Julia Stenzel is Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies at Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal. She did her graduate studies at the University of the West, Los Angeles, and at McGill University, Montreal, CA. Her interest in Buddhism was ignited by the late Lama Gendun Rinpoche, a Mahāmudrā master from Eastern Tibet, who had been sent by the sixteenth Karmapa to establish monasteries and retreat centers in France. In her early twenties, she joined the efforts of Lama Gendun Rinpoche and his community to establish the monastic hermitage of Dhagpo Kundrol Ling in rural Auvergne, which grew to become the largest retreat place of Tibetan Buddhism in Europe. She spent a decade in three consecutive three year retreats where she received many key transmissions of the Karma Kagyü Tradition. This was followed by years of philosophy and language study. While in residence at the Sakya International Buddhist Academy in Boudha, Nepal, she began her work as a translator and contributed to several sutra translations of the project “84000 – Translating the Words of the Buddha” founded by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Her research interest in Buddhist contemplative traditions and Buddhist ethics led her to her doctoral project, the exploration of compassion in Indian and Tibetan Mahāyāna literature and a critical analysis of Buddhism-derived secular compassion training. She currently works on the translation of several commentaries on the Bodhicaryāvatāra.
She has taught introductory courses on Buddhism, Classical Tibetan language and translation, research seminars on Buddhist ethics, compassion, Buddhism and Psychology and Buddhist contemplative traditions.
She spends her time between Nepal, Germany and North America.