Meet Geshe Thupten Phelgye, our Tibetan Buddhist writer

Geshe Thupten Phelgye is currently serving as the global scholar in residence at Gonzaga University. Phelgye, from Tibet, became a monk when he was 17 years old. Hereceivedboth his novice and Bichu ordinations from the Dalai Lama in the 1970s. In 1998 he founded the Universal Compassion Movement after receiving support and blessings at a private audience with the Dalai Lama. In 1999 Phelgye was elected as the first president of the International Gelug Society and passed a resolution on vegetarian diet in Gelugpa Monasteries and Nunneries. At the 2000 National Religious Conference in Dharamsala, he brought up a proposal to ban eating meat in all the monasteries and nunneries of all sects of Tibetan Buddhism and a resolution was passed successfully. In 2001 he was elected as a member of Tibetan Parliament in Exile. Since 2003he has been working on the Sulha Peace Project in the Middle-East. Apart from his parliamentary works Phelgye has traveled and given talks and teachings around the world advocating vegetarianism as a way of compassionate living. Twitter:@GeshePhelgye

Tracy Simmons

Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.