Steven Goodman, co-director of Asian and Comparative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies, takes you along for the wild ride from a participant's point of view.
At the recent Translation Conference in Bir, a number of specific goals were agreed upon for translation projects reaching five, twenty-five and one hundred years into the future.
In what is being hailed as a landmark event in Buddhist history, 50 of the world's top translators and six incarnate lamas pledged on March 20th to translate all the Buddha's words into English within a generation.
On the closing day, the group presented the conference resolutions to H.H. Dalai Lama, and requested blessings for The Buddhist Literary Heritage Project.
"I'd like to suggest over the next few days we start a process of mapping out exactly what needs to be done during our lifetimes and beyond, in order to ensure the preservation of Tibetan Buddhist texts."
"The Buddhist canon is our most precious treasury of wisdom. This is true not only for Buddhists, but it is also a great source of wisdom for the world."
"I have arrived at the conviction that we cannot have a goal to make 'Tibetan Buddhism' a Western institution. For the Buddha's teachings to truly thrive in our cultures and take root in our hearts, we must have a genuine Western Buddhism."