Born in New Mexico in 1945, I was encouraged by my parents to let my curiosity lead me. I was led over the years to study mathematics, science, literature, philosophy, and religion. Eventually I earned a doctorate from University of Toronto, where I specialized in Indian philosophy with a focus on Buddhist philosophy. The academic study of Buddhism was from the beginning motivated by a personal interest in Buddhist thought and practice and a somewhat erratic practice of unsupervised meditation, learned almost entirely from books. In the 1980s I became a member of a Zen community founded by the Korean monk Samu Sunim (1941–2022). There I was given the Dharma name Mubul (無佛) and was active as a contributing editor of the Zen Temple's quarterly magazine called Spring Wind—Buddhist Cultural Forum. Eventually I became aware that Zen was not my cup of tea, and after several years of practicing Buddhism without affiliation I became involved in what was then called Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, now called Triratna Buddhist Order, in which I was ordained with the named Dayāmati in 2000. My day job was teaching Sanskrit language, Asian religions, and Asian philosophy at University of Toronto, McGill University, and the University of New Mexico.