Translating Sadhanas and Rituals
Discussing the translation of the genre of sadhana and ritual materials, presenters consider particular challenges and rewards. Stephen Gethin talks about accuracy and precision as they relate to sadhana readership and considers the demand for chantability of the ritual texts in English. Anne Klein follows this by considering the somatic and cognitive experience of practice, melody as transmission, and the possible trade-offs in the process. Larry Mermelstein speaks about specific choices in translation that elicit somatic experience during the practice of sadhana and ritual.
Event: TT Conference 2014 – Workshop
Date: October 4, 2014 – 4:30 pm
Speakers: Anne Klein, Larry Mermelstein, Stephen Gethin
Topics: Liturgies, Translation
Stephen Gethin
Padmakara Translation Group; Tsadra Foundation Fellow
Stephen studied veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, where he was also awarded a choral exhibition, a position he was subsequently obliged to resign when his interest in Buddhism grew to the point where he had to choose between meditation classes and Sunday evensong. After a number of years in professional practice, during the 1980s he undertook two three-year retreats in France, where he now lives. He became a Tsadra Foundation Translation Fellow in 2005. His published translations include Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend, Zurchungpa’s Testament, and A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom. He is currently working on Jamgön Mipham’s commentaries on the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra and Padmasambhava’s Garland of Views, and a detailed preliminary practice commentary by Shechen Gyaltsap.
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.
Larry Mermelstein
Nālandā Translation Committee
Beginning in 1971, Larry Mermelstein became a close student of the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and scholar, and he is empowered as a senior teacher, or acharya, by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He has been the Executive Director of the Nalanda Translation Committee since 1978, the same year he became an editor at Shambhala Publications, where he continues to serve as a consulting editor. He was among the founding administrators and later a language teacher (Sanskrit and Tibetan) at Naropa University, and he was a member of the Vajradhatu/Shambhala International board of directors for many years.
