Judy Lief, a Buddhist teacher for more than 30 years, was a close student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who trained and empowered her to teach in the Vajrayana and Shambhala traditions. She recently completed work on a three-volume collection of Chögyam Trungpa's teachings, The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma.
Lief worked with Trungpa Rinpoche as executive editor of Vajradhatu Publications and from 1980-1985 as the Dean of Naropa University. Lief was recognized as a senior teacher or “acharya” by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the son and successor of Trungpa Rinpoche.
Author of Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality, she has been presenting classes and workshops on a contemplative approach to death and dying, and on the teachings of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, since 1976. She worked with Florence Wald, a founding mother of the Hospice movement in the United States and former head of the Yale School of Nursing, on several conferences, workshops, and dialogues examining the role of spirituality in the care of the sick and dying.
Judy Lief offers workshops and retreats for pastoral counselors, hospice workers, care givers, and medical personnel internationally on the contemplative care of the dying. She divides her time between teaching, writing, and editing.