Venerable Steve Carlier (Gelong Thubten Sherab) was born in the UK, and has been studying Buddhism since 1977. He first met Lama Yeshe, the founder of the FPMT, and Lama Zopa, its current head, in 1978. He was ordained as a Buddhist monk by Lama Zopa in 1979 and received full ordination from Serkong Tsenshab Rinpoche the following year. He studied for eleven years at Nalanda Monastery in France, and from 1993 to 2004 was one of only a handful of Westerners who have followed the Nalanda (India) tradition of studies at Sera Monastery in India. Since 1978 he has been a student of the revered abbot emeritus of Sera Je monastery, Geshe Jampa Tegchog. More recently he has served as this great master's interpreter. He is currently at Land of Medicine Buddha, teaching the Basic Program.

Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi first became interested in meditation and Buddhism after reading Be Here Now and early translations of Buddhist sutras in the early 1970s, and then in early 1991 she became a student of Tibetan Buddhism. From 1992 to 2000, Venerable Tenzin was director of Vajrapani Institute, co-director the FPMT International Office, and coordinator of FPMT Center Services. She also completed several long meditation retreats over a six-year period. Venerable Tenzin took novice ordination in 2004 with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In 2006 she became a touring teacher in the FPMT, and began teaching in prisons on behalf of the Liberation Prison Project. Venerable Tenzin is authorized by the FPMT to teach at both the foundational and in-depth levels, and is also a teacher of Cultivating Emotional Balance (a secular program developed by Alan Wallace and Paul Ekman). In October 2018 will complete the teacher training for Compassion Cultivation Training, a program developed by Geshe Thubten Jinpa and colleagues at Stanford University.

Jon Landaw was born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1944. He received his A.B. degree in English Literature from Dartmouth College in 1965 and spent three years teaching English as a Second Language with the Peace Corps in Iran (1966-69). Jon worked as English editor for the Translation Bureau of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (1972-77) producing numerous texts under the guidance of Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. As a student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche since the mid-1970′s, he has edited numerous works for Wisdom Publications, including “Wisdom Energy” and “Introduction to Tantra.” He is also the author of “Prince Siddhartha,” a biography of Buddha for children, “Images of Enlightenment,” published by Snow Lion in 1993 and “Buddhism for Dummies”. As an instructor of Buddhist meditation, he has taught in numerous Dharma centers throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. Jon and his wife currently live in Capitola.