Ryan Damron

Short Biography

After nine years living in and traveling around the greater Indian Sub-Continent, Ryan has returned to the States and embarked on the long road to a PhD in South Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. When not buried under a pile of books, he can be spotted among the redwoods of Northern California or wandering the alpine regions of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges.

Current Studies

• The doctrine of sahaja (spontaneity, naturalness) among Buddhist, Vaiṣṇava and unaffiliated tantric groups in pre-modern and modern South Asia
• The deliberate cultivation of the power transgression as a religious practice, specifically within South Asian tantric traditions
• Tantric works composed in Sanskrit, various Prākrits and Tibetan

Current Projects

• A study and translation the Mahāmāyātantra and its commentary, the Guṇavatīṭīkā by Ratnākaraśānti

Published Works

• Mahāmāyātantra, as part of the 84000 translation intiative (forthcoming)

• Maitreya, Mipham, Khenpo Shenga. Distinguishing the Middle from Extremes, Snow Lion, 2007. (with the Dharmachakra Translation Committee)

• Paltrul Rinpoche. A Brillant Sun: The Stages of Practice for the Bodhisattvacaryavatara. with Catherine Dalton and Matthew Stephensen. Out of Print

Contact

rdamron@berkeley.edu