Lama Surya Das has spent more than 35 years studying with the great spiritual masters of Asia, including 15 in India and and Himalayas and another eight years in a cloistered Tibetan retreat, and has brought many Tibetan lamas to North America to teach. He is a leading spokesman for American Buddhism and contemporary spirituality, as well as a poet, translator, chantmaster, spiritual teacher, and a lama in the Tibetan Buddhist order. Surya leads meditation retreats and workshops and lectures worldwide.

Founder and spiritual director of the Dzogchen Center in Massachusetts, New York, Texas and California, he organized the first three the Western Buddhist Teachers Network weeklong conferences with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. Surya is the author of a dozen books, including the best-seller "Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Modern World," and has long been active in charitable causes in the Third World and in interfaith dialogue. His new book is called "Words of Wisdom" (Koa Press). A longtime columnist at Beliefnet.com, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.