 with a dissertation focused on Indian Buddhist tantra. Catherine received her MA at Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute, where she served for more than a decade as an oral interpreter for monastic philosophy instructors, and taught Tibetan language and translation. Inspired by her teachers’ wish to make the Buddha’s words directly accessible in the modern world, Catherine has contributed to 84000 since its inception through participating in the translation of both sūtras and tantras as a member of the Dharmachakra Translation Committee.

Catherine is an Assistant Professor at Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute, where she teaches in RYI’s MA program in Translation, Textual Interpretation and Philology. She also serves Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche as an oral interpreter. Catherine spends her time between the peaceful forests of Rangjung Yeshe Gomde California and the bustling streets of Boudhanath, Kathmandu.

Bruno Galasek-Hul has translated part-time for 84000 since 2015 and joined the organization as an associate translator in 2022. He met his principal teacher of Tibetan Buddhism in 1998. This set him on a parallel path to study Classical Indology, Tibetan Studies, and the History of Indian Arts at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he earned his Ph.D. degree in 2013 with a dissertation on the narratology of literary characters in the Pāli Canon. As a doctoral student he spent one year (2010–2011) in Oxford, studying with Professor Richard Gombrich and the late Lance Cousins. From 2013–2015, he was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for Buddhist Studies and a postdoctoral candidate at the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages. Since then, he has served as an adjunct professor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley and contributed to A Visual Dictionary and Thesaurus of Buddhist Sanskrit as a senior lexicographer. Bruno enjoys working with a wide range of Buddhist texts written in Pāli, Sanskrit, and Classical Tibetan. His latest publication is The Life of the Buddha by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorjé: Story 101, a supplement to The Hundred Jātakas (skyes rab brgya pa).

Paul Hackett completed his doctorate in Indo-Tibetan studies at Columbia University in 2008, building on his previous studies at the University of Virginia, where he received his masters in Religion and at the University of Maryland where he received another masters in Library and Information Science. He subsequently held a position as an editor/translator for the American Institute of Buddhist Studies and as Classical Tibetan language instructor at Columbia and Yale Universities.

His research interests are wide-ranging in the field of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, including natural language processing (NLP) for literary Tibetan, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy with a particular focus on canonical sources and their reception in the Geluk tradition, and the history of Tibetan Buddhism as alternative religion in America.

His dissertation was published as “Theos Bernard, The White Lama: Tibet, Yoga, and American Religious Life” (Columbia Univ. Pr., 2012), while his two most recent publications are a pair of Tibetan language reference and study works: “A Tibetan Verb Lexicon” and “Learning Classical Tibetan” (Snow Lion, 2019).

He lives in New York City and is currently engaged in research on the Guhyasamāja Tantra and related literature.

Born in Chicago, Annie Heckman holds a BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, an MFA from New York University, an MA from the University of Toronto and has studied Tibetan language and literature at the University of Chicago Graham School. She is currently completing her doctoral work at the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion and Book History and Print Culture collaborative program. Her research focuses on stories about nuns in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, with an emphasis on fourteenth century Tibetan editorial and digesting practices for vinaya texts. She has taught at DePaul University, contributed to Bird of Paradise Press in Virginia and worked as a reviewer of Dunhuang manuscripts at McMaster University, where she was an Ontario Visiting Graduate Student (2017–2019). She was among the first three recipients of the annual Tsadra Foundation Dissertation Fellowship for Tibetan Buddhist Studies (2021–2022).

Adam began working with 84000 in 2017 as a translator and editor with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Dharmachakra Translation Committee. He earned his Doctorate in Buddhist Studies and South Asian Religions from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2018, and has held teaching positions at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the University of Memphis. Adam’s editorial and translation work for 84000 covers a broad range of genres from the avadāna literature to Mahāyāna sūtras, dhāraṇīs, and tantras, and he has published his own research in a number of academic journals and collected volumes. His doctoral research focused on the Indian Mahāmudrā tradition in The Seven Siddhi Texts (Grub pa sde bdun), a corpus of treatises composed by seven Indian mahāsiddhas identified among students of the 11th century master Advayavajra in Nepal and Tibet as some of the earliest works to discuss the tantric theory and practice of Mahāmudrā. In addition to his work as an Associate Translator with 84000, Adam is currently preparing his translations and study of The Seven Siddhi Texts for publication.

Wiesiek has been translating Buddhist texts for 84000 as member of the Dharmachakra Translation Committee since 2010; and in 2020 formally joined 84000 as an Associate Translator. Having begun learning Sanskrit in 1975, in his native Poland, Wiesiek continued at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London. From 2004 to 2010, he taught Sanskrit at Rangjung Yeshe Institute (University of Kathmandu) in Nepal, where he has lived since 2005. His experience with the Dharma began in 1979 and still continues today.

Ven. Konchog Norbu is a graduate of Brown University, where he primarily studied 19th and 20th century American literature and creative writing. Discovering the Dharma soon thereafter, he took the novice (getsul) precepts of a Buddhist monk during Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok’s North American tour in 1993, and received his full (gelong) ordination from Drubwang Penor Rinpoche in 1995. He has served several Dharma communities in the capacity of communications and media relations.

Prior to joining 84000 as an English copyeditor, Ven. Konchog most recently worked for Lion’s Roar, creating online content; performed extensive editorial work for the translated teachings of both Khenchen Tsultrim Lodro and Khenpo Sodargye; and taught English to the monks and nuns of the English Translator Training Program at the Ngagyur Nyingma Institute at Namdroling Monastery in Bylakuppe, South India, where he also served as advisor for the various publication projects of the Rigzod Editorial Committee.

Ven. Konchog now lives in Crestone, CO, where he is on the board of the Pema Chōling monastic community.

Dion Blundell was lassoed onto the path by H.H. the Dalai Lama’s teaching of the Heart Sutra, brilliantly interpreted by Thupten Jinpa (Mt. View, CA, 2001). Subsequent auspicious connections with many kind and authentic teachers—including Sangye Khandro, Lama Chönam, and Khenchen Namdrol Rinpoche, from whom he gratefully received oral teachings on Longchenpa’s Guhyagarbha commentary Chok chu munsel and his Tshig don mdzod, kindled a passion for the dharma.

He began editing for Sangye Khandro and Lama Chönam as they translated Chok chu munsel over a four-year period, published as The Guhyagarbha Tantra (Snow Lion, 2011). For B. Alan Wallace he edited Minding Closely (Snow Lion, 2011), Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic (Columbia University Press, 2012), and a three-volume translation of quintessential Dzogchen treasure texts, Düdjom Lingpa’s Visions of the Great Perfection (Wisdom, 2015).

In a former life, he earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Pepperdine University, and enjoyed marketing management roles in developing and launching innovative telecom and computer peripheral products for large multinationals as well as startup ventures. He is thrilled to be editing new translations in support of the 84000 mission.

Laura was born and raised in the middle of New York state. She studied creative writing at Cornell University, after which she spent several years composing, recording, and performing music while traversing the US and Europe. Having learned about new and wonderful things in the meantime, she went on to obtain an MA in Buddhist studies at Naropa University focusing on translation of Tibetan and Sanskrit.

After spending some time in Eastern Tibet and North India furthering her Tibetan studies, she worked as a research assistant at the Tsadra Foundation in Boulder, CO, and briefly with the editorial department at Shambhala Publications.

She currently resides in Austria and is pursuing her PhD at the University of Vienna on the topic of tantric theory of late Indian Buddhism.

Dominic Latham grew up in the beautiful countryside of Warwickshire in the UK. His father was a green grocer and his mother a florist who battled with a chronic lung disease. Together, these are some of the conditions that led to Dominic’s early appreciation of family, order, beauty and hard work.

After finishing school, he moved to London and gained degrees in Fine Art, Cultural Studies and Digital Media and began working as a programmer and software designer. He co-founded a company pioneering the use of the internet to make online bookings which grew to become a leading service provider. This experience gave him the opportunity to work closely with a large and diverse group of talented people.

He now has 25 years experience building technical solutions for organisations. As Technical Lead for 84000, he particularly likes to engage with readers, editors and translators and then develop elegant tools to suit their respective needs. He still likes to draw, mostly as a way to practice seeing things as they are – an ambition closely linked to his Buddhism. Dominic lives in Berlin with his German wife and their three children.

After working for ten years in advertising in Italy, in 2009 Andrea moved to Nepal to embark on a spiritual journey. There, she founded Street Dog Care, an NGO that aims to improve the health and living conditions of street dogs in Kathmandu. That same year, she met Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche at a teaching and a year later joined 84000 as a volunteer team member working with the outreach and communications team. Between 2010 and 2014 she also worked at Rangjung Yeshe Institute as a communications coordinator to rebuild their brand identity. In 2016, Andrea moved back to her home city of Berlin and continued to work with 84000, helping to organize outreach events and to support those wishing to donate. Andrea holds degrees in photography and business administration.

André Rodrigues first trained and worked as an architect, in Lisbon, where he grew up, and also in Venice and London. But, having found Buddhism in his early teens, all that merely served to quench his curiosity about saṃsāric life. In any case, the broad scope of an architect’s training, learning to structure ideas and creative problem solving have proven to be very useful in all fields.

In his mid-twenties, he started to devote himself solely to Buddhist studies and practice, completing an extended three-year retreat in Chanteloube, in 2012. With the encouragement of his teachers, he studied (and continues to study) Tibetan and, currently, he is translating Dharma texts from Tibetan into Portuguese, and is the coordinator of the Portuguese language branch of the Padmakara Translation Group.

He started working part-time for 84000 in January 2017, taking the texts through the publication stages, making sure that the online glossaries show the right terms and so on. He feels privileged to be part of this incredible endeavor and to have the chance to read and learn from these precious texts.

Celso Wilkinson is a graduate of Naropa University where he studied Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Language. After graduating he continued his language studies abroad in Eastern Tibet and Northern India while intermittently working as a curriculum coordinator for the Nitartha Institute.

Now as a translator and TEI markup editor for 84000, in addition to translation his work has focused on developing various data projects for 84000. He is currently exploring ways in which this vast knowledge developed under the 84000 project can be utilized with computer technology as a resource for translators and researchers. This includes developing a translation memory project as well as exploring the current state of translation software, applications, and data projects and how they can be of benefit through this valuable data.

He lives in Binghamton, NY, with his partner Laura (who is also on the 84000 editorial team) and their two cats. While not working for 84000, Celso is also a painter and writes graphic novels.

Martina began her career in marketing but began to pivot as her interest in Dharma studies developed. She delved into the study of Buddhist Philosophy and later into classical and colloquial Tibetan, first for several years in Pharping and Boudhanath in Nepal, and subsequently in Dharamsala in India. In 2017, Martina graduated with a master’s degree in Buddhist Philosophy from Rangjung Yeshe Institute (Kathmandu, Nepal). Prior to joining 84000 as a TEI markup editor, Martina worked as marketing manager for Rangjung Yeshe Institute. She is also involved in the Khyentse Vision Project’s Translator Training Program.

Martina was born and raised in Ireland, and currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with her husband,Gonzalo. In her spare time, she likes nothing more than to walk in nature getting in touch with the elements. She feels honored to be a part of 84000’s vision for translating the words of the Buddha and is happy to be part of something which resonates with her own spiritual outlook and values.

Sameer’s interest in Buddhism started in 2015, while he was traveling through India. He visited the ancient Buddhist caves at Ajanta, and started learning to meditate in Dharamshala. In 2017, he enrolled in a summer course at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal. What started off as a two-month trip ended up in a four-year stay, at which point Sameer graduated from Rangjung Yeshe Institute with a BA in Buddhist Studies with Himalayan Languages. He now lives in Goa, where he enjoys going to the beach and feeding stray cats. He hopes to make his life meaningful by dedicating it to the Buddhadharma for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Since the 1990s, David has followed a dual career path in information technology and religion. In addition to training and certifications in computer science, he has a master’s degree in theology, specializing in contemplative spirituality and community ministry. He has been a Dharma student for thirty years, practicing Mahāmudrā, Dzogchen, Zen, and other meditation traditions. When he’s not working on his cloud-computing duties, he can be found in the “cloud of unknowing,” meditating and teaching.

David has lived in far-flung locations ranging from Indiana to Iran, New York to Seattle, and Austin to Chicago. Now headquartered in Las Vegas, he is often away, living part-time in Berlin, or leading interfaith meditation gatherings at churches and retreat centers.

With a decade of varied experience across South and Southeast Asia as a development professional and as a cultural heritage advocate, Pema was recently awarded a major project grant by The British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme to lead a local team in preserving and making available 100,000+ pages of the history of the former Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim.

Previously, Pema had been working on systemic rights and post-conflict issues in South Asia with Human Rights Watch (New York; New Delhi); The Asia Foundation (Nepal); and International Crisis Group (London). Prior to this, in New York, she worked in the arts at the International Center of Photography, among other galleries and publications.

Pema holds an MSc Conflict Studies, specializing in International Human Rights Law, from London School of Economics; and BAs in History and Art History from NYU, where she focused on cultural shifts in Central and South Asia.

Now based in Thailand, she is on the board of the Neilson Hays Library (Bangkok), but mostly considers herself fortunate to have entered the dharma as a child under the kindness of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche – who among other things, piqued her interest in Monday night boxing and blueberry pancakes.

In 2010, Ushnisha joined 84000, then known as the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project, and left her job in healthcare the following year to take on the full-time role of Executive Assistant. Ushnisha was involved in setting up an administrative system for the organization, and took on a range of responsibilities from events management to communications to volunteer recruitment.

Ushnisha is now the Communications Manager with a focus on outreach, social media, community engagement, and production. She is based in Singapore.

A natural people-person, Cabie loves to serve the community and is deeply interested in preserving the natural environment. But as a teenager she began to question life and death, and in 2013 while still searching for answers, she read, What Makes You Not a Buddhist, by Khyentse Norbu. Her life was transformed, and she is now especially committed to serving the Dharma, and her guru.

Cabie began as an 84000 volunteer in 2017, becoming a team member the following year helping to represent 84000 at teaching events across Asia which she loves for the ability to help those interested become more familiar with the work and vision of the organization. She officially joined the team in June 2020.

Born and raised in Malaysia, Cabie has called Singapore home for the past twenty-four years, working initially in the beauty and fashion industries; followed by sixteen years as a curator in a fine art gallery that specializes in Modern Chinese art.

Cabie is always trying to work through her never-ending reading list of books, and loves art and traveling. But for now, much of her days are spent serving her dog and dreaming about trekking up mountains—and the summits from which she can read the sūtras aloud.

Born in Mumbai, Sanjna N. Singh came to the U.S. for college, graduating from Bryn Mawr with degrees in Political Science and French. She studied cinema and photography in Paris and subsequently worked for five years at HBO in New York. Her independent documentary “Out of Status,” which followed Muslim families detained or deported after 9/11, was nominated for the Amnesty DOEN award for Human Rights and aired on Channel 4, UK in 2007.

Sanjna has directed shows for the Discovery Channel, Vh1, the Travel Channel, Logo, and others. Her essays have been published in the New York Times, the Guardian, Vox, Bitch, Tricycle and other magazines and she was awarded numerous grants and residencies including a Fiction prize from the Speculative Literature Foundation in 2021. Sanjna serves on the board of Siddhartha’s Intent India and was a script advisor on Khyentse Norbu’s film “Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache.” She divides her time between the U.S. and India, lives with a needy houseplant and will pet big dogs on the street.

Originally from northern Minnesota, Marco graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston IL with a major in Economics. Few people know that Marco helped establish a number of food co-operatives in Wisconsin, and that over the years he has lived on various goat farms throughout the midwest and northwestern United States. Marco met Choygam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1972 and soon thereafter moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he helped with the start-up of Naropa Institute. He attended the 1975 Vajradhatu Seminary, where the second of his three sons was born.

He moved to Karme Choling in Vermont in the early 1980s, where he became the business manager and eventually the controller. Later he moved back to Chicago and worked at a CPA firm for 10 years, eventually becoming a CPA. He met Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche at the cremation of Trungpa Rinpoche in 1987 and became a dedicated student of Rinpoche’s in 1992. Marco now lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Penny and their son Mila. He is also a devoted grandpa to his granddaughter, Lucy.

Marco is an accountant in the National Payroll Services division of the Financial Services Organization of Kaiser Permanente, a nonprofit health care organization with 165,000 employees.

In addition to his role as Treasurer, Marco advises the finance team at 84000.

Born and raised in Malaysia, Amy first met Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in Singapore in 2012 and thereafter started her journey into Tibetan Buddhism. In 2013, inspired by 84000’s mission, Amy began helping 84000 as their Grants Administrator. Her role eventually started to expand into other areas, and she is now 84000’s Finance Manager and Grants Coordinator. As a core member of the operations team, Amy manages the finances, grants, and databases for 84000.

Amy graduated with an MBA from INSEAD in France, and has ten years of professional experience in management consulting and finance, previously working as an auditor with Ernst & Young (Malaysia), and as a management consultant at Bain & Company (South East Asia). Currently, Amy is based in Malaysia and works as a corporate trainer leading workshops in leadership, strategy and emotional intelligence.