John Makransky, PhD, is Associate Professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College, senior academic advisor for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Centre for Buddhist Studies in Nepal, co-founder of the Foundation for Active Compassion (a socially engaged contemplative organization), and author of the popular meditation manual Awakening through Love. His academic writings have focused on connections between doctrine and practice in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, on adapting Buddhist contemplative practices for contemporary application, and on theoretical issues in interfaith learning. Beginning in 1978, he studied with lamas of three Tibetan lineages, and in 2000 was ordained a lama in the lineage of Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche. Since then he has taught meditations of compassion and wisdom adapted from Buddhism in newly accessible ways to teachers, health-care givers, social workers, psychotherapists and those who work with prisoners, the hungry and the dying. He has offered contemplative workshops at Kathmandu University, Harvard Divinity and Medical Schools, Brown University, Emory University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Virginia, Rhode Island and Bradley Hospitals’ Psychiatry Departments, and other institutions. He has published several books and many articles on Buddhist practices, their adaptation in current contexts, and Buddhist contemplative resources for service, social change and inter-religious learning.
