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Karma Lekshe Tsomo (born 23 September 1944) is a Buddhist nun, scholar and social activist. She is a professor at the University of San Diego, where she teaches Buddhism, World Religions, and Dying, Death, and Social Justice. She is co-founder of the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women and the founding director of the Jamyang Foundation, which supports the education of women and girls in the Himalayan region, the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, and elsewhere. She took novice precepts as a Buddhist nun in France in 1977 and full ordination in Korea in 1982.

Early life

Karma Lekshe Tsomo's was born in Delaware in 1944 under her given name, Patricia Zenn. She was raised in Malibu California. Her birth surname, Zenn comes from a misspelling on a relative's passport of the German last name Zinn. This error led to a childhood interest in Zen Buddhism and her career as a Buddhist scholar and nun. In 1977, Patricia Zenn became a novice nun in France, ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition by the Sixteenth Gyalua Karmapa. At this time, she was given the name Karma Lekshe Tsomo. Later that year, she moved to Dharamshula, India and took classes under the Dalai Lama. In 1982, she took full ordination in Korea.

Scholarly career

Karma Lekshe Tsomo is a professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of San Diego, where she has taught since 2000. After fifteen years studying Buddhism at Dharamsala, she did her postgraduate work at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, gaining a PhD in Comparative Philosophy in 2000. Her research has primarily concerned women in Buddhism, death and dying, and Buddhist philosophy and ethics.