TIP_AboutTheAuthor
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also available in this same directory (folder), in a slightly modified form, as a pdf file named TIP_AboutTheAuthor.pdf.
About The Author
Mitchell Ginsberg has worked in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and psycholinguistics since the 1960s, and has been a kalyana-mitta (meditation teacher) in the Theravada Buddhist tradition since 1975, leading residential meditation retreats in Great Britain, France, Norway, and the USA. He has been a writer, university professor, and psychotherapist.
Among his publications are three books, Mind and Belief: Psychological Ascription and the Concept of Belief (1972: London and New York),
The Far Shore: Vipassana, The Practice of Insight (1980: London, and 1996, 2001: Delhi; new edition forthcoming, 2008 or 2009), and The Inner Palace: Mirrors of Psychospirituality in Divine and Sacred Wisdom-Traditions (2002; fifth edition, 2008: Nevada City, Calif.), as well as articles published in various scholarly journals in four countries. Several texts are now in preparation for future publication.
He has taught at the University of Michigan (from which he received a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1967), Yale University, The American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Antioch University San Francisco, and elsewhere, in Departments of Philosophy, Buddhist Studies, Far East Studies, and of Clinical, Counseling, and Transpersonal Psychology.
He has held post-doctoral/visiting professor research positions in linguistics at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), in Buddhist Studies at the University of Texas, in Indic Studies at Yale University, and in the Judaic Studies Pro¬gram, Middle East Studies Program, and Psychiatry Department of the School of Medicine, all at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
A life member of the American Oriental Society, of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, he has maintained a private practice in transpersonal psychotherapy in California since 1982, working with individuals, couples, and families, following earlier work (I) at the Connecticut Mental Health Center (New Haven), (II) in the Connecticut Valley Hospital (Middletown, Connecticut) Laffal Schizophrenic Family Communication Research Project, (III) in the NIMH/Mental Research Institute (Palo Alto) Mosher Soteria Project on alternatives to traditional psychiatric hospitalization for schizophrenic adolescents and young adults,
(IV) in short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy research for post-traumatic stress at the Langley Porter Institute of UCSF (University of California at San Francisco), (V) in advanced clinical family therapy training at the Istituto di Terapia Familiare (Rome, Italy), and in other contexts. More recently, he has worked with an organization devoted to survivors of politically-motivated torture from various countries around the world in their search for political asylum and physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being.
He has been Moderator since 1996 for an on-line (internet) discussion group with subscribers to date from at least 72 countries, on the practice of insight (vipassana) meditation, where he is known by some as Jinavamsa, the teacher's name given to him in 1975 by his meditation master, V.R. Dhiravamsa (earlier, Chao Khun Sobhana Dhammasudhi, the Chao Khun, or Abbot, of the Thai Buddhist Mission to Great Britain), whose own meditation master, Phra Dhammadhiraraj Mahamuni (ordination name, Nyanasiddhi Mahathera; also known as Phra Thepsiddhimuni), Tripitakacarya, and Principal Vipassana Master of Thailand, had been a disciple of Mahasi Sayadaw and had served as deputy abbot to Phra Phimoldham (ordination name, Asabha Mahathera; also known as Chao Khun Vimaladhamma), Abbot of Bangkok's Mahathat Monastery and early pioneering advocate of the practice of vipassana meditation in Thailand both for monks and lay people, who was ultimately promoted to the high rank and position of Somdej with the honorable title and name of Somdej Phra Buddhacarya. (On alternative spellings here, see note below.)
Since Summer 2000, Mitchell has also been a Co-moderator of an on-line discussion group oriented to the Chishtiyya Sufi Way, a tariqa or Sufi path founded in the tenth century C.E. by Khwaja Abu Ishaq Shami Chishti and moved in the thirteenth century to India by Khwaja Muhinuddin Chishti, known as Gharib Nawaz. This discussion group is open to both Muslims and non-Muslims, following the orientation of this tariqa, where foreign visitors have always been admitted.
And, since September 2001, he has been Moderator of an on-line discussion group formed after the events of September 11, 2001, to provide a context for interested individuals to discuss concerns and consider the development of creative and realistically applicable visions for world peace, in both short-term and long-range contexts.
See here, respectively, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/insightpractice, .../group/Chishtiyya, and .../group/CreativeSolutionsForPeace.
Further, he and his wife Francoise have co-led workshops in France and the USA since 1994 on the Yoga of Love. Finding primary application in the intimacy of couples, this path (elsewhere called Tantra or Sacred Sexuality) is based on the intense union of expanded awareness and loving respectfulness that is nourished by the energy of passion. It is derived in part from Hindu, Indic and Tibetan Buddhist, and Taoist tantric sources.
The couple have two children, Tania and Anatole, who have moved from childhood and adolescence into adulthood during the writing of this work.
For those interested, some photographs of the author may be found at
TIP_portraits.pdf.
Kalyana mitta (inspiring, encouraging friend) is the most usual name for a meditation teacher in the Theravada tradition; also used are the names kammatthanadayaka, kammatthanadesaka, and kammatthanacariya: giver, indicator, and teacher of kammatthana, kammatthana being literally the place for work, of areas, that is, for observing with meditative mindfulness. For more, see discussions in PTSPali, p. 193b; VSM.III.28,57; Mahasi Sayadaw, The Progress of Insight, p. 55; and BuddhDict, pp. 73,212.
Some texts use variant spellings in relating the above Thai history:
Wat Mahathat: Wat Mahathad, Wat Mahadhatu.
Nyanasiddhi: Nanasiddhi, etc.
Thepsiddhimuni: Tepsiddhimuni.
Phimoldham: Phimontham, Phimolatham, Pimolatham, etc.
Somdej Phra Buddhacarya: Somdej (or Somdet) Phra Buddhacarn,
Somdej Phra Phutthajan (or Phuttajan or Buddhajarn).
Buddhacarya: Phutthajarn, Phutdhacharn, etc.
For more, here are some
links that I have at present organized into two groupings.
More on such matters on my
Home Page.
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