Born in 1953, Dan Martin tried teaching himself Sanskrit in 1968 and practiced writing
Tibetan letters in his aunt’s cool basement in the summer of 1972. He started taking
Tibetan classes at Indiana University in the following year. Today, just five decades later,
he is still working on Tibetan language, history, culture, and religions, and every time
he thinks he has successfully found a way through his earlier errors and delusions,
new ones arise to replace them. Following a life of constant struggle, he likes to think
he is now retired and at peace with the world. But to our dismay the world would seem
to have other plans for him.