Probably the best known of all Buddhists, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. A figure beloved around the world, he shares Tibetan Buddhist teachings globally and speaks on a wide range of topics including kindness, compassion, cognitive and behavioral science, nonviolence, and ecological preservation. He lives in exile in India while advocating for the rights of Tibetans and the preservation of Tibetan culture. 

Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and science journalist and the author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence. For 12 years he reported on brain and behavioral sciences for the Times. Goleman organized a series of comprehensive conversations between His Holiness the Dalai Lama (whom Goleman has known for many years) and Western scientists, resulting in the books Healthy Emotions and Destructive Emotions.

Mingyur Rinpoche is a Tibetan meditation teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. Known for his ability to present the ancient teachings of Tibet in a fresh and accessible manner, he is the author of several books, including The Joy of Living and Turning Confusion into Clarity. In 2011 he left his monastery in Bodhgaya to embark on a wandering retreat through India for four and a half years. 

Helen Tworkov is the founding editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and the author of Zen in America: Profiles of Five Teachers. Since first encountering Buddhism in Asia in the 1960s, she has studied in the Zen and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Since 2006 she has studied with Mingyur Rinpoche, and co-wrote with him the books Turning Confusion into Clarity and In Love With the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying. 

Sharon Salzberg is a meditation teacher and bestselling author who has been teaching Buddhism in the West since 1974. She is co-founder with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Her popular books on Buddhism include Lovingkindness; Real Happiness; Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection; and, most recently, Real Change: Mindfulness To Heal Ourselves and the World.

Joseph Goldstein, one of the first American vipassana teachers, is a co-founder with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg of the Insight Meditation Society, and is currently a resident guiding teacher. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening; A Heart Full of Peace; and One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism. Goldstein has led retreats on insight and lovingkindness meditation worldwide since 1974.

The celebrated author and Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is recognized as one of the key teachers to have introduced mindfulness to the West. He is co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. His books include A Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology; A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; Teachings of the Buddha; and many others.

James Shaheen, Tricycle’s Editor-in-Chief, began his Buddhist practice in the mid-1990s, studying with teachers from a number of Buddhist traditions. He is particularly interested in Buddhism’s growth in the West and its applicability to Western politics, culture, and everyday life. He has been with Tricycle for nearly 25 years.

Arthur Sze is an acclaimed poet, author and translator. He has published ten collections of poetry, including Compass Rose, which was nominated for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Sight Lines, his latest collection and winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry, incorporates Buddhist and Taoist influences. 

Marie Myung-Ok Lee is an acclaimed Korean-American writer and author. Her groundbreaking young adult novel, Finding my Voice, will be republished for a new generation of readers in December. Her next novel, The Evening Hero, on the future of medicine, immigration, and North Korea, is forthcoming with Simon & Schuster. She graduated from Brown University and was a writer in residence there before she began teaching at Columbia University’s Writing Division.

Stephen Batchelor is a Buddhist teacher and author known for his secular approach to the dharma. He is a co-founder and faculty member of Bodhi College in England, which is focused on contemplative learning and the study and practice of Buddhism as found in the earliest texts. His numerous books include Buddhism without Beliefs; After Buddhism; and his latest, The Art of Solitude. 

Ruth Ozeki is an award-winning Canadian-American author, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books and films, including the novels My Year of Meats; All Over Creation; and A Tale for the Time Being, seek to integrate personal narrative and social issues, including environmental politics, race, and war. She teaches creative writing at Smith College.

Duncan Ryuken Williams is a Soto Zen priest, writer, scholar, and director of the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at the University of Southern California. He previously served as the Buddhist chaplain at Harvard University. Williams is the author of The Other Side of Zen: A Social History of Soto Zen Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan and American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War.

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is an author, poet, ordained Zen Buddhist priest, teacher, artist, and drum medicine woman. She was raised in the Church of Christ, and her practice and teaching is influenced by many spiritual traditions, including Native American and African indigenous traditions. She is the author of several books including Sanctuary: A Meditation on Home, Homelessness, and Belonging, The Way of Tenderness, and The Deepest Peace.

Ruth King is a celebrated author, Insight Meditation teacher, life coach, and founder of the Mindful of Race Institute. King leads meditation retreats worldwide and trains leaders and organizations to explore racism and racial conditioning using mindfulness-based principles. She is the author of Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism From The Inside Out and Healing Rage. Her most recent work is featured in Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom.

Mark Epstein, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City and the author of a number of books about the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including Thoughts without a Thinker, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart, Going on Being, Open to Desire, Psychotherapy without the Self, The Trauma of Everyday Life and Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself.  His latest work, The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life will be published in January of 2022 by Penguin Press.  He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University.

Anne Lamott is the author of seven novels, several bestselling books of nonfiction including the classic book on writing; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and several autobiographical essays. Her latest release is next book will be Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage (March 2, 2021, Riverhead). Lamott has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has taught at UC Davis, as well as at writing conferences across the country. Anne Lamott has also been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

Neal Allen is the author of Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You, due out May 25. A coach and writer, he studies and practices traditional and contemporary spiritual traditions. He lives in Northern California with his wife, the author Anne Lamott. More at www.shapesoftruth.com.

Pamela Ayo Yetunde is a co-founder of Buddhist Justice Reporter (BJR), an engaged Buddhist human rights and social justice project supported by Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. She is the co-editor of Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation and Freedom, and is a pastoral counselor and chaplain with Center of the Heart.

Zenzele Isoke is associate professor and chair of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She has practiced meditation since 2005 and has been a member of Common Ground Meditation Community since 2014. A mother of two black women, Zenzele designs and teaches university courses that integrate mindfulness of body and breath techniques with Black feminist thought to teach about race, gender, and empire for undergraduate students. She is the author of Urban Black Women and the Politics of Resistance. Zenzele also leads BIPOC meditation in North Minneapolis.