Lama Surya Das

Lama Surya Das has spent forty years studying Zen, vipassana, yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism with the great masters of Asia, including the Dalai Lama's own teachers, and has twice completed the traditional three year cloistered meditation retreat at his master's Tibetan monastery. He is a leading spokesperson for American Buddhism, and an authorized lama (priest and spiritual teacher) in the Nyingmapa School of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its branch centers around the country and long-term retreat training center outside Austin. Founder of the Western Buddhist Teachers Network with the Dalai Lama, he is also active in interfaith dialogue and social activism and regularly organizes its international Buddhist Teachers Conferences. The Dalai Lama affectionately refers to Surya as "The American Lama".

Surya Das teaches, lectures, and conducts retreats around the world. He is the author of many books, including Buddha is as Buddha Does: The Ten Transformative Practices of Enlightened Living; Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World; Awakening the Buddhist Heart: Integrating Love, Meaning and Connection into Every Part of Your Life; and Awakening to the Sacred; and Natural Great Perfection: Dzogchen Songs and Oral Teachings. His newest books are Words of Wisdom; The Big Questions: How to Find Your Own Answers to Life's Essential Mysteries; Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be: Lessons on Change, Loss and Spiritual Transformation; and Natural Radiance.

Surya Das writes regularly for Tricyle, the Inquiring Mind and other
magazines, and is a founder and board member of many Buddhist monasteries, centers and charitable projects in refugee camps in Asia. He writes a regular Ask The Lama column online at Beliefnet.com.

Surya Das has been featured in numerous publications and major media,
including ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Post, Long Island Newsday, Long Island Business Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, The Jewish Free Press, New Age Journal, Tricycle Magazine, Yoga Journal, The Oregonian, and has been the subject of a seven minute magazine story on CNN. One segment of the ABC-TV sitcom Dharma & Greg was based on his life ("Leonard's Return"). Surya has appeared on Politically Correct with Bill Maher and twice on The Colbert Report.

For more about Lama Das, visit www.surya.org or www.dzogchen.org.