Edwin Bernbaum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Mountaineering records
- Writings on sacred mountains and sacred natural sites
- Nature conservation
- Leadership coaching
Edwin Bernbaum | |
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| Born | 26 August 1945 |
| Education | Harvard College University of California, Berkeley |
| Occupations | Scholar, author, mountaineer, lecturer, leadership coach |
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| Spouse | Diane Bernbaum |
| Children | David Bernbaum Jonathan Bernbaum |
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| Website | https://www.peakparadigms.com/ |
Edwin Bernbaum (born 26 August 1945), also known as Ed Bernbaum, is an American scholar of comparative religion and mythology, mountaineer, author, public speaker, and leadership instructor. His writings and public engagement of several decades with international organisations such as the IUCN and The Mountain Institute have been considered foundational in bringing attention to the present-day cultural significance and conservation potential of sacred mountains and sacred natural sites all across the world. Alongside, his book The Way to Shambhala (1980) is considered a seminal text on the mystical kingdom of Shambhala in the fields of Tibetology and Buddhist eschatology.
Edwin Bernbaum was born to Maurice M. Bernbaum and Betty Hahn Bernbaum. His father was a career diplomat in the American Foreign Service.[1][2]
Edwin is married to Diane Bernbaum, former director of the Midrasha at Berkeley. Edwin and Diane have an elder son, David. Their younger son Jonathan Bernbaum died in December 2016 at the age of 34, in a warehouse fire in Oakland that destroyed the Ghost Ship artists' collective.[3]
Education
Bernbaum obtained an AB in mathematics from Harvard College and a PhD in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on comparative religion and mythology.[4][5] He also did additional graduate work in social college and anthropology at the Harvard University.[6]
Career
Mountaineering
Bernbaum began climbing as a teenager in the Ecuadorean Andes, where his father was in the foreign service.[7] In the Andes, some of his summits include Cotopaxi, Iliniza Sur, and the first ascent of South Antizana.[5][8] In 1965, he was part of the expedition that made the first ascent of the northwest ridge of Mt St Elias, the second highest mountain in Alaska.[9] In 1968, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, he attempted Annapurna South, during which he got caught in an avalanche with another climber and got swept down 1,000 feet.[5] Bernbaum's interest in the role of mountains in religion and mythology was born soon after this event, when he met the abbot of the Tengboche monastery, after climbing a new route on a peak near Mt Everest. The Lama told him about Shambhala, a Shangri-La-like realm of peace and contentment in Buddhist cosmology.[7][5]
Bernbaum was president of the Harvard Mountaineering Club and instructed at the Colorado Outward Bound School.[10] He was featured in "Beyond the Mountaintops: Extraordinary Mountaineers, Extraordinary People," an exhibition at the American Mountaineering Museum on eight climbers (including Hillary and Norgay, among others) who pioneered advances in climbing and humankind.[11]
Sacred natural sites and conservation
Bernbaum was a programme director of The Mountain Institute (TMI).[5] At the TMI, he founded and directed the 'Sacred Mountains Program'. This program developed interpretive materials with various US National Parks (including Yosemite, Great Smoky Mountains, and Hawai'i) based on the cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic and associations of the natural environment in American, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and other cultures around the world.[6][12]
In the Himalayas, Bernbaum worked on a project at the major Hindu pilgrimage shrine of Badrinath, wherein priests and scientists worked together to encourage pilgrims to replant trees for reasons coming out of their own religious and cultural traditions.[13] Later, he also worked with ICIMOD on developing a roadmap to nominate the Kailash Sacred Landscape (a transboundary region at the western tri-junction of India, Nepal, and China) as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[14]
Since 2012, Bernbaum has been co-chair of the IUCN group on the 'Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas' (CSVPA).[12] Currently, he is also Senior Fellow at the Instituto de Montaña in Peru.[15]
Leadership teaching
At the Wharton School, with Mark Useem, Bernbaum created, led, and instructed in a leadership development programme for executive MBAs and alumni that took them on treks through the Himalayas (to the foot of Mt Everest) and the Alps.[16][11]
