During recent tours, Rinpoche has met dharma students and practitioners throughout Eastern Europe and has expressed his great pleasure in how diligent he found them to be in the absence of substantive support systems. He urged Khyentse Foundation to seek ways to support individuals and organizations in the region.
To start, the Grants Committee gave US$7,500 to the Mani Foundation, a dharma organization in Poznan, Poland, established by practitioners who belong to the Buddhist Mission Centre there (a Rimé center where Sōtō Zen, Samten Tse, and Yeshe Khorlo groups gather). The grant was for the translation of a number of classical Dharma texts from English into Polish, including Luminous Essence: A Guide to the Guhyagarbha Tantra by Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche. The translations are needed for participants in the 8-year international shedra program at Yeshe Khorlo Meditation Center, under the guidance of Gangteng Rinpoche of Bhutan. The KF grant will also subsidize the distribution of e-books to Polish practitioners.
We are pleased to report that KF has awarded the Mani Foundation its second grant of $10,000 to translate Great Chariot by Longchenpa and Nagarjuna’s Root Stanzas of the Middle Way, Mulamadhyamakakarika. “The project is extremely important for us; for numerous students who do not know English and wish to take part in shedra, this is the only opportunity to practice Dharma,” said Mariusz Harenda, president and founder of the Mani Foundation.
About receiving the grant, translator Ven. Kanzen said, “It is very difficult to express all the gratitude we feel due to your priceless support… It is a great pleasure and also some sort of success to put [these precious texts] into modern understandable Polish. READ MORE ABOUT MANI FOUNDATION
“It’s entirely possible that the survival of the Buddhadharma could depend on it being translated into other languages,” said Rinpoche. Serious students who aspire to be dharma translators are encouraged to apply for the new Translation Studies Scholarship offered by KF.