Steven Arthur Tainer (born 26 July 1947) is an instructor of Asian contemplative traditions. (Full article...)

Zen (Japanese pronunciation: [dzeꜜɴ, dzeɴ]; from Chinese: Chan; in Korean: Sŏn, and Vietnamese: Thiền) is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka philosophies, with Chinese Taoist thought, especially Neo-Daoist. Zen originated as the Chan school (禪宗, Chanzōng, 'meditation school') or the Buddha-mind school (佛心宗, fóxīnzōng), and later developed into various sub-schools and branches.

Chan is traditionally believed to have been brought to China by the semi-legendary figure Bodhidharma, an Indian (or Central Asian) monk who is said to have introduced dhyana teachings to China. From China, Chan spread south to Vietnam and became Vietnamese Thiền, northeast to Korea to become Seon Buddhism, and east to Japan, becoming Japanese Zen.

Zen emphasizes meditation practice, direct insight into one's own Buddha nature (見性, Ch. jiànxìng, Jp. kenshō), and the personal expression of this insight in daily life for the benefit of others. Some Zen sources de-emphasize doctrinal study and traditional practices, favoring direct understanding through zazen and interaction with a master (Jp: rōshi, Ch: shīfu) who may be depicted as an iconoclastic and unconventional figure. In spite of this, most Zen schools also promote traditional Buddhist practices like chanting, precepts, walking meditation, rituals, monasticism and scriptural study. (Full article...)

Shaila Catherine is an American Buddhist meditation teacher and author in the Theravādin tradition, known for her expertise in insight meditation (vipassanā) and jhāna practices. She has authored three books on jhāna practice and has introduced many American practitioners to this concentration practice through her writings and focused retreats.

Catherine is the founder of Insight Meditation South Bay in Mountain View, California, and the primary teacher for Bodhi Courses, an online Buddhist classroom. She conducts retreats locally, nationally and internationally in mindfulness (satī), concentration (samādhi and jhāna), lovingkindness (mettā), and insight meditation (vipassanā). (Full article...)

George Takei (/təˈkeɪ/ tə-KAY; born group=n April 20, 1937) is an American actor, author and activist known for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek franchise, and Galactus in The Super Hero Squad Show.

Takei was born to Japanese-American parents, with whom he lived in Tule Lake Segregation Center during World War II. He began pursuing acting in college, which led in 1965 to the role of Sulu, to which he returned periodically into the 1990s. Upon coming out as gay in 2005, he became a prominent proponent of LGBT rights and active in state and local politics. He has been a vocal advocate of the rights of immigrants, in part through his work on the 2012 Broadway show Allegiance, about the internment experience.

Takei spoke both English and Japanese growing up and remains fluent in both languages. He has won several awards and accolades for his work on human rights and Japan–United States relations, including his work with the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. (Full article...)

Guy Michael Webster (September 14, 1939 – February 5, 2019)) was one of the early innovators of rock ‘n’ roll photography. His fifty-year career spanned the worlds not only of music but film and politics. While shooting album covers and magazine layouts for numerous groups – the Rolling Stones, the Mamas & the Papas, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Doors, Simon & Garfunkel among many others – he also photographed film legends like Rita Hayworth, Dean Martin, and Natalie Wood. As the primary celebrity photographer for dozens of magazines worldwide, Webster captured entertainers including Igor Stravinsky, Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson and American presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Webster's work was collected in the award-winning book, Big Shots: The Photography of Guy Webster, published by Insight Editions. His passion for photography was matched by his love of Italian motorcycles; his personal collection of bikes considered among the world's finest. He spent the later part of his life in Ojai, California, where he volunteered and taught photography at the Oak Grove School (Ojai, California). He died there on February 5, 2019, as a result of complications arising from diabetes and liver cancer. (Full article...)

Thuy Trang (14 December 1973 – 3 September 2001) was a Vietnamese-born American actress. She was known for portraying Trini Kwan, the first Yellow Ranger, on the original cast of the television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. She appeared in 80 episodes from 1993 to 1994, which included the entire first season, and the first twenty episodes of the second.

Trang's father was a South Vietnamese army officer who fled the country in 1975 after the fall of Saigon, leaving his family behind. When Trang was six, she and her mother and brothers boarded a cargo ship bound for Hong Kong, a difficult journey during which Trang became very ill. They reunited with Trang's father in the United States in 1980 and settled in California. She enrolled at the University of California, Irvine to study civil engineering, but switched her focus to acting after a talent scout spotted her. Trang was chosen for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, her first major role, after participating in an audition process that included about 500 actresses. Like the other cast members, Trang mostly portrayed her character in scenes when she was out of her Power Rangers uniform; the in-costume fight scenes were footage adapted from the long-running Japanese television series Super Sentai, with Trang's voice dubbed over the action. She performed many of her own stunts, and was repeatedly hurt on the set.

Trang left Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the middle of the second season, along with fellow cast members Austin St. John and Walter Emanuel Jones, due to contractual and payment disputes and was replaced by Karan Ashley as a new Yellow Ranger named Aisha Campbell. She had a brief appearance in the film Spy Hard and played a lead villain in the film The Crow: City of Angels, both in 1996. Trang had planned to appear in several films along with St. John and Jones, but none were ultimately made. Trang died in a car crash at the age of 27. (Full article...)

Steven Frederic Seagal (/sɪˈɡɑːl/ sih-GAHL; born April 10, 1952) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, martial artist, and musician. A 7th-dan black belt and shihan in Aikikai aikido, he began his adult life as a martial arts instructor in Japan where he became the first non-Japanese and American to operate an aikido dojo. He later moved to Los Angeles where he continued teaching aikido. In 1988, Seagal made his acting debut in Above the Law, which is regarded as the first American film to feature aikido in fight sequences.

By 1991, he had starred in three commercially successful films, and would go on to achieve greater fame in Under Siege (1992), where he played Navy SEALs counter-terrorist expert Casey Ryback, a role he reprised in the sequel Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995). In 1994, he starred in his directorial debut film On Deadly Ground. During the latter half of the 1990s, Seagal starred in three more feature films and the direct-to-video film The Patriot. Subsequently, his career shifted to mostly direct-to-video productions. He has since appeared in films and reality shows, most notably as the main villain in Robert Rodriguez's Machete (2010), and Steven Seagal: Lawman, which depicted Seagal performing duties as a reserve deputy sheriff.

Seagal is a guitarist and has released two studio albums, Songs from the Crystal Cave and Mojo Priest, and performed on the scores of several of his films. He has worked with Stevie Wonder and Tony Rebel, who both performed on his debut album. He has been involved in a line of "therapeutic oil" products and energy drinks. Seagal is an environmentalist, animal rights activist, and supporter of 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. In 2004, he was inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum Hall of Fame. (Full article...)

Sayagyi U Ba Khin (Burmese: ဘခင်, pronounced [ba̰ kʰɪ̀ɰ̃]; 6 March 1899 – 19 January 1971) was the first Accountant General of the Union of Burma. He was the founder of the International Meditation Centre in Yangon, Myanmar and is principally known as a leading twentieth century authority on Vipassana meditation. (Full article...)

Āryadeva (fl. 3rd century CE) (IAST: Āryadeva; Tibetan: འཕགས་པ་ལྷ་, Wylie: 'phags pa lha, Chinese: 提婆 菩薩 Tipo pusa meaning Deva Bodhisattva), was a Mahayana Buddhist monk, a disciple of Nagarjuna and a Madhyamaka philosopher. Most sources agree that he was from "Siṃhala", which some scholars identify with Sri Lanka. After Nagarjuna, he is considered to be the next most important figure of the Indian Madhyamaka school.

Āryadeva's writings are important sources of Madhyamaka in East Asian Buddhism. His Catuḥśataka (Four Hundred Verses) was influential on Madhyamaka in India and China and his *Śataka (Bailun, 百論, T. 1569) and Dvādaśamukhaśāstra (both translated by Kumārajīva in the 4th century) were important sources for the East Asian Madhyamaka school. Āryadeva is also known as Kanadeva, recognized as the 15th patriarch in Chan/Zen Buddhism and some Sinhalese sources also mention an elder (thera) called Deva which may also be the same person. He is known for his association with the Nalanda monastery in modern-day Bihar, India. (Full article...)

Tsongkhapa (Tibetan: ཙོང་ཁ་པ་, [tsoŋˈkʰapa], meaning: "the man from Tsongkha" or "the Man from Onion Valley", c. 1357–1419) was an influential Tibetan Buddhist monk, philosopher and tantric yogi, whose activities led to the formation of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.

His philosophical works are a grand synthesis of the Buddhist epistemological tradition of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, the Cittamatra philosophy of the mind, and the madhyamaka philosophy of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti.

Central to his philosophical and soteriological teachings is "a radical view of emptiness" which sees all phenomena as devoid of intrinsic nature. This view of emptiness is not a kind of nihilism or a total denial of existence. Instead, it sees phenomena as existing "interdependently, relationally, non-essentially, conventionally" (which Tsongkhapa terms "mere existence"). (Full article...)

Philippe Rei Ryu Coupey, born in New York City, is a Zen monk in the Sōtō line of Taisen Deshimaru. (Full article...)

Małgorzata Braunek (30 January 1947 – 23 June 2014) was a Polish film and stage actress. (Full article...)

Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, Nāgārjuna; c. 150 – c. 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher and Mahāyāna Buddhist monk of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. Nāgārjuna is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers. He was the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy and a defender of the Mahāyāna movement. His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Root Verses on Madhyamaka, MMK) is the most important text on the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness. The MMK inspired a large number of commentaries in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean and Japanese and continues to be studied today. (Full article...)

Xuanzang (Chinese: 玄奘; Wade–Giles: Hsüen Tsang; ; 6 April 602 – 5 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (陳褘 / 陳禕), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of his journey to the Indian subcontinent in 629–645, his efforts to bring at least 657 Indian texts to China, and his translations of some of these texts. He was only able to translate 75 distinct sections of a total of 1,335 chapters, but his translations included some of the most important Mahayana scriptures.

Xuanzang was born on 6 April 602 in Chenliu, near present-day Luoyang, in Henan province of China. As a boy, he took to reading religious books, and studying the ideas therein with his father. Like his elder brother, he became a student of Buddhist studies at Jingtu monastery. Xuanzang was ordained as a śrāmaṇera (novice monk) at the age of thirteen. Due to the political and social unrest caused by the fall of the Sui dynasty, he went with his brother 300 miles south to Chengdu in the current-day province of Sichuan, where he was ordained as a bhikṣu (full monk) at the age of twenty, studying Buddhist texts and practices at the monastery.

He later travelled throughout China in search of sacred books of Buddhism. At length, he came to Chang'an, then under the peaceful rule of Emperor Taizong of Tang, where Xuanzang developed the desire to visit India. He knew about Faxian's visit to India and, like him, was concerned about the incomplete and misinterpreted nature of the Buddhist texts that had reached China. He was also concerned about the competing Buddhist theories in variant Chinese translations. He sought original untranslated Sanskrit texts from India to help resolve some of these issues. (Full article...)