Lotus Sutra Summer Program

Speaker Profiles

The instructors include monastic and lay faculty from the Dharma Realm Buddhist University. Coming from a variety of cultural backgrounds, they offer a blend of Western and Eastern views and teaching philosophies.

Week One

Ron Epstein has a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.A. in Chinese language and literature from the University of Washington. He currently is a research professor at the Institute for World Religions in Berkeley. He previously taught Asian and comparative philosophy and religion, including Buddhism, at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Davis. His research interests include the Mahayana sutras and applied Buddhist ethics.

Week Two & Three

Chin He Shr (pinyin: Qin He Shi) is a Sramanera (novice monk). Born in Spain, after receiving a Ph.D. in Chemistry, he came to the United States in 1997 to pursue postdoctoral studies at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. One year later he came upon Buddhism and discovered that it offered a very profound view of life, and a methodology to live it meaningfully. After working in Japan for three years and traveling extensively in Asia, in 2004 he decided to adventure into the Buddhist monastic life at CTTB. He still considers himself a researcher, only that now he has gone deeper and broadened his field of interest.

Douglas Powers holds an M.A. in theology and philosophy from the Graduate Theological Union, and a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Redlands. He teaches part-time at the Graduate Theological Union and serves as regular facilitator at roundtable discussions with young adults in Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. As a practicing Buddhist and high school teacher for over thirty years, he has the ability to explain the Dharma in a way that connects with modern young adults.