Alexander Berzin (born 1944) is a scholar, translator, and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism.

Early years

Berzin was born in Paterson, New Jersey, United States. He received his B.A. degree in 1965 from the Department of Oriental Studies,

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

; his M.A. in 1967; and, his Ph.D. in 1972 from the Departments of Far Eastern Languages (Chinese) and Sanskrit and Indian Studies,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

Work

His main teacher was Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche, an assistant tutor of the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...

. Berzin served as the Dalai Lama's archivist and occasionally his interpreter. In 1998, Berzin moved back to the West and devotes most of his time to preparing his unpublished materials for his Study Buddhism website. The website was chosen in 2011 to be archived as part of the Bodleian Electronic Archives and Manuscripts collection of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Berzin is on the Board of Advisors of

Tibet House Tibet House is an international, loosely affiliated group of nonprofit, cultural preservation organizations founded at the request of the Dalai Lama, to preserve, present, and protect Tibet's ancient traditions of philosophy, mind science, art ...

Germany and the International Center for Buddhist-Muslim Understanding of the College of Religious Studies of Mahidol University, Thailand. Berzin is the founder and contributing author of ''Studybuddhism.com'', a website containing information on Buddhism, Buddhist texts, Tibetan culture, and other relevant subjects. He currently lives in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

Bibliography

* (Co-editor with John Bray) Kuleshov, Nikolai S. ''Russia’s Tibet File''. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1996. . * (Coauthor with the 14th Dalai Lama, Translator, and Editor), ''The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra''. Ithaca, Snow Lion, 1997. . * ''Taking the Kalachakra Initiation''. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1997. . Reprinted as ''Introduction to the Kalachakra Initiation''. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 2010. . * ''Developing Balanced Sensitivity''. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1998. . * ''Kalachakra and Other Six-Session Yoga Texts''. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1998. . *
Relating to a Spiritual Teacher: Building a Healthy Relationship
'. Ithaca, Snow Lion, 2000. . Reprinted as ''Wise Teacher, Wise Student: Tibetan Approaches to a Healthy Relationship''. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 2012.Tatz, Mark (2002)
Review of ''Relating to a Spiritual Teacher: Building a Healthy Relationship
''Tibet Journal'' 27 (3-4), Autumn and Winter 2002. * "A Buddhist View of Islam" in ''Islam and Interfaith Relations: The Gerald Weisfeld Lectures 2006'' (Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Lloyd Ridgeon, eds.). London: SCM Press, 2007, 187–203. . * "The Sources of Happiness According to Buddhism" in Glück (Andre Holenstein, Ruth Meyer Schweizer, Pasqualina Perrig-Chiello, Peter Rusterholz, Christian von Zimmermann, Andreas Wagner, Sara Margarita Zwahlen, eds.). Bern, Stuttgart, Wien, Haupt Verlag, 2011, 41–52. .

References

External links

Profile at StudyBuddhism
1944 births Living people American Buddhists American former Christians American educators American translators American male writers Buddhist translators Tibetan Buddhism writers Writers from Paterson, New Jersey Tibetan Buddhists from the United States Tibetan Buddhist spiritual teachers Rutgers University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Tibetologists American scholars of Buddhism {{Buddhism-bio-stub