Written by Paul Baffier
I always pictured translators with Harry Potter’s round glasses, aloof and a bit high as bookworms. But not for Dzogchen, not at all.
Blog | Reflections on translation
In “A crazy brief presentation of early Dzogchen Translators” Paul, a translator himself, talk about Lishu Tagring, Bairotsana, Padmasambhava.
Back to the 8th century in the Himalayas, a Dzogchen master called Padmasambhava was around, and he had among his disciples a sacred bunch of cool guys, who were doing translations and crazy things (…)
The first Dzogchen translator was, in human memory, Manjushri-Who-Protects-from-fear. He translated three Dzogchen tantras in the language of garudas: this is a language inspirated from the whispers and whistles of the wind. I’d like to learn this one. That Manjushri was one of the twelve great Dzogchen instructors, at the beginning of time, we don’t have much archives. But there are a few infos in this book on biographies of Dzogchen masters.
Then comes my favourite translator, Lishu Tagring. There, we have dates, hold on tight : he was born in 1751 BCE and said to have disappeared having reached the age of 2500 years. Did you count? Yes, in 749 CE! Skeptics would argue it’s mostly unprobable, I would reply it’s utmostly fun. Lishu Tagring spoke 360 languages, travelled a lot and brought back to Tibet, India and Shang Shung thousands of teachings on the nature of mind. Here you can unravel some mysteries of his life.
Then we have a more famous guy : Bairotsana. He translated many texts, but Bairo was really fond of the space series, one of the three series of Dzogchen teachings. He was also a teacher with tremendous goodness : he taught an eighty years old man, who practiced his teachings and achieve rainbow body. You can find one English translation from his works over there.
What is cool about Dzogchen is that you have it all over internet these days… isn’t it greatly perfect?
Back to the 8th century in the Himalayas, a Dzogchen master called Padmasambhava was around, and he had among his disciples a sacred bunch of cool guys, who were doing translations and crazy things such as sending lightning bolts, bringing forth wells from earth, transmuting one’s body in wildfire, cutting rocks into pieces like cookies, attracting and teaching birds, flying through the sky, transforming zombies into gold, pacifying untamed tigers… You can read all of their biographies here in the Treasury of Lives, it’s quite amazing…
…at least for me and it re-enchanted my life: if you have the same opinion, why not click there and see our proposal of daily life Dzogchen training?
Written by Paul Baffier
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