Meet the Author

Bruce Berlin has been a Buddhist meditator since 1973 when he trained with Thubten Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe at the Kopan monastery outside Kathmandu. Since then, he has attended several sesshins with Zen Master Sasaki Roshi as well as Vipassana retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

Berlin began his legal career at the Legal Aid Society in Trenton, New Jersey. He also practiced poverty law at Western Massachusetts Legal Services in Greenfield, Massachusetts. In 1982, he co-founded and directed New Mexicans for a Bilateral Nuclear Weapons Freeze. He also created and directed The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution to bring together people with diverse political views to find common approaches to such issues as furthering US-Soviet relations and ending the Nicaraguan War diplomatically. Berlin conducted the latter project as a US Institute of Peace Fellow. He later founded and directed New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics.

Prior to his retirement in 2012, Berlin spent eight years as a senior attorney with the New Mexico Public Education Department, where he brought disciplinary charges against educators for violations of the department's code of ethics. The author of "Breaking Big Money's Grip on America," Berlin has one daughter and resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.