Roger Jackson is professor emeritus of Asian studies and religion at Carleton College and a visiting professor of Buddhism at Maitripa College. His research interests include Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and ritual; Buddhist religious poetry; and modern Buddhist thought. Trained by Geshe Sopa in Madison, he is a long-time practitioner and a scholar of Mahamudra; his most recent book, Mind Seeing Mind, is a study of Mahamudra in the Geluk tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
Roger R. Jackson
Books
Recent Articles
How Do We Make Sense of Rebirth?
Questions around rebirth—from how it works to whether it’s even real—have energized and divided Buddhists for millennia. In this excerpt from his book "Rebirth," Roger R. Jackson unpacks the complexity of it all and offers four basic approaches to incorporating it (or not) into our own practice.
Empty, Pure, Luminous: Mind in Dzogchen and Mahamudra
Roger R. Jackson explains how different Tibetan schools approach the nature of mind, and why it matters.
Think Again Before You Dismiss Magic
Roger R. Jackson reviews "Buddhist Magic: Divination, Healing, and Enchantment Through the Ages" by Sam van Schaik.
What the Animals Taught
Roger Jackson reviews "Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination" by Reiko Ohnuma.
Dzogchen Explained
Roger Jackson reviews "Heart of the Great Perfection: Dudjom Lingpa’s Visions of the Great Perfection," Vol. 1 by B. Alan Wallace.
Review: Stephen Batchelor’s “After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age”
In his latest and most ambitious work, "After Buddhism," Stephen Batchelor makes a sustained and serious attempt to argue for his vision of Buddhism.
The Tibetan Leonardo
Kongtrul’s works have deeply influenced modern Kagyu and Nyingma thought and practice, and The Treasury of Knowledge is the most influential of all.
Whose Book of the Dead?
A review of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography" by Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Poems of a Renegade Monk
Review of "In the Forest of Faded Wisdom: 104 Poems by Gendun Chopel, a Bilingual Edition" Edited and Translated by Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Review of “No Time to Lose”
"No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva" by Pema Chödrön, reviewed by Roger Jackson.