Who is Surya Das?

www.dzogchen.org

Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars. Born Jeffrey Miller, he was raised in Valley Stream on New York's Long Island, where he celebrated his bar mitzvah and earned letters in basketball, baseball, and soccer at Valley Stream Central High School (class of 1968).

While a student at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he attended antiwar protests, marched on Washington, and attended Woodstock.

After graduating with honors from college, he traveled throughout Europe and the East, and he has spent nearly thirty years studying Zen, vipassana, yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism with many of the great old masters of Asia.

Today, Lama Surya Das teaches and lectures around the world, conducting dozens of meditation retreats and workshops each year. Based on his relationship with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Surya Das founded the Western Buddhist Teachers Network and has organized three week-long conferences of Western Buddhist Meditation Teachers with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. He also teaches regularly at Esalen, Open Center, Omega Institute, Interface, at universities in the United States and abroad, and at spiritual centers of all kinds.

He is also a regular contributor to Tricycle magazine, New Age, and Yoga Journal.

When he's not meditating, teaching, or attending a retreat, Surya Das enjoys music, dogs, swimming, bicycling, hiking, and haiku poetry. He resides in Concord, Massachusetts, outside of Boston.

Notable books by Surya Das include:

Awakening the Buddha Within
This book has appeared on Publishers Weekly Religion Bestseller list, and on lists at the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, and Christian Science Monitor.

Awakening the Buddhist Heart
Integrating Love, Meaning and Connection into Every Part of Your Life

Awakening to the Sacred
Building a Spiritual Life from Scratch

The Snow Lion's Turquoise Mane
155 Wisdom Tales From Tibet

Natural Great Pefection
Vajra Songs and Dzogchen Teachings

Surya has appeared on Integral Naked:

Buddha Is as Buddha Does.  Part 2.  From Heroic Effort to Awakened Awareness.7/2/2007
Buddha Is as Buddha Does. Part 1. How to Be a Bodhisattva.5/7/2007
The Influence of One6/12/2006
Gurus and Mentors6/5/2006
The Elegance of Integral Buddhism1/3/2005
A Spiritual Life1/5/2004
The Student-Teacher Relationship11/28/2003
We Have to Be Those Leaders6/23/2003
A Personal Journey to the Ever-Present6/16/2003