Lama Chonam and Sangye Khandro both attended and participated in the conference and felt that it was a very rewarding experience. Our thanks to the Tsardra Foundation for organizing and sponsoring such a meaningful and important event.
Inspired by the 2008 Conference of Translators, launched and sponsored by Light of Berotsana, the Translation & Transmission Conference was much larger in scale and all-encompassing in terms of numbers of attendees and sessions. The attendees were a diverse mixture of academic scholars and so-called contemplative translators who are of course scholars in their own right. Many of the presenters were from the academy and their perspective on the process of translation was somewhat different from that of the practitioners. Continued discussions on these differences will be beneficial in the future of translating the dharma and we hope to see more opportunities to hear from practitioners concerning their own process for learning and their practical experiences.
The highlight of this conference was the presence of Alak Zenkar Rinpoche who very humbly attended all of the presentations and patiently listened to the various ideas, opinions and views. Unfortunately there was not much time for his own presentation that was scheduled to be at the conclusion of the conference. It was widely felt that the time the translators spent with him at the 2008 conference was invaluable for learning the definitive meaning of the terms that translators struggle to bring into languages besides Tibetan.
It was everyone’s hope that future conferences would be held periodically to follow up on the progress made and continue the important sense of a community with the common aim to serve the needs of the Buddhist doctrine and the benefit of all living beings.
May there be the potential for this magic to happen again and again!