Conversations on Compassion with Thupten Jinpa, PhD

In this dialogue CCARE’s founder and director, Dr. James Doty, asks Thupten Jinpa about his life’s work and what role compassion may have played.

Thupten Jinpa is a former monk and has been the principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama for nearly thirty years. Trained as a Geshe in the Tibetan tradition Jinpa also holds a BA and PhD from Cambridge University, where he worked as a research fellow. As a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Jinpa was a founding member of CCARE and the principal author of Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT). His published works include translations of numerous books by the Dalai Lama such as Ethics for the New Millennium and Beyond Religion, as well as his own work Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy and the forthcoming A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives. He is an adjunct professor of religious studies at McGill University, president of the Institute of Tibetan Classics, and chairman of the Mind and Life Institute, which is dedicated to promoting dialogues and collaborations between the sciences and contemplative knowledge, especially Buddhism. He lives in Montreal with his wife and daughters.