He was Emeritus professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia, where he taught for more than three decades beginning in 1973.
[1] He authored more than twenty-five books about Tibetan Buddhism, among them the highly influential Meditation on Emptiness,[2] which appeared in 1983, offering a pioneering exposition of Prasangika-Madyamika thought in the Geluk tradition.
From 1979 to 1989 he was the Dalai Lama's chief interpreter into English[3] and he played a significant role in the development of the Free Tibet Movement.
[4] In 2006 he published his English translation of a major work by the Jonangpa lama, Dolpopa, on the Buddha Nature and Emptiness called Mountain Doctrine.
He graduated from Harvard College (BA) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD).