Lineage

Anne C. Klein and Harvey B. Aronson, PhDs in Buddhist Studies with a long history of learning from the highest Tibetan lamas, founded Dawn Mountain in 1996. As scholars, translators and gifted teachers, they serve seekers of all stripes and have fostered a strong global community of students. 

Anne Carolyn Klein/Lama Rigzin Drolma, is Professor of Religion at Rice University and a Founding Teacher at Dawn Mountain Tibetan Buddhist Temple in Houston. Her Buddhist study and practice in three of Tibet’s great spiritual traditions took place at the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin, and Geshe Wangyal’s Retreat House in the US, as well as in India, Nepal and Tibet.

In 1970, she began two-plus decades of close study and practice with the most eminent Geluk scholar-masters of their generation, including Lati Rinpoche, Denma Locho Rinpoche, and Kensur Yeshe Tupden. Her Nyingma Dzogchen training began with the late Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche of Nepal in 1974 and continues currently with Ad.zom Paylo Rinpoche, whom she met in Tibet 1996 and who named her Dorje Lopön (Vajra Master) in 2010, asking her to teach his treasures. Her other Nyingma masters include Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche and Lama Gonpo Tseden. Likewise, Anne studied and practiced closely with Bön Dzogchen masters Yongdzin Rinpoche and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche for nearly a decade.

Her teaching focuses especially on the Heart Essence Dzogchen traditions with emphasis on Longchenpa’s and Jigme Lingpa’s tradition, as well as recent treasures revealed by Ad.zom Rinpoche. Through Dawn Mountain, she offers ongoing teachings and conversations with emphasis on presence in the body and a gentle process of knowing and making friends with our own lived experience.

Anne’s publications include:

Strand of Jewels: My Teachers’ Essential Guidance on Dzogchen by Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche 

Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists and the Art of the Self

Unbounded Wholeness: Dzogchen, Bon, and the Logic of the Nonconceptual with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche 

Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Path to the Middle: Oral Madhyamaka in Tibet

Knowledge & Liberation 

Knowing, Naming and Negation

Harvey Aronson/Lama Namgyal Dorje holds a BS in Chemistry from Brooklyn College, an MSW from Boston University, and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin. He has studied extensively with prominent teachers in the Geluk, Dzogchen and Theravada traditions. Harvey is the author of Buddhist Practice on Western Ground and Love and Sympathy in Theravada Buddhism and is a recognized expert in the intersections between traditional Buddhist practice and Western therapeutic modalities.

After initially studying and practicing in the Theravada tradition, in 1974 Harvey began studying with Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche. Rinpoche was asked in 1960 by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to lead the school of the Nyingma tradition in Japan, which he did for 10 years while teaching in Japanese universities, returning to India to establish a school to educate Tibetan monks in the Nyingma tradition. He is the author of a 13-volume history of the Tibetan Buddhism and taught extensively in Asia and the West. In 1999, Harvey began studying with Ad.zom Rinpoche and his sister Jetsun Wangmo who formally recognized him as Dorje Lopön in 2010 and empowered him to provide support to advanced students immersed in traditional Buddhist practices.

Anne and Harvey married in 1976 and have been traveling the path together since they met in Wisconsin in 1969. They have shared their involvement in the practice, translation, and study of Heart Essence teachings and developed the awareness that modern persons raised in a secular culture need a range of supports for practice that are not explicitly part of traditional Tibetan training. Dawn Mountain’s programs utilize mentoring, continuous teacher input, and close community, as well as carefully addressing the personal experience of the teachings themselves. This unique aspect of Dawn Mountain’s program draws deeply on Harvey’s extensive knowledge and clinical experience working with clients and the human condition we all share.