Transcendence of the Mundane with Bill Porter (Red Pine)

Each spring, The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism and Naropa University host an evening lecture with the visiting Lenz Scholar. This year, we welcome Bill Porter (Red Pine). Bill Porter, known by his pen name Red Pine, publishes books dealing with Chinese culture and translations of its seminal texts. Born in Van Nuys, California, Porter spent his formative years in Northern Idaho before serving in the US Army from 1964 to 1967. He pursued Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara before entering graduate school at Columbia University in 1970. Porter’s interest in Buddhism led him to a monastery in Taiwan in 1972, where he spent three years before embarking on a journey teaching English and working as a journalist in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Since 1993, he has resided in Port Townsend, Washington, and has dedicated himself to independent scholarship, translating Buddhist texts, and Chinese poetry. His works have garnered numerous awards, including NEA translation fellowships, a PEN translation award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation. More recently, in 2023, he was honored in Beijing with the Special Book Award of China. Learn more about the Fredrick P. Lenz Foundation: https://fredericklenzfoundation.org Discover Naropa Extended Campus: https://www.naropa.edu/academics/exte...