Found in Translation
Like many Tibetans of his generation who were raised in India, Dorjee speaks Tibetan, Hindi and English. When he first began learning to translate Tibetan into English, there were no formal programs and, because the two languages are so different, his early years of study were grueling. Unlike English, Tibetan follows a subject-object-verb order. With verbs at the end of sentences, simultaneous interpreters must think in two languages at the same time, recalling a previously spoken sentence while waiting for the verb to complete the thought.
“The two languages don’t go well together and without a verb, you cannot translate,” says Dorjee.
By 2012 Dojree had become a U.S. citizen, earned his Ph.D. and was teaching communication theory at California State University, Fullerton, when he received an email from the office of the Dalai Lama asking if he could travel to Hawaii to act a
s an interpreter during a three-day event called Pillars of Peace.
Over three decades in India, Dorjee had interpreted for half a dozen eminent Tibetan Buddhist teachers including, on many occasions, the Dalai Lama himself. Still, the request came as a surprise. By chance, the Dalai Lama’s usual interpreters were unavailable to travel to Hawaii so Chhime Rigzing, the Dalai Lama’s personal secretary, contacted Dorjee.
“Chhime Rigzing showed His Holiness a picture of me and he said, ‘Yes, I know him.’ That's how I was able to come to Hawaii,” Dorjee recalls.
After so many years Dorjee was very excited to be reunited with the leader of the Tibetan Buddhist world. “There was an emotional significance.”
Speaking in English, the Dalai Lama can certainly hold his own even discussing topics that would stump many native speakers. Having an interpreter at his side is, in some ways, more for his own sense of security than out of necessity. But for Dorjee, it meant standing close by and remaining attentive at all times, ready to perform a task he calls intensely challenging but a great honor.
Hard to Keep Up
When the Dalai Lama speaks on subjects as varied as tantric meditation, quantum physics or ethics and genetics, very few interpreters can match his pace.
“He can quote a hundred different books from memory and you have to catch up with his brilliant mind. It’s very tough,” Dorjee says.
The Pillars of Peace events in Hawaii, he says, were relatively simple because the audiences were primarily students and the general public and the topics — pursuing peace and cultivating compassion — were relatively easy.
Victor Chan, founding director of The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver, B.C., attended Pillars of Peace. He agreed Dorjee’s task was light compared to what some interpreters face. Chan explains that it's not uncommon for the Dalai Lama to speak uninterrupted for 15 to 20 minutes before pausing for an interpreter to recall the entire monologue.
“The translator is expected to remember everything without taking notes,” Chan says.
“It’s not easy to translate for His Holiness ... unless you know the vocabulary of neuroscience and psychology. If you’re translating Buddhist teachings you need to be very fluent,” Chan says, adding that many of the scientific English terms the Dalai Lama uses have no exact Tibetan equivalent.
The Dalai Lama calls himself “a simple Buddhist monk” and in a gesture of humility, talks about speaking “broken English.” But Chan, who has co-authored two books with the Dalai Lama, says he’s a very competent English speaker. Even when the Tibetan leader breaks basic grammar rules, Chan says his delivery is idiosyncratic and powerful.
“He can easily talk in English non-stop without notes for an hour and a half and hold his audience spellbound.”