Traditionally, all 70,000 pages of the Tibetan Kangyur would be read aloud in Tibetan monasteries every year. One way in which this monumental challenge was typically accomplished was in the form of a “resounding,” whereby monks would gather together and simultaneously read aloud different sections of the Kangyur. The words of the Buddha would resound throughout the monastery and surrounding area benefitting everyone who spoke or heard them with the blessing of his speech. Generous patrons would accumulate merit by sponsoring sutra readings.

84000 will pilot “Found in Translation,” a public, resounding-style reading of sutras in English at Friends Meeting of Washington, DC, 2111 Florida Ave, NW (Dupont Circle Metro, north exit) from 7-9 pm on Thursday, May 17, 2012. Western students of Buddhism, translators, monastics, friends from the Tibetan community, members of interfaith networks, and those who are cross-culturally curious will come together to experience a sampling of an authentic sutra reading adapted to a modern Western setting. Participants will read and celebrate the sutras that are newly available in English through 84000’s translation effort and recently opened online reading room (at http://read.84000.co), as well as other selected sutras.

WeChi.com and an anonymous family foundation have generously stepped up to be the event’s financial patrons, and Rigpa Washington and Sakya Phuntsok Ling are joining 84000 as co-sponsors, providing volunteer and promotional support.

For more information about the pilot sutra resounding, please contact deborah@84000.co.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

The reading room homepage highlights the most recent and featured translations, and maps the entire Kangyur by section. Each section has an icon with an image taken from the Kangyur that relates to its subject matter, and a number that indicates the number of completed translations. Clicking on a section opens up another part of the reading room where one finds not only titles (in English, Tibetan and Sanskrit) and descriptions of the completed translations, but also a list of the titles of all the texts in the section in the three languages, along with catalog information that identifies each text by its location in the Kangyur. In this way, reading room users can see what translations will be available in the future.

Clicking on a completed translation not only brings one to the translation itself, but also to a wealth of other information – the translator’s summary (which imparts readers with an overview of the context and content of the text), acknowledgments and catalog/copyright information, an introduction (which provides information about the origin of the text and its translation), notes, and bibliography. Among the handy, user-friendly features of the reading room are pop-up glossaries, which facilitate information retrieval at the click of a mouse.

To orient first-time readers in utilizing the reading room, 84000 presents a video guide hosted by Huang Jing Rui, 84000’s executive director, and Jeff Wallman, executive director of Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC) and chair of 84000’s technology committee. The video takes readers on a step-by-step tour of the reading room and its features.

The marriage of ancient wisdom and modern technology allows people from all walks of life––including teachers, students, scholars, researchers, historians, and anyone who is interested––to conveniently explore the words of the Buddha and study the source of Buddhist philosophy.

Read more about the latest and upcoming features available on the Reading Room.

Watch more 84000 videos on:
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/Translate84000
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/Translate84000

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Reading Room Live Tours – Sign Up Now!

In conjunction with the opening of the reading room, we will be offering two free online tours for all our supporters. We will show you how to navigate the reading room, where to read the translations, how to use the glossaries, as well as many other exciting features available. The live tours will be led by Jeff Wallman, Chair of 84000’s Technology Committee and Executive Director of TBRC. To sign up, please click on the registration links below.

REGISTER HERE
For 84000 Reading Room Live Tour (North America and Europe)

REGISTER HERE
For 84000 Reading Room Live Tour (Asia)

Please enjoy your reading room. Thank you for your continuing support.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

These texts show nothing less than how to cultivate wisdom and compassion to achieve lasting peace and happiness. They are as relevant today as ever. Grants from 84000 are funding 8,000 pages of translation by more than a hundred translators at this very moment. Each page of translation involves, on average, 12.5 hours of translator effort. We invite and welcome the support of anyone who wishes to help preserve this universal treasure.

The Reading Room showcases the first eight translations of the Words of the Buddha in English. Launched as “proof of concept” almost two years ago, these eight texts that we are now ready to publish are mostly very short ones. There are many more texts in the pipeline – some of them quite short (only a few pages in the original), and some of them very long (700 pages or more). We hope to have several more short and medium-length texts appearing in the Reading Room in the next few months. The longer texts will take several years to complete – and in the meantime, we hope, many more will have been started.

Two translation teams are represented in the first batch of translations to reach completion; however, there are currently more than a hundred people at work on 8,000 pages of translation, in several different countries of Europe, America and Asia.

Even for a short text, the whole process from preliminary planning up to final publication is a very long one. Even when the translators’ final draft is complete, discussions with the editor in chief, the preparation of the ancillary materials, several stages of internal and external review, and the final stages of editing, layout, and proofing, take many weeks of painstaking effort.

The eight texts that are now available in the Reading Room are:

Sustaining the Translation Effort

Currently, 10% of the Kangyur is in the process of being translated. This has been made possible by the generous support of 74 Founding Sponsors and more than a thousand page sponsors.

84000 and the translators we support have committed to translate all 70,000 pages of the Kangyur as our first major goal. How quickly we can do so depends on funding. So far, 3,630 pages have been sponsored. Please sponsor one or more pages of translation (at US $250/page) or make a gift of any amount with an online donation today. DONATE NOW.

Please contact deborah@84000.co, if you would like more information about how to become a Founding Sponsor with a donation of US $50,000 or more.

We invite you to use and enjoy your Reading Room. Thank you for your continuing support.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Grants from 84000 are funding 8,000 pages of translation by more than a hundred translators at this very moment. Each page of translation involves, on average, 12.5 hours of translator effort.

THE RELEVANCE OF THE TRANSLATIONS

The words of the Buddha are the very heart of an ancient tradition that belongs to and merits preservation by and for all of humanity. While initial support for 84000 has come from within the Buddhist community, this is far more than a Buddhist project. It is an effort to prevent an entire library of texts about the science of mind and human ethics from being lost from the world forever.

These texts show nothing less than how to cultivate wisdom and compassion to achieve lasting peace and happiness. They are as relevant today as ever. We invite and welcome the support of anyone who wishes to help preserve this universal treasure.

SUSTAINING THE TRANSLATION EFFORT

Currently, 10% of the Kangyur is in the process of being translated. This has been made possible by the generous support of 74 Founding Sponsors and more than a thousand page sponsors.

84000 and the translators we support have committed to translate all 70,000 pages of the Kangyur as the first major goal. How quickly we can do so depends on funding. So far, 3,630 pages have been sponsored. Please sponsor one or more pages of translation (at $250/page) or make a gift of any amount with an online donation today. DONATE NOW.

Please contact deborah@84000.co, if you would like more information about how to become a Founding Sponsor with a donation of $50,000 or more.

We invite you to use and enjoy your reading room. Thank you for your continuing support.

Considering the cultural norms of the time, the fact that the teaching contained in this sutra was given entirely to a lay woman and, moreover, to a very old and impoverished lay woman, makes it stand apart. The setting of this text is the ancient capital city of Vaiśali. The old lady, whose name we are never told, asks the Buddha such profound questions that Ananda realizes she is not an ordinary woman, but one whose wisdom comes from merit collected in past lifetimes. As it turns out, the Buddha reveals that she has been his mother for five hundred lifetimes.

The main body of the text, which consists of the Buddha’s teachings in answer to the old lady’s questions, is an explanation of emptiness. To put it briefly, the Buddha says no phenomenon arises of its own accord. Neither does any phenomenon give rise to any other phenomenon. All phenomena arise owing to their dependence upon collections of causes and conditions. Hence, there is no independent phenomenon, though we may use terms to indicate various phenomena as if they were independent. After the Buddha’s teaching, the old lady realizes this profound truth. The Buddha prophesies that she herself will one day become a buddha. In earlier lifetimes he had planted roots of virtue and made strong aspirations for her to do so.

The featured sutra was translated from Tibetan into English under the supervision of Khenpo Ngawang Jorden by the Venerable Jampa Losal and the laywoman YangDol Tsatultsang, members of the Sakya Pandita Translation Group – International Buddhist Academy Division in Kathmandu, Nepal. 84000 provided a grant in support of the translation effort.

Please enjoy your reading room. Thank you for your continuing support.