Rinchenpal Translation Project

In February 2017, His Holiness Drikung Kyabgon Tinle Lhundrup founded the Rinchenpal
Translation Project (RTP), with its first weeklong meeting held in Taipei attended by His
Holiness, Khenpo Tsultrim Tenzin (USA), Khenpo Konchok Tamphel (India/Austria), Dorlop Dr.
Hun Lye (USA), Ani Yeshe Metog (Germany), Ani Sherab Drolma (Germany), Ina Dhargye (USA),
Sharon Yuan (Taiwan), Liu Zhe An (Taiwan), and Mike Dickman (France). The purpose of this
project is to standardize the Tibetan originals and develop collaborative translations of
common practice texts used by Drikung Kagyu centers around the world. At that meeting, the
group started on the collaborative translations of The Opening and Dedication Prayers and The
Exceedingly Concise Liturgy of the Guru Puja Based on the Great Victor Drikungpa in English and
Chinese.

At this inaugural meeting in 2017, His Holiness established some basic principles for this
project: 1) to the best of our ability, the earliest, original text of any of the practices selected
should be used, 2) any element that are clearly scribal errors should be corrected, and 3)
translations into other languages should strive for internal consistency and be sensitive to the
context of the target language. Finally, His Holiness also outlined a list of practices that he
wanted the RTP to work on.

This year, the RTP is meeting again in Taipei under the leadership of His Holiness, February 6-
10, focusing on translating The Longevity Practice of Machik Drupe Gyalmo’s Tradition and refining
the translation of The Opening and Dedication Prayers. The next text identified by His Holiness is
The White Crystal Rosary: The Practice of the Fivefold Mahamudra Made Easy to Understand. At this
meeting are: Khenpo Tsultrim Tenzin, Khenpo Konchok Tamphel, Dorlop Dr. Hun Lye, Ani
Yeshe Metog, Sharon Yuan, Katrin Querl (Germany), Vita Teivane (Latvia), Liu Zhe An, Eric Fry-
Miller (USA), Sonam Spitz (Germany).

At this meeting, His Holiness agreed to be the advisor of the Rinchenpal Translation Project
and Khenpo Konchok Tamphel was appointed as president with Dr. Lye serving as director. His
Holiness also requested the Drikung Kagyu Foundation to provide financial support for
interested translators to participate in these annual meetings. A formal announcement of the
application process for participation in next year’s meeting will be forthcoming.

The RTP will continue to hold annual meetings in Taiwan, with the Drikung Kagyu Foundation
(USA) as the main sponsor and assistance from Chetsang Foundation (Taiwan). His Holiness
envisions other meetings in different locations for working with languages such as German,
Vietnamese, Spanish, Latvian, Indonesian and Russian. The annual meeting in Taiwan remains
the occasion for His Holiness to determine and edit as necessary the standardized, common
Tibetan texts to be translated. Meetings for translations of these texts into other languages
will begin at other locations when local funding for such meetings becomes available.