The Translator’s Intention: Motivation, Intended Impact, and Why They Matter
This open discussion session focused on the themes of intention and motivation. Thomas Doctor and Eric Colombel facilitated the exploration of many topics the audience brought, including questions such as: What are the assumptions and expectations about reading audience? As a translator, do you feel the need to be clear and transparent about our background, perspectives, influences, and agenda? If so, how do you address that? What are we trying to reach in the readers? Cognitive understanding? Inspiration? Aesthetic enrichment? Somatic responses? Visionary opening? How do you assess the success of a translation?
Event: TT Conference 2017 – Discussion Session
Date: June 1, 2017 – 2:30 pm
Facilitators: Eric Colombel, Thomas Doctor
Topics: Intention, Translation, Translator's Motivation
Thomas Doctor
Dharmachakra Translation Committee
Thomas Doctor has studied Buddhist philosophy at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery in Kathmandu since the late 1980s. He teaches in the Rangjung Yeshe Institute graduate program and works for the Dharmachakra Translation Committee (DTC). Thomas received his BA and MA degrees in Tibetan Studies from the University of Copenhagen and his PhD in Buddhist Studies from the University of Lausanne. He is the author of Reason and Experience in Tibetan Buddhism: Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü and the Traditions of the Middle Way (Routledge 2013). With DTC he has translated sūtras and tantras for the 84000 Project, as well as classics of Buddhist philosophy, such as Ornament of Reason (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā with commentary by Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü, Snow Lion 2011) and Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sūtras (Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra with commentaries by Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham, Shambhala 2014).
Eric Colombel
Tsadra Foundation (President and Founder)
Eric Colombel is the president and founder of Tsadra Foundation, a nonprofit trust established in 2000 to provide vital funding for the combined study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism in the west. He has been a student of Buddhism from the age of 17, studying the Tibetan language at INALCO in Paris and Buddhist theory and practice at various Buddhist centers, receiving teachings and transmissions from teachers of all the principal Tibetan traditions. Educated in IT, as a young student in Paris he created the first digital script for the Bhutanese Dzong-kha language system. Later in New York he was instrumental in developing the digital architecture for the then radically new Asian Classics Input Project. In 2000 he decided to use a western philanthropic model as a means for contributing to the furthering of wisdom and compassion in Western minds through the creation of Tsadra Foundation.
