Transmission and Translation: Priorities for the Next 20 Years

This session was a chance for people to share ideas about priorities and projects for the future. What texts should be translated? What are the needs of the community? What do you see happening in the next 20 years?

Event: TT Conference 2017Discussion Session
Date: June 3, 20172:30 pm
Facilitators: Greg Seton, Holly Gayley
Topics: Priorities, Translation, Transmission


Greg Seton

Dartmouth College

Dr. Greg Seton is presently a lecturer teaching Tibetan Buddhism in the religion department at Dartmouth College and a translator for the 84000 Project. He received an MA in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies with Tibetan language from Naropa University in 2004 and a masters degree in Religious Studies with Sanskrit and Tibetan from University of California Santa Barbara in 2008. After holding a DAAD research fellowship at the University of Hamburg, where he did several years of research under the guidance of Harunaga Isaacson, he received a DPhil in Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhist Studies from the University of Oxford, under Alexis Sanderson and Vesna Wallace, in 2015. Before taking his present job, he worked as professor of Buddhist studies at Mahidol University in Thailand from 2015-2016. Among Dr. Seton’s forthcoming works are his translation of “The Perfection of Wisdom Scripture in 8000 Verse Lengths”; his book “Defining Wisdom” a study of Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries on the Perfection of Wisdom; and his Sanskrit and Tibetan critical editions of Ratnākaraśānti’s Sāratamā, based on 11th and 13th century palm leaf Sanskrit manuscripts and 15th century Tibetan block prints. These are due to be published in 2018.

Holly Gayley

University of Colorado, Boulder

Holly Gayley is Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research focuses on the revitalization of Buddhism in the Tibetan region of Golok since the 1980s. She completed her Masters in Buddhist Studies at Naropa University in 2000 and PhD at Harvard University in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies in 2009. Holly’s first book, about the life and love letters of the contemporary female tertön, Khandro Tāre Lhamo, and her consort Namtrul Rinpoche, was published by Columbia University Press in 2016: Love Letters from Golok: A Buddhist Couple in Modern Tibet. Currently she is translating texts of advice to the laity by Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and his successors at Larung Buddhist Academy in Serta. In 2013, Holly co-organized the conference, “Translating Buddhist Luminaries,” which brought translators and scholars into a conversation about the art of translation in relation to pithy texts of advice by 19th century ecumenical masters such as Patrul Rinpoche, Ju Mipham, and Jamgön Kongtrul. The translations will appear in an edited volume with Wisdom Publications.