Well-Acquainted with Wisdom: Sarah Plazas’ Spiritual Transformation and Path to a Translation Career
Take a look behind the scenes at Namchak, Tibetan Buddhism, and the people entrusted with the teachings of the Namchak lineage in this new series, “Well-Acquainted with Wisdom.” This fourth installment features a discussion between Tibetan Translator and practitioner Sarah Plazas and Amanda Taylor, Digital Content Curator at the Namchak Foundation. They explore Sarah’s transformative journey from an anti-religious college student to a devout Tibetan Buddhist student and translator.
By 1999, Sarah had dropped out of college once and found her way back to college. For multiple reasons, she had zero interest in Buddhism. One of those reasons was that she was in a class called Women’s Religious Lives that outlined how each major religion, including Buddhism, suppressed women. So, she had her own approach to connecting with the divine:
“I was studying dance, and I felt like there was a map of divinity placed inside my physical body. And if I could slough off all of the conditioning and access my genuine impulses, like physical and sensory, I would be connected to the divine.”
Discovering Buddhism
Quite karmically, Garchen Rinpoche taught in the same area near Prescott, Arizona. Sarah’s boyfriend at the time had attended a few teachings, and much to Sarah’s dismay, he persistently encouraged her to listen to Garchen Rinpoche speak. Intending to make her boyfriend stop talking about it, she ventured to Garchen Rinpoche’s center, which wasn’t really a center yet. “It was just this concrete slab and a little office building.”
Sarah recalled it was cold on the concrete slab, and Garchen Rinpoche was teaching 100,000 songs of Milarepa. “And because it was cold, he wore this fur Russian hat. I really remember that. And on the break, he ate yogurt with honey. He was really compelling, but I was like, ‘I’m not bowing down to this man.’”
Shortly after that encounter, Sarah and her boyfriend got into a fight. That’s when she remembered the man with the hat and the yogurt. She thought, “I wonder if that man in the hat with the yogurt ever fights with people, and I wonder if he could help me be less angry and more loving.”
That curiosity drew her back to the center a few more times. On her third visit, she still wasn’t willing to bow, but she decided to drop her arms. “He came through the door as I dropped my arms, and he looked at me. It was like a swath of pure love coursing through my body.” That’s when she decided, “Well, something is going on with this person. He could definitely teach me something.”
After that, she attended teachings every weekend for nearly four years and eventually moved to the center. It was called the Garchen Institute but wasn’t a fully constructed retreat center by then.
Building a Center for Three-year Retreat
This didn’t stop a small group of young practitioners, including Sarah, from deciding that the Garchen Institute was where they would do a three-year retreat. Sarah laughed when she recalled, “There was this incredible German man who was directing the center, who just sat back in his chair and said, ‘But there’s no facility.’”
They replied, “We’ll build one.”
He replied, “But you don’t know anything about construction.”
They remained unphased, “You’ll teach us because you’ve built a retreat center before.”
Those determined students were paid $100 monthly for the next two years to buy their own food and gas and build a three-year retreat facility. The Sangha was so inspired by watching these students come together that people started donating money. After two years, they completed a three-year retreat facility.
At that point, Sarah decided it was time for her three-year retreat. From 2005 to 2008, she was in a retreat. This was where she began to learn Tibetan. One of her retreat mates was translating the retreat texts from Tibetan to English. However, he was still learning, resulting in Tibetan English texts. The bright side to those imperfect translations was that she began to learn the Tibetan alphabet and simple phrases. By the end of her retreat, she could have an interview with Garchen Rinpoche in Tibetan.
Becoming a Tibetan Translator
If you’re wondering how to become a translator, the path isn’t always linear. After completing her retreat in 2008, only a few months went by before she decided to go back into retreat for six more months. Meanwhile, a lama in Chicago was moving to the Garchen Institute, so there was a vacancy at the center in Chicago. Garchen Rinpoche informed Sarah that she would fill that role as the lama. At that time, Sarah was 31 years old and was apprehensive about this decision.
Garchen Rinpoche said, “When lamas come, you can translate for them.”
Sarah replied, “I don’t really even speak Tibetan. I would need to study. How about I go to Nepal and study for one year?”
Sarah Plazas in Central Tibet at a Guru Rinpoche pilgrimage site.
Ten days later, Sarah was on her way to Nepal. She attended a formal translator training program for a year. Next, she studied with Nubpa Rinpoche, a Drikung Kagyu yogi and the head of the Drikung Kagyu Rinchen Monastery in Sundarijal, Nepal, outside Kathmandu. By then, Sarah had studied longer than initially planned, but her teachers in Nepal told her that she was only scratching the surface and should continue her studies. She asked Nubpa Rinpoche what he thought she should do. He replied, “I think you should go into retreat.”
She went back to retreat, but this time, she went to Tato Pani, Nepal, where Nubpa Rinpoche has a small, modest group of retreat huts in the mountains. In perfect timing, as Sarah came out of retreat, Lama Tsultrim Allione, a Western teacher, asked Sarah’s teachers if they had anyone who could accompany her to Tibet and do some interpreting work. Sarah’s teachers recommended Sarah for the job.
Sarah discussed the trip with Lama Tsultrim Allione and learned that Allione’s husband had just passed away. She was going on a pilgrimage to Tibet, and wanted Sarah to accompany her as her interpreter. Sarah also learned that she would need to translate a specific dialect of Tibetan, with which she was unfamiliar.
Sarah remembers that the conversation went something like this:
“Do you think you could do that?”
Sarah replied, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can. I don’t speak that dialect.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re the one.”
“I really don’t think I am.”
“We’re going.”
Sarah over-looking the Tsangpo River at Maching Labdrön’s monastery in Tibet.
And off they went. In Kangding China, also known as Dartsedo in Kham, Tibet–westernmost China/ easternmost Tibet, they joined Do Dasel Wangmo, the last of the family line of Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje as his great grand-daughter and a holder of his lineage. Do Khyentse was a renowned Nyingma master and treasure revealer. Among his treasures was the Dzinpa Rangdrol (Natural Freedom of Fixation). People close to Do Dasel Wangmo called her Ani Rinpoche. She was the head professor of a prestigious medical school, a renowned doctor, and a treasure revealer–all things unheard of for a woman of her time.
Sarah and Lama Tsultrim Allione met with Do Dasel Wangmo for two weeks and received the Entrustment of all of Do Kyentse’s termas from her.
In the summer of 2010, Sarah returned to the United States. She went to work translating for Traga Rinpoche in Santa Monica. Typically, he was not a bubbly lama. But, one day, she picked him up to go do a teaching, “We were driving on Freeway 10 for forever, and he was in the best mood. I’ve never seen him so bubbly.” In the car, he told Sarah, “There is this lama, Tulku Sangak Rinpoche, and his wife Melong, and we stayed up until 3:00 in the morning dancing, singing, and telling stories.” Tulku Sangak Rinpoche is the Spiritual Director of Namchak and the world holder of the Namchak Lineage.
Sarah’s first thought was, “You dance?! Who are you?!”
She continued to listen and asked, “Who is he? I’ve never heard of him.”
He looked at her and said, “Maybe you will translate for Tulku Sangak Rinpoche someday.”
At that moment, “Lighting went through my body. So, I thought, ‘Well, that’s happening at some point.’” She noted that moment and continued with her work.
A Life-altering Experience
What the connection is between physical and spiritual is not always clear. Sarah experienced this connection first-hand. In April 2011, she returned to the Garchen Institute in Arizona. It was there that she had a painful, physically life-altering experience. She spent some time in Garchen Rinpoche’s old retreat hut down the valley from the center, where her friend Aaron was staying. He happened to be gone on the fateful day when Sarah misused his camping stove and was badly burned in a fire.
*Trigger warning–this part of Sarah’s story describes a structure fire and third-degree burns.*
Once the fire began, her flight response kicked in, and she fled outside. That’s when it occurred to her, “‘It is April in Arizona. There’s been no precipitation for a really long time. Nobody’s here in this valley. I have to put this out.’ I walked into the burning cabin and tried to tamp it out with blankets. I was wearing exercise pants, and they caught on fire.”
She recalled what felt like leaving her body. “I started to die. And I was fine–everything was totally fine. Then something kicked in and was like, ‘No, it’s not time.’ And it rushed me back into my body. I was laying down in the fire and, so, I was like, ‘I have to get out of here.’”
She went out of the hut, “I went on all fours. That was my reaction–go to the Earth. And I was yelling for help. And this guy named John heard me. He thought I had seen a snake or something. He saw I was in bad shape, and I had no pants because, at some point, I’d taken them off.”
John wrapped her in a sheet and took her to the nearest small-town clinic. After assessing her burns, the clinic quickly put her in a helicopter bound for a larger hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. She spent a total of five weeks in that hospital. Two of those weeks were spent in the ICU because she basically had no skin, and there was a great deal of infection.
Once her friend Aaron heard about the accident, he came and stayed with her at the hospital. She received a blood transfusion and a protein albumin infusion, which Aaron pointed out was a very tantric experience given all of the red and white substances flowing through her body. Even in that unfathomable pain, Sarah recalled the greater lesson she was learning. “That was a huge spiritual experience. We’re taught to offer our bodies, and I knew that’s what was happening.”
The index card that did not burn just a foot off the floor in the hut fire. It’s a Dzogchen poem about the ground, path, and fruition that can be read in multiple directions.
There were certainly some miracles to celebrate. “They thought I would lose my pinky, and I didn’t. And then, miraculously, my knees. You need your knees to sit in a meditation position. The fire went around my knees, and they didn’t get burned. The hut was made of wood, and there was a little wooden altar on the burning floor, which did not burn. There was also an index card taped to the wall a foot off the floor with pith instructions in Garchen Rinpoche’s own handwriting that did not burn. An index card, basically a piece of paper, did not burn.”
Physical and Spiritual Transformation
With a calm and assured voice, Sarah said, “What makes me want to cry is remembering when I thought about Garchen Rinpoche and wondered if he could help me have less anger. The fire was like going to hell. I had a hell-realm experience in this body. And through that, my anger burned away.” Though surprising, in Sarah’s case, fire led her to greater spiritual health.
With a long and painful recovery in front of her, she was released from the hospital in June 2011. She couldn’t walk up stairs and required assistance with dressing and bathing. Amidst this healing process, she received a call from Lama Tsultrim Allione. “We’re having our annual Drupchod at Tara Mandala, and our translator can’t come. Can you do it?” The voice inside Sarah said, “No!” She knew that Tulku Sangak Rinpoche would be there, so compelled by fulfilling her life’s purpose, Sarah’s voice said, “Yes!”
Sarah translated for Tulku Sangak Rinpoche that August at the Tara Mandala Drupchod. She reported that in that southern Colorado summer heat and still unable to climb stairs due to her burns, she was a “terrible interpreter.” She wasn’t all that terrible, as shortly after the Drupchod, she received a call from Melong, Tulku Sangak Rinpoche’s wife, asking if Sarah wanted to come to Santa Fe for a good while to be Tulku Sangak Rinpoche’s translator. Without hesitation, Sarah replied, “I would absolutely love that.”
Sarah strongly sensed that her recovery was linked to being in the presence of Tulku Sangak Rinpoche.
“He hugely aided my recovery. I don’t feel like a burned person. It was a trauma, and I don’t feel like I’m carrying it. So much got moved through just by being in his presence.”
Sarah, Tulku Sangak Rinpoche, and Khenpo Urgyen at Tara Mandala in August 2011, two months after Sarah was released from the hospital.
Translating for the Namchak Foundation
With immense joy, she began translating for him in May 2012. Later that year, she met Lama Tsomo and learned about the Namchak Foundation. At a translation conference, she met another translator, Chökyi, the only translator for the Namchak Foundation. As it became clear that he needed a teammate, he recommended Sarah for the job, and she began her career as a translator for the Namchak Foundation.
Sarah and Tulku Sangak Rinpoche at the Namchak Foundation’s Translator’s Retreat in 2023.
Today, Sarah translates for the Namchak Foundation with three other translators, each with their own path to finding this obscure career. They receive materials from Tulku Sangak Rinpoche and other masters. The team translates these materials into English for meditation practices, commentaries on the practices, three-year retreat materials, deity yoga materials, and the history of the Namchak Lineage.
Sarah is now in year 12 of her translation career. Remember the resistant and angry Sarah we met at the start of this story? What a journey!
With a deep reverence, Sarah reflected, “Being burned connected me even deeper with the lamas. There was a shared pain that we could occupy together because these lamas knew pain. The ones from Tibet witnessed firsthand the invasion and unraveling of their homeland. Many of them had been in prison. And these masters are light, hilarious, and so profoundly loving. I don’t know any other realm that produces that kind of being.”
In Vajrayana, we’re guided to work with our afflictive emotions to uncover their true, pure essence. Sarah was forced to work with her afflictive emotions in an excruciating, physical way. In the process, her true essence was revealed. “Sadly, genuine spiritual transformation is very intense. It’s not a comfortable process.”
Not all of us will be forced to endure painful physical changes as we navigate spiritual transformation. However, transformation of any kind is challenging. Perhaps there is comfort in our shared discomfort as we peel away our layers of obscurations and learn to see ourselves and others as they truly are.
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All photos from Sarah Plazas. Used with permission. Unauthorized use prohibited.