Jamyang Gonpo was an important lineage holder in the early development of the Lower Drukpa Kagyu. He was born in southern Tibet, not far from the Bhutanese border, in 1208. His principal teacher, Lorepa Wangchuk Tsondru, was the founder of the Lower Drukpa transmission. Jamyang Gonpo is also understood to have been a direct student of Gyalwa Döndrup, Machik Labdron’s eldest son, as well the recipient of visionary encounters with Machik herself. His writings on Severance constitute part of source material of that tradition, along with those of Machik herself, and represent the earliest commentaries on the practice.

Sarah Harding has been studying and practicing Buddhism since 1974, and has been teaching and translating since completing a three-year retreat in 1980 under the guidance of Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche. She was associate professor at Naropa University for twenty-five years in Boulder, Colorado, where she currently resides, and has been a fellow of the Tsadra Foundation since 2000. She specializes in literature with a focus on tantric practice. Her publications include Creation and Completion; The Treasury of Knowledge: Esoteric Instructions; Niguma, Lady of Illusion; two volumes on Cho and Shije from The Treasury of Precious Instructions; Four Tibetan Lineages: Core Teachings of Pacification, Severance, Shangpa Kagyu, and Bodong; and Ornament of Dakpo Kagyü Thought: Short Commentary on the Mahamudra Aspiration Prayer.

Lodro Tulku Rinpoche was born in 1942 in Eastern Tibet and was confirmed as Tulku at the age of three. He is the sixth Tulku of a line of masters, who dedicated themselves above all to the study and practice of the Chod. He received the inheritance of the great Lama Tsongkhapa and detailed teachings in his personal specialty, the wisdom teachings of the Chod in the tradition of the Powerful Labdron. After his dramatic escape from Tibet, he received full monastic coordination from his main teacher, the great Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, in 1962. In 2000, Rinpoche founded the Samdup Dolma Ling/Wish-fulfilling Tara Island Centre in Erlenbach near Lake Zurich where he has been living ever since. Over the years, Lodro Rinpoche has built up a very extensive collection of rare Buddhist texts and devotes a large part of his time to the translation of these texts into German and English. The practice of the Medicine Buddha and the Arya Tara are of particular concern to him. As a committed teacher, he gives his students lessons and guidance in Lam Rim, Chod and all disciplines of Sutra and Tantra. He is doing his utmost to transfer this wisdom teaching in an authentic way into Western culture.