Translating the Languages of Contemplative Experience: rdzogs chen dang phyag rgya chen po

In this panel, we draw on our respective explorations of translating Dzogchen (rdzogs chen) and Mahamudra (phyag rgya chen po) texts. Our hope is that you will come away from this session with an enriched tool-kit for your own work. The central thesis we will explore is that because these texts rise from and speak to experience in multiple ways, effective translation must be sensitive to experience on multiple registers. In particular, we look at the challenges of translation from three different experiential perspectives:

  1. Using the rhythms of speech to find grammar and wordings through which an English translation evokes experiences similar to those evoked by the original Tibetan.
  2. Paying attention to the experiences elicited by a translation and what to do with that information.
  3. Exploring the diverse contexts of contemplative practices against the background of their lived worlds to better translate the forms of life of contemplative practices and experiences.

Event: TT Conference 2017 – Translator's Craft Session
Date: June 2, 2017 – 2:30 pm
Speakers: Anne Klein, David Germano, Ken McLeod
Topics: Contemplative Experience, Translation

Anne Klein

Rice University

Anne Carolyn Klein/Rigzin Drolma, Professor and Former Chair of Religious Studies, Rice University, and Founding Director of Dawn Mountain, (www.dawnmountain.org). Her six books include Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission; Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, Knowledge & Liberation, and Paths to the Middle as well as Unbounded Wholeness with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. She has also been a consulting scholar in several Mind and Life programs. Her central thematic interest is the interaction between head and heart as illustrated across a spectrum of Buddhist descriptions of the many varieties of human consciousness.

Ken McLeod

Unfettered Mind

A student and practitioner of Buddhism for over 40 years, Ken McLeod left academia after completing his MA in mathematics. He served as Kalu Rinpoche’s interpreter on his first two North American teaching tours (1972 and 1974-5). Subsequently, he completed two three-year retreats and was then sent to Los Angeles to teach. After Kalu Rinpoche’s passing, Ken established Unfettered Mind in Los Angeles as a place for those whose path lies outside established institutions. Currently his interest is in the translation of teaching poems and prayers. His books include The Great Path of Awakening (1987), Wake Up to Your Life (2001), An Arrow to the Heart (2007), Reflections on Silver River (2014), and A Trackless Path (2016).

David Germano

University of Virginia

David Germano teaches and researches Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia, and is director of the Tibetan and Himalayan Library, the Tibet Center, the UVa Contemplative Sciences Center, the Tibet Participatory Culture Initiative, and SHANTI (Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts Network of Technological Initiatives). His personal scholarship focuses on the history of Tibetan culture and Buddhism from the ninth to fourteenth century with a special focus on esoteric religious movements. With the Tibet Center he has directed exchange programs between China and the US in relationship to Tibetan communities. Under the Tibet Participatory Culture Initiative, he is working to use technology to support bridges between academics and development projects, and to enable local communities to use modern tools as vehicles for their own self-expression and empowerment. At UVa, he is coordinating a pan-University exploration of contemplation in learning and research. Germano is currently working on a fourfold set of works on the Great Perfection Seminal Heart (rdzogs chen snying thig) tradition.