Catherine Dalton shares about her life, her calling to study and practice Buddhism and to become a scholar and translator. See below for a partial list of topics.
About Catherine Dalton- she is an assistant professor of Buddhist Studies at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, where she teaches primarily in RYI’s MA program in Translation, Textual Interpretation and Philology. She earned her Ph.D in Buddhist Studies from UC Berkeley, with a doctoral dissertation focused on Indian Buddhist tantra. As a member of the Dharmachakra Translation Committee, Catherine has worked for many years as a textual translator of Buddhist literature in Tibetan, and also serves as an oral interpreter for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche.
Learn more:
https://shedrub.org/
www.ryi.org
www.dharmasun.org
Partial List of Topics (times are approximate):
0:00 Introduction
8:05 Conversation with Catherine Dalton begins

How the traditional Buddhist teaching are not something one ‘makes up’ or is unique to a particular individual teacher
How Catherine first moved to Nepal and began study Buddhism and Tibetan language

21:00 - The impact of culture, culture shock and how being amongst people of a particular culture affects how we see the world
24:00 Boudhanath Stupa
28:00 spread of Buddhism around the world
42:00 the lack of a word for a gender other than male or female in the premodern Tibetan language
How Tibetan Buddhism is Tantric Buddhism or Vajrayana Buddhism.
46:50: the concept of having a 'guru' or teacher in Buddhism and what that means in the tradition
50:00 - how Vajrayana is described as the path of devotion
60:00 - the possibility of Dharma transmission through Zoom
1:01:00 - how Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche offered teachings online because of the pandemic and how they set that up
1:06:15 - Reincarnation and the 'Tullku system' of certain teachers being able to consciously reincarnate, how Catherine has met many Tulkus who "are not ordinary people"
1:14:00 - Question/ Observation that in the West, we are very driven by the idea of progress while in 'the East' and in traditional Buddhist cultures, there is more of a cyclical notion of existence, without the same idea of 'progress.'
1:20:00 - how dharma not about self improvement. Side effect not the goal.
The whole point is the pursuit of happiness.
1:22:30 the meaning of Buddha in Tibetan and in the Buddhist teachings and the possibility of bringing that into scientific inquiry
1:28:00- idea of Omniscience in Buddhism, Julian's skepticism and the traditional teachings of what that means
1:32:00 Karma and how everything we experience is our own mind or consciousness
1:36:00 Everything that happens is karma from the traditional point of view
1:38:00 the practice and power of making offerings
1:41:00 The importance of the three trainings: Ethical conduct, Meditation and Wisdom
1:46:00 - That our practice should be happening all the time, and how important it is to honor our relationships and actions in the world.
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