Jack Petranker holds degrees from Stanford, Yale Law School, and the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a student of Tibetan teacher Tarthang Tulku for more than 40 years, and has worked for the Nyingma organizations as an editor, writer, and teacher. A past Dean of the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, he is Director of the Mangalam Buddhist Research Center and the Center for Creative Inquiry, and has taught mindfulness for decades.