Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel

Samten Ling

Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel has studied and practiced the Buddhadharma for 30 years under the guidance of her teacher and husband, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She has been intimately involved with Rinpoche’s work in bringing Buddhist wisdom to the West. Having spent over six years in retreat, she now serves as the Retreat Master for Samten Ling, a long-term retreat center located in Southern Colorado. Elizabeth delights in wrestling with the challenges that tend to plague modern day practitioners, while maintaining a deep respect for the tradition she comes from. She teaches throughout the U.S. and Europe. She holds a degree in anthropology and an MA in Buddhist Studies and is the author of The Power of an Open Questionand The Logic of Faith, which will be released in August, 2017.

Sarah Plazas

Ewam and Namchak

Sarah has been a practicing Buddhist since 1999, and has been studying the Tibetan language since 2002. She lived at the Garchen Buddhist Institute in Arizona for five years, completing the first three-year retreat there. Sarah studied at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal in their translator training program. Her main teachers are Garchen Rinpoche, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, and Tulku Sang ngag Rinpoche. Sarah served as Tulku Sang ngag Rinpoche’s personal interpreter for five years, and Lama Tharchin Rinpoche’s interpreter for the last year of his life. Sarah has worked with the Namchak Foundation for the past two years, translating the corpus of Tsasum Linga’s Namchak cycle with Richard Barron. She translated Luminous Moonlight: The Life of Do Dasal Wangmo.

Ari Goldfield

Wisdom Sun

Ari Goldfield is a Buddhist teacher, translator, and psychotherapist in private practice. Along with his wife Rose, Ari co-directs Wisdom Sun, the international Buddhist community founded in 2011. From 1996-2009, Ari served as translator, attendant, and general secretary to his own teacher, Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. Ari is a published author on Buddhist philosophy and meditation, including chapters in The World’s Great Wisdom (SUNY Press) and Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind (Shambhala Publications), and articles in Buddhadharma and Shambhala Sun magazines. His translations include the books: Sun of Wisdom, Moon of Wisdom, and Stars of Wisdom, and Khenpo Rinpoche’s Song of the Eight Flashing Lances teaching, which appeared in The Best Buddhist Writing 2007 (all Shambhala Publications). Before beginning his Buddhist training, Ari worked as a corporate attorney in Silicon Valley. Ari and Rose live in San Francisco with their three-year-old son, Oliver.

Gyurmé Avertin

Association Namthar

Guillaume Avertin (aka Gyurmé) is a member of Rigpa Translations and the Wu Tai Shan Clan and contributor to the Lotsawa House translations. Gyurmé began his study of the Tibetan language in 1997. He spent two years following the Tibetan program at Langues’O University in Paris, then studied at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal and the Dzongsar Shedra in India. He regularly interprets for teachers visiting Rigpa centres and at the Rigpa Shedra East and works with Association Namthar.