- Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi ; born 19 June 1945 in Yangon (Rangoon), is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma), and a noted prisoner of conscience. A Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship. - Nhat Hanh
Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese: "Nhất Hạnh"; IPA: is an expatriate Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk. A teacher, author, and peace activist, Nhat Hanh was born in central Vietnam on October 11, 1926. He joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, studied Buddhism as a novice, and was fully ordained as a monk in 1949. Commonly referred to as Thich Nhat Hanh, the title "Thích" is used by all Vietnamese monks and nuns, … - Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from ancient India and the historical founder of Buddhism. He is universally recognized by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: a majority of 20th century historians date his lifetime from "circa" 563 BCE to 483 BCE, while some more recent scholars have suggested dates around 410 or 400 BCE for his death. - Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava (Ch: 蓮華生上師, Pinyin: "Lian Hua Sheng Shang Shi"; Tib: "Pema Jungne", Wylie: "padma 'byung gnas"), in Sanskrit meaning "lotus-born", is said to have brought Tantric Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century. In Bhutan and Tibet he is better known as Guru Rinpoche ("Precious Master") where followers of the Nyingma school regard him as the second Buddha. - I Ching
I Ching (monk) or Yi Jing (義淨, 三藏法師義淨 635-713) was a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk, originally named Zhang Wen Ming (張文明). The written records of his travels contributed to the world knowledge of the ancient kingdom of Srivijaya, as well as providing information about the other kingdoms lying on the route between China and the Nalanda Buddhist university in India. - Naropa
Naropa (Tibetan; Sanskrit: "Nadaprada", 1016-1100) was an Indian Buddhist mystic and monk, the pupil of Tilopa and brother, or some sources say partner, of Niguma. Naropa was the main teacher of Marpa. Naropa is part of the Golden Garland, meaning a lineage holder of the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu lineage, and was considered an accomplished scholar. A great meditator, he is best known for having enumerated and developed the six yogas of Naropa. - Milarepa
Jetsun Milarepa, (c. 1052-c. 1135 CE) is generally considered one of Tibet's most famous yogis and poets, a student of Marpa Lotsawa, and a major figure in the history of the Kagyu (Bka'-brgyud) school of Tibetan Buddhism. The facts of his life as they are popularly known come from the enormously popular romanticized account in the biography the "Mi-la-rnam-thar" by Gtsang-smyon he-ru-ka rus-pa'i-rgyan-can (1452-1507), … - Bodhidharma
Bodhidharma was the Buddhist monk traditionally credited as founder of Zen. Very little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend, but most accounts agree that he was a South Indian monk who journeyed to southern China and subsequently relocated northwards. The accounts differ on the date of his arrival, … - Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He first became famous during the 1980s, after appearing in several successful Hollywood films, including "An Officer and a Gentleman", and has since retained his status as a leading man. During the 1990s and 2000s, he starred in several well-received films, "Pretty Woman", "Primal Fear", and "Chicago" for which he won a Golden Globe award as Best Actor. - Nichiren
Nichiren (日蓮) (February 16, 1222 - October 13, 1282), born Zennichimaro (善日麿), later Zeshō-bō Renchō (是聖房蓮長), and finally Nichiren (日蓮), was a Buddhist monk of 13th century Japan. A controversial figure during his lifetime, he is the founder of Nichiren Buddhism, a major Japanese Buddhist stream encompassing several schools of often widely conflicting doctrine. - Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts (January 6, 1915 - November 16, 1973) was a philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion. He was best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Asian philosophies for a Western audience. He wrote more than twenty-five books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, consciousness, and the pursuit of happiness, … - Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield (b. 1945) was trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India and has taught meditation worldwide since 1974. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1967, he joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to the Public Health Service in northeast Thailand, which is home to several of the world's oldest Buddhist forest monasteries. Here he met the Buddhist master Ajahn Chah, who became Kornfield's teacher for many years. - Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez, popularly nicknamed J.Lo, is an American actress, singer, songwriter, dancer, and fashion designer. She is the richest Hispanic in Hollywood according to the website "A Socialite's Life" and the most influential Hispanic entertainer in America according to "People en Español"s list of 100 Most Influential Hispanics which pays tribute to Hispanics who have had an impact on their communities. - Tenzin Gyatso
Tenzin Gyatso (born 6 July 1935) is the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama. As such, he is often referred to in Western media simply as the Dalai Lama, without any qualifiers. The fifth of sixteen children of a farming family in the Tibetan province of Amdo, he was proclaimed the "tulku" (rebirth) of the thirteenth Dalai Lama at the age of two. On 17 November 1950, at the age of fifteen, … - Bhikkhu Bodhi
Bhikkhu Bodhi (born 1944) is an American Buddhist monk from New York City. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he obtained a BA in philosophy from Brooklyn College in 1966 and a PhD in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School in 1972. Drawn to Buddhism in his early 20s, after completing his university studies, he traveled to Sri Lanka, where he received novice ordination in 1972 and full ordination in 1973, both under the late Ven. - Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff) (1949 -) is an American Buddhist monk of the Thai forest kammatthana tradition. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1971 with a degree in European Intellectual History, he travelled to Thailand, where he studied meditation under Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, himself a student of the late Ajaan Lee. He was ordained in 1976 and lived at Wat Dhammasathit, where he remained following his teacher's death in 1986. - Kelsang Gyatso
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso is a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Gelug teacher (scholar) and author of Buddhist books. He was born in Tibet in 1931 and ordained at the age of eight. In 1976 he was invited by Lama Thubten Yeshe, a Gelug Tulku, to teach at his FPMT center Manjushri Institute, Ulverston, England. After a schism with the FPMT he founded the New Kadampa Tradition in 1991. His teachings have sparked significant controversy. - David Bowie
David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and audio engineer. Active in five decades of rock music, and frequently re-inventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an influential innovator, particularly for his work through the 1970s. Bowie has taken cues from a wide range of fine art, philosophy and literature. He is also a film and stage actor, … - Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 - April 5 1997) was an American poet. Ginsberg is best known for "Howl" (1956), a long poem about the self-destruction of his friends of the Beat Generation and what he saw as the destructive forces of materialism and conformity in United States at the time. - Robert Thurman
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born August 4, 1941) is an American Buddhist writer and academic. He is the Je Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. He also is the co-founder and president of Tibet House New York and currently holds the first endowed chair in this field of study in the United States. Thurman was born in New York City to Elizabeth Dean Farrar, a stage actress, and Beverly Reid Thurman, Jr., … - Ken Wilber
Kenneth Earl Wilber Jr. (b. January 31, 1949, Oklahoma City, USA), is an American integral thinker and author. Working outside the academic mainstream, he has drawn on a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, philosophy, mysticism, postmodernism, science and systems theory to formulate what he characterizes as an integral theory of consciousness. He is a leading proponent of the Integral thought movement, and founded the Integral Institute in 1998. - Sangharakshita
Sangharakshita (1925-) is the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), and the Western Buddhist Order (WBO). He is a prodigious author and public speaker on the subject of Buddhism, especially Buddhism in the West. He is a somewhat controversial figure, admired by his followers for his work in India and the West as well as for his efforts to make the Buddha's teachings accessible to many people throughout the world, … - Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac (pronounced) (March 12 1922 - October 21 1969) was an American novelist, writer, poet, and artist. He is perhaps the best known of a group of writers and friends who came to be known as the Beat Generation, a term he himself created. Kerouac enjoyed some degree of popular appeal but little critical acclaim during his lifetime. Today, however, he is considered an important and influential author. - Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa was a Buddhist meditation master, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and a Trungpa tülku. Widely recognized, both by Tibetan Buddhists and by other spiritual practitioners and scholars (Midal, 2005), as a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, he was a major figure in the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism to the West, founding Vajradhatu and Naropa University and establishing the Shambhala Training method. - Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC (born September 21, 1934 in Westmount, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. Cohen's earliest songs (many of which appeared on the 1968 album "Songs of Leonard Cohen") were rooted in European folk music melodies and instrumentation, sung in a high baritone. - Buddhadasa
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu was one of the most influential Buddhist monks and ascetic-philosophers of the 20th century. Known as an innovative interpreter of Buddhist beliefs, Buddhadasa helped reform Buddhism in his home country of Thailand. While Buddhadasa was an ordained monk in the Theravada branch of Buddhism, having submitted to Thai government regulated ordination rituals, … - Tiger Woods
Eldrick "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Currently the World No. 1, Woods was the highest paid professional athlete in 2006, having earned an estimated $100 million from winnings and endorsements. - Sogyal Rinpoche
Sogyal Rinpoche is a Tibetan Dzogchen lama of the Nyingma tradition. He has been teaching for over 30 years and continues to travel widely in Europe, America, Australia and Asia. He is also the founder and spiritual director of Rigpa—an international network of over 100 Buddhist centres and groups in 23 countries around the world—and the author of the best-selling book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", … - Ajahn Brahm
Venerable Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera (known to most as Ajahn Brahm) was born Peter Betts in London, United Kingdom on August 7 1951. He came from a working-class background, and won a scholarship to study Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. - Daisaku Ikeda
Daisaku Ikeda , President of Soka Gakkai International, Japan - Sharon Salzberg
Sharon Salzberg is a teacher of Asian meditation practices, particularly Vipasannā, (mindfulness), and mettā (lovingkindess) methods. Her approaches also touches on the Brahmavihara meditations. All of these methods originate in the Theravada Buddhism traditions. Together with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, she founded the Insight Meditation Society in 1974. She also co-founded (with Goldstein) the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in 1989. - Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet (originally, often associated with the Beat Generation), essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Since the 1970s, he has frequently been described as the 'laureate of Deep Ecology'. From the 1950s on, he has published travel-journals and essays from time to time. His work in his various roles reflects his immersion in both Buddhist spirituality and nature. - Buddhaghosa
Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa was a 5th century Indian Theravadin Buddhist commentator and scholar. Buddhaghosa means "Voice of the Buddha" in the Pāli language. - Jet Li
Jet Li (born Li Lianjie on April 26th, 1963 in Beijing, China) is a Chinese martial artist, actor, Wushu champion, and international film star. - Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist scholar-monk, and along with his half-brother Asanga, one of the main founders of the Indian Yogācāra school. Vasubandhu is one of the most influential figures in the entire history of Buddhism. Born in Gandhāra in the fourth century, he was at first a Sarvāstivādin when he initially studied Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma, as presented in the Mahā-vibhāsa. - Kate Moss
Katherine Ann Moss (born January 16, 1974), known as Kate Moss, is an iconic English supermodel and fashion designer. She is known for her waifish figure and many advertising campaigns and is also recognised for her high-profile relationships and party lifestyle. She has appeared on over 300 magazine covers. - Sharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning American actress, producer, and former fashion model. She came to international attention for her performance in the 1992 Hollywood blockbuster film "Basic Instinct". - Xuanzang
Xuanzang (was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler and translator that brought up the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period. Xuanzang was born near Luoyang, Henan in 602? as Chén Huī or Chén Yī (陳 褘) and died 5th Feb. 664 in Yu Hua Gong (玉華宮). He became famous for his seventeen year trip to India, during which he studied with many famous Buddhist masters, … - John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992) was an American composer. He is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition "4'33", whose three movements are performed without a single note being played. He was a pioneer of chance music, non-standard use of musical instruments, and electronic music. Though he remains a controversial figure, he is generally regarded as one of the most important composers of his era. - Stephen Batchelor
Stephen Batchelor (b. 1953) is a Scottish-born writer and teacher currently residing in France. Batchelor is best known for his best-selling book about Buddhism, "Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening", in which he advocates an agnostic or secular approach to Buddhism that rejects the supernatural and mythical elements with which Buddhism has traditionally been associated. Following his education in England, Batchelor moved to Dharamsala, …
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