A Spanish Translation for S.N. Goenka
In case you missed the March 1st interview with Vipassana Senior Teacher Daniel Mayer, here is an amusing snippet in which he tells of being woken up in the middle of the night to undertake an urgent Spanish translation for S.N. Goenka. You can listen to the full interview here.
“It was 9:30 p.m. I was in my bed and I just had to go out-- for I don't know what reason. They called me, and I was in my pajamas, and they tell me, ‘Daniel come come come you have to see Guruji right away.’
But I said, ‘I'm in my pajamas, at least I get dressed…’
‘No you come as long you're covered, this is enough.’
So here they take me to Guruji's residence, and there was a lady speaking Spanish, whose English was very very weak, and she was complaining to Goenka that he is so demanding! That for him everything has to be perfect, but for us, for her as a student, she is given a cot and no comfort whatsoever, and what type of a teacher is he that lives in such luxury, whereas she as a student has nothing! So here they call me and I'm supposed to translate…
And Guruji is there, sitting with his smile and so much mettā, so much love and kindness… so all of a sudden I sit there, and there's a blank in my mind! I cannot think at all. All my thought patterns are stopped, as if I weren't me, and all I could hear was her voice, and his voice. It was something that really struck me, and I'm still so much impressed what happened. How it was possible then, that through his concentration—now that I know a bit more, and however through the environment—that something could be stopped so much, and so brusquely. I translated and I remember what I translated—it was that she was complaining, and she was showing the carpet that was sitting on.
And Guruji said to her, ‘But this carpet was given so that you sit comfortably! Not for me.’ And he had so much patience. No matter what the complaints were, no matter what the commentaries were, he had so much patience in really making the students understand that it's not for him, and that he is not there for himself, but he is there for us.”