Roger R. Jackson

Roger Jackson is John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion, Emeritus, at Carleton College, where he taught the religions of South Asia and Tibet for three decades. He also has taught at the University of Michigan, Fairfield University, McGill University, and Maitripa College. He has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, where he studied under Geshe Lhundub Sopa and Stephan Beyer. His scholarly interests include Indian and Tibetan Buddhist systems of philosophy, meditation, and ritual; Buddhist religious poetry; the study of mysticism; religion in Sri Lanka; and the contours of modern Buddhist thought. His books include Is Enlightenment Possible? (1993), Tibetan Literature (with José Cabezón, 1996), Buddhist Theology (with John Makransky, 1999), Tantric Treasures (2004), The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems (with Geshe Sopa et al., 2009), Mahāmudrā and the Bka’ brgyud Tradition (with Matthew Kapstein, 2011), Mind Seeing Mind: Mahāmudrā and the Geluk Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism (2019), which received the 2020 Toshihide Numata Award for the “outstanding book in any area of in Buddhist Studies,” Rebirth: A Guide to Mind, Karma, and Cosmos in the Buddhist World (2022), and Saraha: Poet of Blissful Awareness (2024). He has written many articles, book chapters, and reviews, and presented regularly at national and international scholarly conferences. He is a past editor of the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies and of the Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies. A longtime practitioner of Buddhism, he has studied under teachers from the Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan traditions, enjoying a special connection to the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. He regularly teaches on Indian, Tibetan, and East Asian texts and meditative practices at Buddhist centers throughout the U.S.