Lion's Roar Teachers
• Mary Mackay James
• Pat MacDonald
• Tim Malnick
• Vincent Power
• Sally Sheldrake
Francesca Fremantle
Francesca Fremantle received a BA in Sanskrit and a PhD for a study of the Guhyasamaja Tantra from the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. During the 1960’s she visited India for the first time and was primarily drawn to Hinduism and Indian culture in general. She also trained in the classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, and took part in performances on London’s South Bank and around the country.
In 1969 she met Chögyam Trungpa, who had recently founded the first Tibetan Dharma centre in Britain at Samye Ling in Scotland, and became his student. The following year he moved to the USA, and subsequently she spent several years there studying with him in Boulder, Colorado. They collaborated on a new translation of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, which was published in 1975.
After Trungpa Rinpoche’s death she became a student of Rigdzin Shikpo, whom she regards as being inseparably united in mind with him.
Her latest book is Luminous Emptiness, published in 2001 by Shambhala Publications. This explains the imagery found in The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Buddhist concepts that underlie it, relating them to everyday life, according to the teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche. She contributed a chapter to Recalling Chögyam Trungpa, by Fabrice Midal, and a Foreward to Rigdzin Shikpo’s latest book, Never Turn Away.
She lives in London, where she translates Sanskrit and Tibetan texts and writes on Buddhism. Her articles and reviews have been published in Buddhism Now, The Middle Way, Tricycle, Buddhadharma and Shambhala Sun. Works in progress, which may or may not ever reach the stage of publication, include a revised translation of the Guhyasamajatantra, a translation of the Caryapadas (songs by some of the Indian mahasiddhas in Old Bengali), a study of the five buddha families, and a comparison of William Blake and Buddhism. Among her other enthusiasms are cats, painting, composing Dharma poems and songs, collecting Buddhist art, gardening and taichi.
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