Derek Kolleeny

After reading Meditation in Action and Myth of Freedom in high school in the spring of 1976, Derek Kolleeny decided he was a Buddhist and that Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was his teacher. Upon graduating from high school the next year, he attended Naropa Institute in the summer of 1977, in order to meet Rinpoche, but found that he was in retreat. Derek entered Rinpoche’s world and met him the following Spring.

Having become a Buddhist and student of VCTR before entering college, he decided to study Buddhism and its languages in college. At Harvard, he studied Tibetan and Sanskrit with Professors Gary Tubb, Daniel Ingalls, and Masatoshi Nagatomi. For the first two summers he also studied Tibetan and Sanskrit at Naropa Institute with John Rockwell, Bill Ames, and  others.

After graduation, he moved to Boulder, Colorado and joined the Nalanda Translation Committee, initially joining a small group working with John Rockwell on retranslating The Sadhana of Mahamudra. He  participated in sessions with Khenpo Palden Sherab Rinpoche teaching on Shentong Senge Ngaro and Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche teaching on The Treasury of Knowledge, then settled into the group working on The Life of Tilopa by Wangchuk Gyaltsen, with Lama Ugyen Shenpen and Scott Wellenbach, serving as the project coordinator for some time.

These days, Derek is not an active member but remains connected in various ways. Having pursued another career, he has not had time for translation work, but has made it his goal “to get as many folks as possible actually to read some of the incredible books that are being translated by all of you real translators today.” In particular, he has focused on the study of five texts, or core topics, common to most shedra curriculums in the Tibetan tradition, and has been leading a study group dedicated to studying this material to the extent it is available in English translation. Those interested in information on the study group and course materials should contact him at dkolleeny@verizon.net.

Derek lives in Sleepy Hollow, NY, about 30 miles north of New York City and across the street from the legendary Sleepy Hollow cemetery, with his wife, Jane, and their two dogs, Kiki (a husky) and Suki (a shiba enu).