RYI STUDENT BLOG

Goethe once wrote:  “Mountains are silent teachers that make taciturn students.”  I really like this sentence, because it's so true. Mountains have something fascinating about them, and I heard so many people say that it is almost impossible to not start thinking when you see those majestic, beautiful things. That mountains seem to be floating on clouds, as if not really real and without any contact to the ground, and also both so far away and very close at the same time. To me it is no wonder that people start believing in gods or the like, just looking at mountains. I guess Nepal with all it's mountains is basically predestined to spirituality, just because of having mountains. Right now it's Friday, I'm in Bandipur, one of my favorite places in Nepal, and enjoying the view (with mountains, of course). The philosophy class was cancelled (the Khenpos are on a short retreat with Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche), but I still feel like I'm getting a little class...

In order to strengthen and stabilize Buddhism within Nepal, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Chokling Rinpoche and Phakchok Rinpoche have decided to host Lamas from all over Nepal for one week at our monastery every year. The first such event took place last year in 2013. At this auspicious occasion Chokling Rinpooche was transmitting the complete empowerments and transmissions of the terma teachings of Jatsön Nyingpo, while Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche and Phakchok Rinpoche were giving teachings. On the 11 th of February 2014 after the Lamas had gathered once again to receive teachings and empowerments for one week, the event concluded with a big whole day Chö Feast. Chö, literally cutting through, is one of the Eight Practice Lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. It was founded by the yogini Machik Labdrön (1055-1149/53), who was a disciple of the Indian master Padampa Sangye. It is a practice that is said to put the Prajnaparamita teachings on transcendent wisdom into practice. While upho...

There is the generalized belief that a translated text will never be able to capture the greatness of its original—in other words, it will always imply per se a loss of sumptuosity.  The semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco [1] (1932) epitomizes this pessimistic understanding when he states that “translation is the art of failure” [2] . Taking into the account this gloomy premise, I wanted to explore some of the features associated with the process of translation which might have captivated people since the very invention of written literature [3] .  To start with, we should examine the assumption of the implicit loss of richness in translation in order to ascertain either it is appropriate or not. Linguists have articulated different paradigms of translation. Nevertheless, one of the most fascinating is the theory that Walter Benjamin [4] (1892-1940) formulates in his The Task of the Translator [5] . Simplistically speaking, Benjamin undermines the previous ...