Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is the abbot of one of the largest monasteries in Nepal, with over 250 monks. He was born in 1951 in Tibet and fled that country with his family when he was eight years old. He trained in Sikkim, then founded his monastery near Kathmandu in 1976. He has focused on making authentic Tibetan Buddhist teachings available to Westerners. He has authored six books, and he regularly visits and teaches at retreat centers in many countries, including his North American retreat center in California, Rangjung Yeshe Gomde.
David R. Shlim MD ran the world's busiest destination travel medicine clinic in Kathmandu, Nepal for fifteen years, and was the attending physician for all the survivors of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster chronicled in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. He currently lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.