A 100-YEAR VISION: TRANSLATING THE WORDS OF THE BUDDHA

Translation Skeptic's Q&A

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At Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s invitation, more than 50 of the Tibetan-to-English translators dedicated to the preservation of the Buddhadharma and 7 incarnate lamas traveled to Deer Park Institute in Bir, India, to discuss the aspirations and practicalities of translating the words of the Buddha and to set goals for the next 5, 25, and 100 years. The conference, held from March 15-20, 2009, brought together teachers from the major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and translators from all over the world. The vision of the conference was vast, the atmosphere was enthusiastic and cooperative, and the motivation of the participants to bring the Buddhadharma to the West was inspiring.​

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The resulting Buddhist Literary Heritage Project is immense, ambitious, and important—but it’s difficult for some people to get their minds around it. Translating the entire Buddhist canon will take an enormous amount of energy, and some people have asked us simply: “Why?” Here we’ve attempted to address questions about the project by using the words of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. ​

Q: My lama is part of a living tradition. Why do we need to dredge up the past by translating old sutras?



DJKR: The living traditions of Dharma that still exist today—for example, in Japan, China, Thailand, and Burma—have only survived because they had the foresight to translate the original sacred Buddhist texts into their own languages. Also, those in the Tibetan community who are still able to understand and communicate in classical Tibetan are rare. In about 100 years there will be almost no Tibetans who can read the words of Kangyur and Tengyur and understand their meaning, and very soon it will be too late to do anything about it.

The Dalai Lama: I often tell young Tibetans that if they cannot easily understand Tibetan, then they should read English translations. Now even my own brother uses both texts. He reads the Tibetan, and sometimes when it’s a little difficult to understand the meaning of certain terminology, then he reads the English. He compares the two, and finds it very useful.

 

Q: Why do we need all this text? I have enough practices to do already.

DJKR: Every religion has an original book—Christians have the Bible, Moslems have the Koran, and Buddhists have the Tripitaka. These are of vital importance because what Buddha taught us must always be the final word on any given subject, not what we find in the Shastras—and definitely not what’s to be found in the Tibetan commentaries…. The trend today is for teachers, priests, scholars, politicians, and fanatics to obscure the original meaning of important texts by interpreting them in a way that supports their own personal agendas. This happens in all religions, including Buddhism, and when such problems arise, our beacon of truth can only be the words of Buddha.


http://khyentsefoundation.com/communique/CommuniqueMay09.html

 

Volume 11: Translating The Words Of The Buddha - Keynote Address

published on March 16, 2009

16 March, 2009

Recorded in Bir, India. Press Play to listen online, or download [54M] the podcast as an mp3 file. 58:14 minutes.

Please note: this is a field recording of low fidelity.