Join us for an evening with the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC) exploring the evolution of Buddhist wisdom and knowledge as it is translated and transformed between cultures and across time. The event will include a talk by renowned scholar Donald S. Lopez, a dramatic Buddhist reading by actor and writer Michael Imperioli, and musical performances from guest artists; this evening promises to be a celebration on multiple levels.

Professor Lopez will discuss how the translation of Buddhist texts has altered cultures over the centuries and around the globe, focusing on Tibetan texts and the legendary efforts of E. Gene Smith to bring about that transformation. Michael Imperioli will follow with a reading that dramatizes the transformative power of the dharma through translation and the arts.

The galleries will be open before and after the event. This evening will be one of the last opportunities to visit the Museum at 150 West 17th Street before it closes on October 6, 2024, and transforms into a global museum without walls.

The 25th Anniversary of the Buddhist Digital Resource Center
When the Rubin Museum opened its doors 20 years ago, the Himalayan and Tibetan polymath Gene Smith (1936–2010) played a pivotal role in shaping our vision and scholarship, and his organization, the Buddhist Digital Resource Center, was headquartered at the neighboring Rubin Foundation for a decade. Gene Smith was best known for his 50 years of efforts to reprint and digitize Tibetan Buddhist texts, and BDRC is now the largest digital library of Buddhist texts in the world. The Rubin’s comprehensive collection of Himalayan art saw itself mirrored in BDRC’s library of Buddhist texts from every tradition, and both institutions are dedicated to public access and contemporary forms of engagement. Auspiciously, the Rubin Museum and BDRC are both celebrating anniversaries and embarking on transformative reinventions this fall.

Donald S. Lopez, is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author, editor, or translator of a number of works, including Prisoners of Shangri-La, The Madman’s Middle Way, Buddhist Scriptures, and The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (with Robert Buswell). In 2000 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Michael Imperioli is a New York City-based actor, writer, and musician. In addition to his Emmy-award winning role in HBO’s critically acclaimed Mafia chronicle The Sopranos, he has acted in films by Martin Scorsese, Walter Hill, Hal Hartley, Abel Ferrara, the Hughes brothers, Paul Auster, and Spike Lee, with whom he also co-scripted and co-produced the feature, Summer of Sam. Imperioli is the guitarist and vocalist for the band Zopa and has served as artistic director of Studio Dante, an off-Broadway theater company. He is the New York Times best-selling author of Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of the Sopranos (with Steve Schirripa), as well as the novel The Perfume Burned His Eyes, which he is currently adapting as a screenplay. A longtime student of Garchen Rinpoche, he serves on the board of the nonprofit The Pureland Project, and recently recorded the audiobook of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s Living is Dying.

Lead support for the Rubin Museum is provided by Bob and Lois Baylis, Barbara Bowman, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Dharma Joy Foundation, Noah P. Dorsky, Fred Eychaner, Christopher J. Fussner, Agnes Gund, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global, the Estate of Lisina M. Hoch, Henry Luce Foundation, The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Matt and Ann Nimetz, The Randleigh Foundation Trust, Shelley and Donald Rubin, Tiger Baron Foundation, and Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation.

General operating support of the Rubin Museum of Art is provided by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Alex J. Ettl Foundation, Daphne Hoch Cunningham and John Cunningham, Anne E. Delaney, Dalio Philanthropies, Dan Gimbel of NEPC, LLC, The Prospect Hill Foundation, Basha Frost Rubin and Scott Grinsell, Namita and Arun Saraf, Linda Schejola, Eric and Alexandra Schoenberg, Eileen Caulfield Schwab, Jesse Smith and Annice Kenan, Tsherin Sherpa, Tong-Tong Zhu and Jianing Liu, with generous donations from the Museum’s Board of Trustees, individual donors and members, and corporate and foundation supporters.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

The Rubin Museum’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.