Steven D. Goodman In Memoriam

Steven D. Goodman, a founding member of the Buddhist Film Foundation board of directors, died after a long illness, on August 3, 2020. He was 75. A noted author, professor, and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts, his most recent book, The Buddhist Psychology of Awakening: An In-Depth Guide to Abhidharma, (Shambhala, 2020) was published on July 21.

At the time of his death, he was the Research and Program Director of Asian and Comparative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco where he had taught for over twenty years.

He received his PhD in Far Eastern Studies from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, under the pioneering Buddhist scholar Herbert V. Guenther. He lectured and taught Buddhist philosophy and comparative religion at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara, Rice University, the Graduate Theological Union, Nyingma Institute, and Naropa Institute, and was the recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship at Rice University Center for Cultural Studies.

He frequently served as a translator for leading Tibetan Buddhist teachers including Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, Tenzin Wangyal, Bhaka Tulku, and Lama Tharchin. He was a founding member of the Working Committee for The 84000 Project: Translating The Words of The Buddha, and was an advisor to Khyentse Foundation. He co-edited Tibetan Buddhism: Reason and Revelation, a source book for the study of Tibetan philosophical and visionary literature (SUNY Press, 1992), and was the author of “Transforming the Causes of Suffering” in Mindfulness in Meaningful Work (Parallax Press, 1994).

Steven D. Goodman on Abhidharma from his book The Buddhist Psychology of Awakening

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, founder of Khyentse Foundation (and also a filmmaker of note), said in a statement, “Steven had all the requisite academic knowledge and achievements, and he was also one of those very, very rare scholars who looked at Buddhism directly for what it truly is. And so he dared to go beyond both the subjective and the objective. Steven Goodman’s passing is a major loss for Buddhism in America, and especially for the study of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.”

“Before we had produced a single event, he agreed to join the board without hesitation once I told him that there was no paperwork, and that meetings would be meals or conference calls,” said executive director Gaetano Maida. “He always had something useful to offer, not least of which was his prodigious contact list, and his enthusiasm for cinema. He even let us convince him to occasionally introduce films at our fiilm festivals, where he inevitably added something unique and personal to the audience experience. He will be sorely missed by all of us here.”

Steven was known among his students and colleagues for his verbal brilliance and great sense of humor. He often conducted workshops on trauma, the “shadow,” and the trickster and creativity in relation to Tibetan Buddhism. In an interview, he said, “I was once at a teaching with Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, and after everyone was settled he said, ‘You know that we all have Buddhanature. And that means that at some point we’ll all become fully awakened.’ There was a big pause, and then he said, ‘Are you ready? Maybe in the middle of the talk tonight, you will become fully enlightened. Are you ready? It could be very inconvenient. What about all of the plans that you’ve made about where you’ll go after the teaching? You’re depending on not waking up, aren’t you? Maybe you shouldn’t have made so many plans.’”

Steven on pilgrimage in Bhutan, 2002

“directly know
every experience
is magical

the wisdom eye
is now open
clairvoyance
now here

your body is no longer solid
you can travel unrestrained

death time comes &
your material vital forces break down

and your elemental energies transmute
into the blessings
of rainbow remains

…
this is how it is.

now bountiful benefits
will flow

BE HAPPY! GEY – O!”

Translation by Steven D. Goodman of Jangchub Dorje’s Dzokchen heart advice at the urging of Lama Wangdor on June 25, 2005 in Oakland, CA. In Tibetan Literary Arts, 64, 2007, Shang Shung Institute. Shared by Michael Sheehy in the spirit of what Steven called the “poetics of enlightenment.”

In addition to his wife, Joan Marie Wood, he is survived by his son Matthew, a brother, Jeffrey, and three sisters—Deborah, Bonita, and Laura.

The late Rick Fields (author of How the Swans Came to the Lake) kept a handwritten note of something Steven once told him…

 
84000 tribute
Buddhistdoor Global obituary
Khyentse Foundation tribute
Lion’s Roar tribute
Tricycle obituary
Article in Inquiring Mind, Fall 1996, Vol. 13, #1
Article in Inquiring Mind, Fall 1997, Vol. 14, #1
Interview in Inquiring Mind, Spring 2002, Vol. 18, #2
Interview in Inquiring Mind, Spring 2005, Vol. 21, #2
Article in Inquiring Mind, Spring 2012, Vol. 28, #2

Photograph of Steven D. Goodman (top) copyright Sharon Roe.
Photograph of Steven D. Goodman (above poem) copyright Michael Sheehy.
Photograph of note copyright Marcia Cohen Fields.