Interpreter to His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Thupten Jinpa, PhD, received his early education and training as a monk and obtained the Geshe Lharam degree from the Shartse College of Ganden Monastic University, South India. In addition, Jinpa holds a BA with Honors in philosophy and a PhD in religious studies, both from Cambridge University. He taught at Ganden Monastery and worked as a research fellow in Eastern religions at Girton College, Cambridge University.
Jinpa has been the principal English translator to His Holiness the Dalai Lama since 1985 and has translated and edited numerous books by the Dalai Lama, including The New York Times’ bestseller “Ethics for the New Millennium,” “Transforming the Mind,” “The Universe in a Single Atom: Convergence and Science and Spirituality,” and “Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together.” His own published works include — in addition to papers in both English and Tibetan — “Songs of Spiritual Experience” (co-authored); “Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy: Tsongkhapa’s Quest for the Middle View;” “Mind Training: The Great Collection;” and “The Book of Kadam: The Core Texts,” the last two titles being part of The Library of Tibetan Classics. Jinpa’s Tibetan publications include “Chos kyi snang ba gsar pa” (A New Light on Dharma), a first-ever introduction to Buddhism in vernacular Tibetan, as well as the recently published comprehensive modern Tibetan grammar entitled “bod skad kyi brda sprod gsar bsgrigs smra sgo’i lde mig” (A Modern Tibetan Grammar, Key Opening the Door of Speech).
Jinpa is an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, Montréal. He is also an executive committee member of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at the School of Medicine, Stanford University, and the main author of CCARE’s Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) program. Jinpa is a board chair of the Mind & Life Institute. He is the Founder and President of the Institute of Tibetan Classics and the General Editor for The Library of Tibetan Classics.