Contributors

STEPHEN BATCHELOR, a frequent contributor to Tricycle, is the author of Buddhism Without Beliefs and, most recently, Verses from the Center, a translation of Nagarjuna’s work on emptiness. He is the co-founder of Sharpham College in Devon, England, and after serving as its director for four years, Stephen and his wife, Martine, recently moved to Southwest France.

JAN WILLIS became a student of Tibetan lama Thubten Yeshe in 1969 and has studied Buddhism for over thirty years. A professor of religion at Wesleyan University, she is the editor of Feminine Ground: Essays on Women and Tibet and the author of Enlightened Beings: Life Stories from the Ganden Oral Tradition. When not traveling she resides in Middletown, Connecticut.

Twenty-nine year old NOAH LEVINE directs the Spirit Rock Teen and Family program in Woodacre, California. He teaches meditation in juvenile halls and prisons, and has recently founded a non-profit organization, The Mind-Body Awareness Project, which brings meditation classes to incarcerated youth in the San Francisco Bay Area.

THANISSARO BHIKKHU, born Geoffrey DeGraf on New York’s Long Island, and known as Than Geoff, was ordained as a Theravada monk in Thailand in 1976. He has been the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery near San Diego since 1993 and is the translator of numerous Thai meditation guides. His most recent book is Noble Strategy.

A linguist by training, HELENA NORBERG-HODGE was one of the first Westerners to master the Ladakhi language. For over twenty years she has worked with the people of Ladakh to protect their culture and environment. She currently directs the Ladakh Project, which she founded in 1978, and its parent organization, the International Society for Ecology and Culture.

ANDY FERGUSON, a member of San Francisco Zen Center, has lived in Asia since 1974, residing in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore He has also traveled extensively in mainland China and researched modern Chinese scholarship on Zen. He is the author of Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and their Teachings. Here he interviews translator and author Bill Porter, a.k.a. Red Pine.