Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 31-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche describes firsthand a disease epidemic that swept his monastery, including the sky-burial practices used — laypeople dismembering the dead and crushing bones to feed vultures, with monks present reciting prayers. He then walks through the monastery’s annual memorization examinations: each philosophy student appeared before the abbot, who opened a text at random and prompted the student to continue reciting from that line; top memorizers, sometimes covering a thousand pages, received khata and clothing, while those who failed could no longer advance toward the Geshe degree. The conversation also clarifies the status of monks who stopped studying — allowed to remain but without a textual teacher, taking on kitchen or garden duties. An interview-style oral history suited to those curious about traditional monastic education and daily life in Tibet.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 54 RS 1991 07 08.mp3
UUID: 1134a40f-a073-4cd9-adda-bfa9133db97a
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Rinpoche's Story (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-07-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 31.5 minutes
Words: ~1,776
Right. The the the retreaters aren’t allowed to go out. Oh, so he could come and go. Mhmm. Yeah.
He’d go out and buy the whatever the the the needed. So it wasn’t a silence. It was a silence. Retreaters didn’t speak. They didn’t.
What’s observing some? They would they would the retreat attendant. Other than that, they would speak to anyone. And so I’ve got some more. He prepared tea and food for us.
Do they have normal meals, or did they do sort of fasting and different? Usual food, but they wouldn’t eat in the evening during retreat. They wouldn’t eat in the evening. Right. That’s, I guess, what I was really yeah.
So midday meals. It should should be made it. Okay. Sure. But the breakfast also.
Uh-huh. Right. Okay. And and so I’ve got here, so Yamāntaka saved us. The sick.
The saved us from getting sick? It’s that’s probably right. I really probably need to ask this sometime, when the people would die, when the monks would die from the disease disease in particular, but also at other occasions, did they have the sky burials with the vultures or what did they do on both occasions normally and during the epidemic? So they would feed them to the bird. The bird.
Vultures. Yeah. Well, whatever. Sometimes because it didn’t seem this disease didn’t affect the birds. Sometimes that they generally, they would they would feed the the corpses to the birds, but only in in some cases, like leprosy Mhmm.
That would affect the birds. Would it? They didn’t give it. They would bear it. They would bury the crops.
Oh. So it must have been very difficult with so many monks dying at all one time. Do you mean as far as having the birds eat them? Well, that I mean, there has to be the the has to be completely broken up, doesn’t it? So they it doesn’t they don’t have to be So first they just take the flesh off and then they feed that to the birds and they smash up the bone and mix that with some meat and feed that to the birds.
It wasn’t they don’t have to Means it was meat or tsampa? The the They mix it with the brain? Oh, Yeah. Okay. Were there special monks that were delegated to do that, or did each monk take a turn as part of their practice?
Special laypersons that did that. Oh, laypeople? Mhmm. Not monks at all? In troubled Jagimare.
No? Were monks present at that at that time, or did they just leave it to the laypeople? You know, I’m just contrasting our funeral. There’s always a religious person So there’d be monks saying prayers at the time. Do you take part in this?
Many times. So how long did this epidemic last at that time? The Gurnet give me a look. Right. Two months?
Two months. A little over two months. And just everybody either had it or got better or and then I go straight on to this bit about all the monks have to sit for their memorising exams. I think we’ve probably discussed that before. It’s just that I’ve got another sort of section that doesn’t I don’t know whether it’s in sequence there.
Could you just ask Rinpoche if after that time I’m not really sure why. What was this memorising examination? It goes on, if they don’t pass this, they can’t go on to the next class. Previously he said that it isn’t such a rigid thing as that and then each monk has to come before the abbot and Gegu and they have to bring the text that they’ve memorised and the abbot turns through pages and selects a page at random and they have to quote it. Would you just check that out?
Whether it occurred just after this illness? Yes, otherwise I’ll transfer it to some other section of the story. If that’s correct too. There a term for that exam? So they would go before the abbot and the gegu, and then they would be examined as to how many pages they had memorized, and that they would those who couldn’t recite what they were supposed to have memorized and they would be excused, would excused, and then there would be an order of how many had memorized the most number of pages during the course of the year, and they would be given beginning with the highest number of pages, sometimes it was as much as a thousand pages, they would be given khata clothing and then downward until then the lower ones would just be given a khata, for example.
So this was compulsory. They had to attend this unless they were sick. Know, that it’s a compulsory for all those who were studying philosophy and So they they they would not be allowed to study any longer if they didn’t attend. So wouldn’t they might have to leave the monastery. They wouldn’t be removed from the monastery, but they would no longer be allowed to study.
They could stay in the monastery, but they wouldn’t continue to study. Oh. So they couldn’t go to their classes? They could continue in their classes, but they they didn’t they didn’t study any longer. Would you would you would they actually be monks like that?
They wouldn’t be allowed to become Geshe. The they’re not in Yoruba. Yoruba? Yeah. There there were people monks like that.
Oh. There were some who didn’t study, but yeah. There were there were monks who stayed in the monastery who didn’t study. And still they go to their classes The Chodo Jogurube. It didn’t matter what they did.
They could go or not. If one was actually studying philosophy, it was obligatory to go to the debate. Otherwise, it wasn’t. So did they have teachers or they just have a caretaker teacher and no no teacher? So they they were they didn’t have a a textural teacher because they they weren’t studying text.
So that yeah. So they just do perhaps do things like kitchen work. Gardening. Someone did work for the colleagues or the comm center district? Mhmm.
Someone didn’t. It’s interesting. Certainly more flexible. Nice western systems. So is was that bit correct?
Did the abbot just picks anything at random? You put it up more? So the abbot would go through the text and he would come to a page and he’d recite a few lines, and then the person being examined would have to continue on from the abbot. And then after continuing a while further, the abbot would then go on, turn a few more pages, read a line, and then the the ex examinee would have to go read on recite recite on afterward. Monks would be quite nervous at that time, would they?
He’s quite anxious. And would it happen like in some of our oral exams where someone might be so nervous they’ll just forget because Yeah, it happened that they would, because they were nervous that they would forget, and then they would have to So then then the next So there were two examinations during the course of the year, the summer and the winter. So then they did, they try, they remember if they forgot their material, then they would remember both, memorize both the old material and then more new material. Memorization examination. Does it what does this one monk go in at a time on on their own just with the the the abbot and gagyu?
The the So it’d be the the college, some of the workers from the from that particular college, and then the abbot and the and the class representative. Oh, be quite frightening. And and was there a lot of other peers listening as well or just one at a time? Just the class representative, not to your other classmates. But did she know you had a so they would be frightened.
Oh, yeah. So I feel rubbish. I don’t I’d hate that. The cover here, mate. And how strict were they?
Like, if if the memorization would get a few words wrong, just sort of little words, not a whole context, but, you know, ins and outs and how strict would they let it go? Or it was just a little bit would it be have to be absolutely accurate? Wouldn’t accept it if it was mistaken. Even little words? So they would the I don’t know what you mean by accept.
Well, I mean They would just tell them. They would point out that you made this mistake. Make this miss you may made this mistake. Well, I guess, I mean, pass or fail if that’s a concept that’s acceptable. So one could recite the text in general, that even though that you may had some made mistakes on some words, then you wouldn’t be passed.
But if you couldn’t even recite the text Oh, yeah. No. That’s what I was asking. Because, see, I memorized a lot of English literature when I was young. But if I I can quote it back today, but I’m sure I’ll have ins and fours and thems all changed around.
Does Rinpoche remember much from all his memorizing or certain small sections? Some of some of it he can remember well. Some of it he can. Is it sort of the thing that when he walks around all day, sort of different little phrases or quotes will pop into his head. You know how what I’m trying to say?
Like a line perhaps a line of wisdom or Sometimes, yeah, it it it part of what he has memorized will arise in his mind, appear to his mind. Tell him that that happens with me when I I had to learn so many. It’s more like chants, what we call hymns, and the words just flicker in with with the with the music. It is sometimes the most incredibly appropriate tongues too. Okay.
Stop. No. So he wants to go to the bathroom. So remember, she threw a divination as to whether, you know, the for the Geshe, the someone to assist from the from the Indian side. And he said that rather than a Tibetan, that somebody from the Tuśita Mhmm.
FPMT center in in Delhi would be the best person. Good. Yeah. I think it’d have to be Westerner of some sort. So yeah.
Yeah. So that that’s Rinpoche is really saying for us to go ahead with the the permanent one. Is that right? The