Thomas Roth

Tyler serves as a translator and teacher for the Nalandabodhi sangha of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and as a translator and faculty member of Nitartha Institute, a division of Rinpoche's non-profit educational corporation, Nitartha International. Nitartha Institute offers advanced courses in Buddhist studies and aims to transmit a complete shedra curriculum and tradition to the West. Tyler studied Tibetan outside of academia from various sources of learning in Canada, the US, India, and Nepal. He has been a formal student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche since 1998 and also regards His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Drodul Trinley Dorje and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche as invaluable guides. Tyler lives with his family in Seattle, Washington, where he serves as an oral interpreter for Acharya Tashi Wangchuk, a great mentor in reading the treatises of the Indo-Tibetan textual tradition.

Main teachers

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Published Works

1. Trainings in Compassion: Manuals on the Meditation of Avalokiteshvara, Snow Lion Publications, 2004

This book includes translations of the following texts:

• Thangtong Gyalpo's Avalokiteshvara sadhana All-Pervading Benefit of Beings (Tibetan title: 'gro don mkha' khyab ma)
• Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye's ('jam mgon kong sprul blo gros mtha' yas) commentary to the sadhana
• The Fifteenth Karmapa Khakhyab Dorje's (mkha' khyab rdo rje) commentary to the sadhana
• Chandrakirti's (zla ba grags pa) Lamenting Praise to Avalokiteshvara (Tibetan title: smre ngag gi bstod pa)
• Ngulchu Thogme's (dngul chu thogs med) Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas (Tibetan title: rgyal sras lag len so bdun ma) -- based on a previous translation by Michele Martin

2. The Karmapa's Middle Way: Feast for the Fortunate (forthcoming on Snow Lion Publications, March, 2008)

A translation of Feast for the Fortunate, the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje's commentary to the Madhyamakavatara. (Tibetan title: 'jug T'ik dvags rgyud grub pa'i shing rta bde bar 'dren byed skal bzang dga' ston) Feast for the Fortunate is in turn an abridgment of the Eighth Karmapa Mikyo Dorje's famed text, the Chariot of the Takpo Kagyu Siddhas. Includes extensive introduction, notes, and appendices.

Active Projects

1. The Ocean of Texts on Reasoning (rigs gzhung rgya mtsho)

I am currently working on a translation of selected sections of this valid cognition or pramana text by the Seventh Karmapa. The sections were selected by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and mirror the order in which the text was taught at the Karma Shri Nalanda monastic shedra at Rumtek by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. The text's chapters follow the Kagyu lineage's custom of numbering the chapters of the Pramanavarttika by Dharmakirti:

• Establishing the Buddha as a Source of Valid Cognition (tshad ma grub pa'i le'u)
• Direct Perception (mngon sum le'u)
• Inference for Oneself (rang don rjes dpag kyi le'u)
• Inference for Others (gzhan don rjes dpag kyi le'u)

Contact