Andrew M. McKenzie
Andrew M. McKenzie includes in the least ridiculous part of his CV: classical guitar teacher, very widely unknown as experimental music producer, teacher of thinking, complementary education advocate and mood engineer. As a general consultant (you can consult him generally about anything), he has covered more ground than he cares to remember, and has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous IT work, so you don’t have to. However, within the Dharma Pages, he teaches beginners – from the ground upwards – the Tibetan language (and how to translate it), as well as the rudiments of Tibetan Calligraphy – watch for the first real instruction manual by Tashi Mannox edited by this chap to be published by Wisdom next April. Fred (that’s him on the left) occasionally pretends to help with some things. Perhaps.
Justin Barber / Jinpa
Justin Jinpa is usually found in the kitchen cooking, or cleaning up after cooking. Otherwise, he’s either spending time with his delightfully chatty eight-year-old son or engaged in dharma—perhaps all of the above.
Jinpa received his refuge name from his late teacher and spiritual mother, Tsünma Choetso-La, and it has stuck ever since. Also an ordained repa under Lama Justin Von Bujdoss given the repa name Repa Rangjung Tukje (རས་པ་རང་བྱུང་ཐུགས་རྗེ་).
Drawn to building open, dharma-oriented communities, Jinpa discovered a love of reading aloud through countless hours spent with his son and a good book. He offers recitations of prayers and texts, mantra chanting, and conversation about all of the above.
A lover of Tibetan Medicine with a newfound interest in Ayurveda, that’s mostly what else Jinpa talks about—either too much or not enough. Either way, he looks forward to connecting!
Rob Vanwey, J.D., M.A.
These days, Rob spends most of his time with animals – either with his flock at home or with the many residents of the zoo where he works. When he’s not studying animal behavior, he is analyzing human behavior. And he writes prolifically about it on his Substack and Medium platforms. At the university, he teaches multiple subjects involving human behavior, courses in anthrozoology, criminal justice, and history.
From his early days in college, Rob developed a deep love for the Himalayas. He lived and worked in Nepal many times over the years. Most recently, he served as the director of the cybersecurity, ethical hacking, and digital forensics department at a university in Kathmandu. That came after a long career in the emergency services, first in the fire department and then with law enforcement.
Rob studied Tibetan language at the International Buddhist Academy (अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय बौद्ध एकेडेमी) in Nepal under Khenpo Ngawang Jorden and Chinese at Capital Normal University (首都师范大学) in Beijing. He has traveled to monasteries in Nepal, China, India, and Vietnam. In 2010, he spent several months cataloging the books held by Buddhist schools and temples in central and southern China, sponsored by the Woodenfish Foundation. Following Nepal’s 2015 Gorkha earthquake, for which he served as a first responder, he published the Emergency Preparedness Manual, a guideline for monasteries and schools to prepare for and survive disasters, offered in English, Nepali, and Tibetan.
