David Molk:  

Life David Molk was born in Palo Alto, California in 1953. His family moved to Los Angeles and then Ohio when he was 3. His mother, Marguerite, was his first teacher in language and music and he gravitated toward music as a primary interest. After Reynoldsburg High School and finally Worthington High School in 11th and 12th grades, he attended Oberlin Conservatory with a scholarship in flute. He pursued a career in performance of Celtic and Appalachian string-band music as well as African, Indian and other world music, and owned a music store until 1980. At that time he sold the store, went to India, and played flutes in Bombay film orchestras for a year. Then he went to Dharamsala and took a position teaching western music notation and folk music to the young Tibetans at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. He attended some classes at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives and found himself profoundly impressed and moved by the Teachings of Buddha as well as by the depths of compassion, patience and good humor embodied by its resident Lama, Venerable Geshe Ngawang Dhargye who became one of his root lamas. Out of an aspiration to be able to communicate with the Tibetan lamas directly David began to study Tibetan language. Then, for an insider's view of practice, for five years, he studied Tibetan and translated for classes on the monastic textbooks at Venerable Geshe Rabten's Institute for High Tibetan Studies in Switzerland. Since 1987 David has continued to translate for lamas of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. David loves translation work and specializes in poetic and musical translations for practices such as Chöd, a melodious practice chanted with a large hand drum. After returning from India in 1981 he met his wife Gayle in California, and has now lived in Big Sur, California for 25 years. Over that period he has worked all sorts of jobs but now specializes in translation. He has continued to play music, as a solo performer and...Expand for more