Professor Anne Klein

Anne has been a practicing Buddhist and student of Buddhist thought since 1971, when she studied with Kensur Ngawang Lekden, the last Abbot of the Tantric College of Lower Lhasa. She began studying and practicing under Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche of Kathmandu in 1973, and received the title of Dorje Löpon (Lama) from her teacher in Tibet, in 2010. She has studied extensively with a number of prominent Geluk and Dzogchen teachers in India, Nepal and the United States, including Lama Gonpo Tseten.

After graduating from Harpur College (now Binghamton University) Highest Honors in English, Anne Klein earned her M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her PhD in Religious/Tibetan Studies from the University of Virginia. Following this she was awarded a Teaching and Research postdoctoral position at Harvard Divinity School as a Research Associate in Women’s Studies and the History of Religion. It was here that she began work on her book Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, which placed Yeshe Tsogyal, a female Buddha renowned throughout Tibet, as a subject of dialogue in contemporary western and feminist discourse.

Anne Klein has received National Endowment for the Humanities translation grants and an American Council of Learned Societies Contemplative Studies grant. She is currently a recipient of a Ford Foundation grant under the rubric of Buddhism, Self and Gender: Traditional Buddhism and Modern Western Culture, A Living Dialogue. She specializes in Buddhist thought and practice, Tibetan philosophical texts, Tibetan language, Contemplative Studies and Women’s studies, with an emphasis in traditions associated with the Heart Essence Vast Expanse. Her books explore the nature of perception, consciousness, and mystic experience as understood from a variety of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Her most recent book (2015) Strand of Jewels: My Teachers’ Essential Guidance on Dzogchen is a translation of the Dzogchen text by Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche.