Our Founders
Anne Carolyn Klein/Lama Rigzin Drolma
Her translation work encompasses both Tibetan texts and oral commentary on them. Her books include Knowledge and Liberation on Buddhist distinctions between intellectual knowing and direct experience; Path to the Middle: The Spoken Scholarship of Khensur Yeshe Thupten, on preparing to meet the ultimate; Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, contrasting Buddhist and feminist understandings of self; and, with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Unbounded Wholeness, which translates and discusses a Dzogchen text from the Bon –Buddhist tradition.
In all of these endeavors, her central thematic interest is the embodied interaction between head and heart as illustrated across a spectrum of Buddhist descriptions of the many varieties of human consciousness. She has studied deeply in three of the five Tibetan traditions, her scholarly work and community teaching-retreats draw from all of these, with special emphasis on Nyingma and Heart Essence traditions in Dharma contexts, or reframing its principles to strengthen life-skills for those seeking to enrich their lives thru contemplative practice.
She brings her 40 years of study and practice in Heart Essence Dzogchen traditions to her teaching at Dawn Mountain and, especially, to the Dzogchen Cycles program, where committed students receive full transmission of Heart Essence practices, including, uniquely a broad spectrum of recent Revealed Treasures by one of one of very great Dzogchen masters in Tibet today.
Harvey Aronson (Lama Namgyal Dorje)
Since 1969 Harvey has been in relationship with Anne Klein (Lama Rigzin Drolma) and in 1994 they formed Dawn Mountain in Houston, Texas. This is a Buddhist religious educational organization devoted to preserving the wisdom of traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice, translating it into modern Western language, and offering support for modern Western practitioners. Harvey and Anne are informed by the supportive insights available from modern psychological and phenomenological science. They are oriented to providing an optimally supportive community environment for the flourishing of their teaching.