B. ALAN WALLACE has authored, translated, edited, and contributed to more than forty books on Tibetan Buddhism and culture, as well as on the interface between science and religion, and he has spent many years in solitary meditation retreat. Having trained for many years as a Buddhist monk in India, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, and the United States, he then earned a BA in physics and the philosophy of science and later a PhD in religious studies. After teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies and more recently the Center for Contemplative Research.

Zara Houshmand is an Iranian-American writer. She is active in modern Iranian theater as well as traditional Balinese puppetry, and her own plays have been produced in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. She cooks compulsively for friends and especially enjoys cooking for retreats.