John McRae

John McRae was a leading authority on Chinese Buddhism. He authored the books Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism and The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism, as well as many important articles. McRae also wrote one of the few English translations of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra for the Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. He taught at Cornell University and Indiana University, and was serving as a lecturer at Komazawa University in Tokyo at the time of his death.