Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 120-minute personal account, Jampa Khedrup, a Western Buddhist monk ordained for six years, shares his journey from a secular life in Australia to monastic study at Sera Je monastery in India. He traces his path: initial spiritual awakening during travels in Ladakh, discovering Buddhism through reading, meeting his teacher Rinpoche and receiving ordination in 2010, and then pursuing the Geshe degree program—a rigorous 24-year scholastic pathway combining memorization, tutorial classes, self-study, and formal debate. Khedrup explains Sera’s six-hundred-year history, its survival and relocation to India despite extreme hardship, and the contemporary study system that emphasizes both intellectual analysis and spiritual realization. He walks through the daily schedule, the role of debate as an analytical tool akin to Socratic dialogue, the importance of classmates and tutorial teachers, and concludes by reflecting on Sera’s distinctive values of harmony, community service, and the conviction that practitioners must embody the teachings or watch them degenerate. The talk is pitched at serious students and those curious about monastic training in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07102016Jampa Khedrup.mp3
UUID: d04635dd-ddf5-47dd-b3e0-165f11aca147
Teacher: HH Dalai Lama
Collection: Rinpoche's Story
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~12,855
First of all, good evening, and thank you for coming today. And it’s wonderful to see all of you here. And and I’ll introduce Jampa Khedrup. I’m Jampa Khedrup. And Jampa Khedrup’s formal name is Dan. So I think it’s over seven, eight, eight years.
Since the ordination? Yeah. No. No. It’s about six about three months.
Oh, there we go. So it is very happy to see him here to to tell us, you know, the lives in the monastery in a western student. So it’s it’s a six years and three months that he’s been ordained. Is that did I say it correctly? Anyway, you know, thank you for coming, and it’s wonderful.
And if today, Rinpoche is here, he’s very happy. You know, he’s just smiling. So that’s what I would like to say. Anyway, we just keep on here. Thanks, Ketan.
Yeah. Hello? Yeah. Hello? Okay.
Okay. So, yeah, thanks a lot for coming out, everyone. Few old faces and some several new ones. Sorry? Not so much.
Not so. Phrases I’ve seen a long time before, man. That’s better. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess just to say hello to everyone.
I’m only here for a short period just in a little break from our studies. We have about a twelve or thirteen day break, which I’ve made for you to come back and visit family and friends and and see your lovely people. So, yeah, just just to emphasize, I guess, that this isn’t intended in any way to be a teaching. I think there’s several older students here that I can see, and I wouldn’t claim to know anything more about practice than you guys. So just a few ideas, sharing some experience.
Hopefully, there’s something to take away for some of you. And yeah. So that’s just kind of a disclaimer. Yeah. So just to maybe, yeah, expand on on Tenzin’s introduction.
I’ve been a monk for six six months. No. Sorry. Six years, three months, Seventeen days. No.
No. Yeah. So I I ordained in about May 2010. That was kind of the culmination of a journey that began, I guess, four years before that probably. So I started off as somebody not very interested in spiritual affairs.
I didn’t have any kind of interesting upbringing where I had visions of interesting deities or even any interest in spirituality. It’s kind of just a a drunken lout most of my younger years. But at some point, that kind of I think that search felt very a little bit like, is this all there is? You know, that kind of feeling. So that kind of led me to what if I traveled a bit, what if I had some different experiences, kind of do something out the box.
Went to India and did, like, a a one month long homestay with, like, a Ladakhi family. Ladakhi is, like, a small region in Northwest India right up in the Himalayas. So it’s often called Little Tibet. So it’s kind of, like, very Tibetan culturally, and the family that I stayed with really impressed me just the way their kind of subsistence lifestyle, their, I guess, general kind of sanity, the way they kind of seem to work together in harmony and the way they seem to control their emotions in a way that I think a lot of, you know, often see in the West. So, anyway, that led me to kind of wanna read more about their their worldview, what animated that.
Started reading some books about Buddhism. I was immediately blown away by a lot of aspects of the philosophy. It just seemed to make a lot of sense, a lot of things. So this is probably very similar to a lot of your stories where there’s that, you know, that’s what you know, it’s just what I’ve been trying to say, I just haven’t been able to kind of put it in those words and make it all fit together like that. So, anyway, that kind of I was sure straight away even in the midst of that holiday that I definitely when I get back, you know, I really wanna study this in a in a serious way.
Started studying initially at at Buddha House with someone who’s a student of. Yeah. And then later, I think it was when TBI moved out to this side of town. And I thought, you know, finally, so many people had been telling me, you know, you should meet this teacher. He’s someone really special.
I thought it was just down the road now. You know? I probably no excuses anymore. So, yeah, I kind of came and had a look and was immediately just blown away by Rinpoche’s kind of presence. You know, he’s there’s not very many I mean, it’s all your appearance.
Right? But to me, it was that there’s not many beings who have that just such a powerful kind of influence and it’s, you know, of love and compassion and and that warmth, you know, and that connection with the students. And for me, it had a huge effect. Yeah. So then that really inspired me to kind of try and do these things like relying on a teacher and practicing his advice and especially trying to meditate with the stuff he told me to to meditate on.
And I was mostly thinking about impermanence and kind of what’s meaningful in life. Yeah. So then during that period, I was kinda traveling around India and kinda doing a lot of different retreats, mostly in group setting. And, yeah, it was about then I thought, I really I really think that ordination is the only real way to go for someone who who doesn’t you know, like myself, who doesn’t have that kind of mind that’s just ready to go and, you know, be a a great practitioner. I have to do this full time.
I have to, yeah, pursue it in that kind of environment. I’ve got the opportunity, which so few people do, and I’m still pretty young. So I thought that seems to be the way to go. So speaking to Rinpoche, he was very positive about doing that. I hadn’t really fleshed out where I wanted to kind of go after I’d ordained and how that would work.
And Rinpoche kind of said without blinking, we’ll go to Sera. That’s where that’s where you go if you’re a monk. And I think at the time, it was just, yeah, faith in in Rinpoche’s character that initially made me think, oh, that’s gotta be the right thing to do then. It’s worked out well, so I guess that’s good. But I guess, ideally, you kinda look into these things and do everything very, you know, progressively and and work out how it’s all gonna go.
But, anyway, it worked out really well. Yeah. So, anyway, six years into the study program now. And, yeah, I guess, Tenzin wants to talk about and want me to talk about this recent ceremony, which some of you might have heard about in the newsletter. But so, yeah, I’ll talk about that a bit later, but I guess that’s sort of a little, yeah, something that makes you feel nice, I guess, after having worked at it for for quite a long time now.
So, yeah, I’d like to talk to that a bit about that a bit later. So I guess the main thing I wanted to talk about was, like and this is kind of evolving, I guess, was, like, the the way studies done at Sera and perhaps, like and just life is done at Sarah and perhaps what, if anything, I guess, we as Western practitioners, whether or lay people can take away from that. So, yeah, thinking about that, why that might be an important I guess this might be an important topic. I kind of thought I came up with four things. I think the center seems to have an uncommon relationship with Sera, which obviously was Rinpoche having been the former abbot with Geshe-la, who studied under Rinpoche at Sera and done all of his studies as an ordained person at Sera.
So it’s been a really important place in the context of our teachers in the center. And, also, yeah, for that matter, you know, a wonderful translator, Ilya, and Tenzin himself studied at Sera for very, very long periods, both of them. So that’s another reason. But yeah. So that’s the the relationship.
I think the orientation of the center, to my mind, has more of an emphasis on, like, study, And I think that kind of analysis where it’s okay to ask questions, it’s good to really link up with other people who are interested in these topics to kind of investigate these things in a really rigorous way. And also do the same thing with a teacher, you know, having back and forth kind of dialogue like that. I think that’s emphasized to my mind a bit more than some places, and that’s something that’s also a big feature at Sera as a source of inspiration. So, like, it’s not every single monk at Sera. I wouldn’t wanna suggest that, but some of them are just wonderful in the way they take on hardship for the purpose of the dharma and beings.
So perhaps hearing some of these stories, it gives some inspiration. You know? And, also, finally, just as, a Western perspective, you know, the fact that perhaps I can help clarify things that are, you know, unclear, yeah, and talk about in kind of a safe space. Like, there’s this kind of doubt about the the system, the way things are done. You know?
So so those four things are what I came up with in terms of why this stuff might be important, I guess. So how I wanted to do that was basically a little bit about the history of Sarah and where our teachers kind of fit into that primarily. Yeah. And then the transition of Sarah coming to India and what that’s meant and Sarah today and also, I guess, mainly the study program and my experience with that. And along the way, hopefully, there’ll be something useful for you guys to take away.
So Sera has basically almost a six hundred year history, and it’s really an example of mass like monasticism. These days, there’s 4,000 at least 4,000 monks, I think it’s Sera, if you count Sera Je and Sera Mey, the two colleges. And that’s been the case for for many hundreds and hundreds of years, at least since the seventeenth century. When, like, the Lhasa government is said to have supported particularly the Gelug monastic institutions more heavily. Since then, it’s been seen as, you know, well, let’s get as many people into the system as we can.
So just some points on that. That mass monasticism is something that you don’t see in other traditions nearly as much. So on the one hand, it makes you know, it’s made them a very politically powerful group, the the monks in Tibet. I guess, thought that, I think, in 1950 prior to the Chinese invasion, there was probably 20% of the Tibetan population was was thought to be ordained. Apparently, so it’s a huge I mean, that’s one estimate.
It’s a huge amount of the population, and they’ve also been more politically active than, I think, monks and nuns in some countries. So that’s kind of the the upside of it. On the downside, it often it has had to be achieved by you lower the standards of admission into the into the kind of ordained fraternity. So that means, you know, naturally erodes people’s image of monks as like this kind of virtuoso figure. So that’s kind of a tension, I guess, that’s happened.
It’s been happening in Tibet and probably still exists today to some extent. So that’s just kind of the the context. But it would Sera itself was was founded as a scholastic institution, and I think primarily aimed at furthering Tsongkhapa’s, Tsongkhapa and his two sons’ teachings and also particularly the first of the Dalai Lamas, Gendun Drup. So that was the, you know, the main kind of mission statement of is preserving, upholding those teachings. And it’s probably being the deep place I mean, I guess, we’re together with Drepung and Ganden, a deep place to study to study the sūtra at least the sūtra level of the Buddha’s teachings in Tibet, and it’s probably been that way.
Those, you know, those three seats have probably been that way up until this day, and they probably still are. I mean, outside of Tibet, they’re probably the place in the world. It’s probably fair to say. So that’s kind of what we’re doing out in the middle of the sticks, you know, in in Southern India. It’s yeah.
It really is an amazing opportunity just the scale of the the studies, Yeah. And just the rigor with which it’s pursued, the time things back to the Indian sources. You just I just don’t personally feel like you see that kind of rigor, yeah, anywhere else. Not quite the same. And there’s similar ones, but it’s very special.
So, yeah, that’s so that’s how it began, I guess. And, yeah, I guess, it’s a kind of fast forward to the previous or previous previous generation, which is Rinpoche’s generation in first studying in Tibet up until the the nineteen fifties. So at that time, monks would generally come from remote kind of monasteries to to study at Sarah. They’d come there, and the conditions were terrible. The best is no getting away from that.
There was, you know, heaps of monks in one room. There was basically very little money for them to afford food. There’s no there’s no kind of food offered by the monastery itself. But these kind of you know, I mean, the stories of these beings, you know, with the thing the hardships they went through at that time is just incredible. Know, Rinpoche said himself at one time to us that, you know, he would just literally have nothing to eat besides tsampa, which is this kind of barley flour thing that you kind of put with water or tea to to make this kind of lump that just kind of sits in your stomach.
And you eat it. So he would fill up on that, but that was all he had. There’s no tea to drink. There’s, you know, just water. And, yeah, a lot of the people got really sick.
Rinpoche’s friends would actually pass away in the early stages of his studies. One of one of Rinpoche’s contemporaries, which is Geshe Rabten, he he wrote in his biography, autobiography, that, yeah, would It was actually commonplace. They’d get up at four. They’d be prostrating and meditating until six. This is after having been up till at least midnight the night before, starting and meditating and debating.
And, yeah, in his his case, he was too full to afford food. Basically, he got really sick. His skin turned so green, and he had this really thin kind of emaciated figure. And his classmates started calling him Milarepa. He says not not because of any kind of, you know, mental quality, but just because of his appearance.
So, basically, even though the the the kind of, I guess, in a sense, the next generation, which is kind of Geshe la’s generation, although their conditions were also really difficult, they kind of say, like, oh, we’re we’re embarrassed at how good it was for us. So that’s that’s kind of, yeah, the difficulties. Guess they those kind of people, they just like, people like Rinpoche, it seems as though they’re just spurred on by the biographies of the other great masters, you know, like, particularly Milarepa and the hardships he endured. And they just kept going, and they did it with enthusiasm seemingly. So that’s really amazing, I think.
So when the when Tibet when Tibet moved to India no. When Sarah moved to India, it was even more difficult at the beginning. So first, the Tibetans came. His Holiness came to Mussoorie in West Bengal, I think. And there was he spent some time in a kind of a refugee camp there. And later, he helped establish the community in Buxa, which is also in West Bengal.
So that’s an incredibly hot climate, like, unbelievable. Just 50 degrees, like, kinda commonly. At that time, lots of people naturally got sick because they’re completely not used to the climate. And it was, yeah, it was a really real slog trying to get the monastery established again. Yeah.
And later in when Rinpoche moved to South India, so in in Karnataka state, if anyone knows the geography. In any case, they were gifted a piece of land down there, and they had to basically completely clear the land. It was just forest. And some people many people were killed by elephants, apparently, in that process of clearing forest. And they didn’t really have opportunity to study much at this time.
One one guy even requested I’ve been told requested a protective prayer to to ward off the elephants from their holiness at that time. So this was kind of, I guess, in the the sixties and perhaps early seventies. But in any case, there was a lot of hardships involved with establishing Sera reestablishing Sera in India. By the seventies, it it seems as though it was it was more or less functioning as it had done in Tibet, but times would remain really hard up until, I’m told, about the mid mid nineties. It was probably mid to late nineties where more sponsorship was established, things like the food program came in, things like eventually, monk sponsorship program came in.
And that could supplement the the small amount that the monastery was actually able to offer the monks in terms of just sustenance. So yeah. So it was in this kind of era when people like Rinpoche and also his students like, recently, the late Geshe Rabten. They became debate tutors and took on roles as the disciplinarian at the monastery and later abbots. And it was also at the same time when people like Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen were studying in the midst of their studies, which is kind of in the from the mid eighties onwards.
So it was really still really difficult at this time. One of my teachers, Geshe Yama Rinchen, who some of you might remember, visited a few years ago. He was he’s usually very humble about anything involving himself. But one time, he he told us, you know, I I really I have no kind of regrets about my studies.
You know, I I used to stay at the Debate Courtyard till one or two in the you know, every night. He’d, you know, he’d have to be at the next morning at sunrise sort of thing, but he’d do that. He’d come back routinely with his hands completely bleeding. He’d his chunga, which is this upper robe here, that was kind of, just as a rule, kind of ripped. Yeah.
I think he said his his teacher had to sew it up, you know, most most days afterwards. And, yeah, basically, he’d come home, and and he also was and that’s a bit anyway, he said that, you know, he’d urinate, and and usually blood would come. And he kinda saw doctors about it, and nobody could seem to work out why, but it seemed he seems like he thought it was a result of the the conditions that, I guess, of the kind of the intensity which he, you know, went about his studies. And these are the same sort of conditions that Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen, I’m sure would have been enduring. He was a couple of years senior, I think.
So I don’t have any really nice anecdotes, but I’m sure it’d be it might be nice if you were interested to ask, like, about what was it like during your studies and what were the conditions like if people have some. See, that might be an inspiring thing to do. Yeah. So as I said, it remained like that until the the probably the late nineties. Yeah.
The food was a real problem, the accommodation. And, yeah, even a a puja, you know, having tea was just more, like, incredibly rare, basically. These days, like, a puja, there’s actually, like, three main pujas, and the three words in Tibetan all have the word tea in them. Yeah. So it’s kinda like a tea Puja without tea is like an oxymoron now, but so, yeah, it changed a lot, basically.
These days, yeah, the situation is really good. You probably you could even argue it’s almost you know, it’s going towards the too cushy side. You know? So it’s completely changed dramatically. And whatever way you look at it, we have, you know, all the conditions to to study, to be really happy studying.
So it’s it’s incredible. I guess also that in this kind of now in this period now, there’s just from my perspective, you know, you see there’s, you know, still these kind of problems, the heartache of exile, the feelings of kind of cultural isolation in India. There’s new kind of difficulties with the freedom that comes from being in India. And, yeah, there’s also how to deal with these kind of new require new sort of requirements of the monastery to be involved in, like, conferences with different, you know, Western scientists and with, you know, other other religions and, you know, other the other traditions. So there’s a whole bunch.
So trying to work out how we evolve to kind of do that better, I guess, is is a real source of discussion, I guess, in the monastery. But, I mean, the the main thought process has been since and it is still today. Sera is kind of like, idle hands are the devil’s workshop. You know? Like, basically, we just the monasteries said, well, how we should deal with this by giving people, you know, as little time, you know, to kind of disgrace themselves.
So they kind of yeah. So, basically, the schedule was really tight, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. So, yeah, that’s you know, that in some ways, that’s a good thing. For people like me, it’s probably a good thing. So, yeah, the schedule starts, you know, between five and six in the morning, and it goes to eleven or twelve at night at least.
You know? So so it’s still like that, I guess. And I and, know, it’s an individual thing how much you push yourself, but, yeah, that’s we’re certainly given a lot of things that we’re expected to kind of be involved with. So, anyway, that’s kind of just some of the landscape. Yeah.
I think, you know, yeah, just to say, I think still the study itself is probably as good as it’s been. If you talk about the the scholastic aspect of it, absolutely is as good as it’s been, probably better than I think it’s ever been in terms of the rigor with which, you know, people are now going into drawing back to the Indian commentaries and kind of fleshing out points that nobody else kind of bothered to flesh out in the text. That stuff is is incredible. So yeah. So I guess what is the system of study?
Yeah. It’s basically two main things when you sort of ask that question that Sarah is, like, means, like, meaning more or less and meaning debate. So this is kind of, like, seen as the, like, two kind of aspects. I was you could say wisdom and method aspect that’s often grafted onto it. It’s that your pujas are like your method aspect where you’re sort of more or less you’re mostly kind of accumulating merit.
You’re trying to purify kind of the instructions to your studies. And, yeah, and the debate is your kind of main instrument with which you try to get to the, you know, basically access your own wisdom and understand the kind of your deeper points of the teachings. So, yeah, that’s basic that’s kind of that’s always discussed in that kind of conversation is, you know, you should be attending pujas. You should be attending debate, and, naturally, debate has a lot of things that that you need to do to support it. So yeah.
So these days, I guess, well, that yeah. Just to pick up on that, the idea of the wisdom, I think a common criticism is that maybe it’s it’s very intellectual. It’s very scholastic. And I think to a to a point, there’s some truth in it, but I think it needs to be nuanced with the kind of talking about the three wisdoms. This guy you probably would have heard of this, I imagine, the kind of the wisdom of listening and then contemplation and then meditation.
This is the real kind of bread and butter of the Gelug tradition, particularly. That is is, you know, we need to first listen to kind of the things that we wanna understand within the teachings and then kinda going deeper beyond just kind of being able to repeat what the what the lama said or to be able to recite something in a text that we memorize. We have to try and think about the implications of what we’re in the broader system, Try to, yeah, basically flesh out those more difficult points. Does it make sense? Do we need to find some you know, say it’s just a provisional teaching and the, you know, the actual meaning is this?
And, ultimately, that’s a personal process. Think that that’s kind of something that each person does, and each person comes to their own conclusions. It’s not as though in a sense, it probably appears as though it is, but it’s not as though there’s really one truth. Well, maybe there is. But for each person, they’ve kind of got their own way that they they kind of access that, and they kind of come to terms with the various doubts that come up in the course of understanding the system and trying to sort of and sort of working out, well, how does what is, you know, what is the system that we follow in order to achieve enlightenment?
You know, does it all make sense? Is it kind of internally coherent? So, yeah, that’s that process is is involves a lot of personal contemplation. And, yeah, so then how do we kind of make that happen? The kind of tools the tools are like I guess first is the memorization.
So there’s many different so memorization is a huge thing in this kind of culture. And I think, like, for example, you know, to go to your tutorials with your teacher, which is kind of the most probably the most important thing in terms of understanding the material, They kind of expect you to have a certain amount memorized, especially if they know you can memorize, then they kind of you know, they’ll charge you if, you know, you don’t have a certain amount there. So when they kind of ask you for it so mistake. These days, you know, yeah. Recently or a few years ago, he said, like, you know, we used to we used to hit people, but you can’t do that anymore.
You know? The times have changed. So no. I’ve never seen that happen in in that context. Yeah.
So I think it used to, but yeah. No. But these days so that stuff’s expected for that. And and also debate even your classmates will basically similarly, if they know you can do it and they know you usually study, they’ll sometimes get into you and say, oh, what are you doing? Why haven’t you got the material there?
You kinda have to explain yourself. You know, I had this thing on. You know? I had to I had to give this talk in Australia. I’m sorry.
And yeah. So that, anyway, it’s really important. There’s some really, like, varying levels of of memorization. Some people are just freaks, the late like, was he they said he memorized all of the, you know, some kind of his golden rosary, which is, like, a 200 pages or something. This huge two two volume thing.
So, I mean, the yeah. With I don’t know how it’s it was true, but in any case, he was an amazing memorizer. Frequently, he’s an example. Yeah. And some people have difficulty memorizing the verse.
You know? So it varies, but everybody is kind of expected to be seen to be putting effort into it. So if I mean, yeah, that’s often criticized in a Western context. Think, like, you know, sort of and I think on its own, it’s not enough. You know?
You have to you have to go beyond that naturally. Otherwise, you can just put things into a tape recorder or whatever. Yeah. It’s the same as being able to recite things. But for me, I like I think it’s once you’ve studied the material, you’ve memorized, like, it’s it’s kind of an opportunity to have this deeper kind of interaction with the text and kind of it feels as though, you know, it sort of might actually be in your head a little bit more.
I mean, it’s not like experience, but it’s sort of like it’s it’s a lot closer than it was if you’re just looking at the words kind of, and you can pull the book at any time you want and point at it. You know? So, yeah, it’s a big thing. And I think and now the stuff that we studied, you can you can see as you recite that material. It’s like a it’s like kinda like a reflection meditation almost as you go through it, you know, because you know actually what the things are all saying.
You have a whole bunch of side information that branches off just what’s in the root text and so forth. So so that’s really nice. And people say that once you’ve studied all of the all of the, sorry, Prajñāpāramitā text, you know, you can recite all of Maitreya’s Ornament of Clear Realization, which is, like, 30 pages or so. And it’s just like you have the whole kind of path kind of in in the way it’s presented in that kind of a peer to you. So that’s kind of an exciting, I guess, reason to finish those studies.
Yeah. And then, like, similarly, we say, like, it’s kind of another aspect of the time we spend doing that is, you know, the teachers often say you should think that your recitations are like planting or maybe ripening potentially karmic imprints in in, like, animals and non other nonhuman beings, you know, as you kind of because it’s usually done outside in a quite a high volume. So this is kind of whether or not it’s true, I don’t know, but it’s a nice thing to think about. You know? It brings a nice motivation involved with with doing something, and, you know, you keep out of trouble for for several hours if you’re doing it, basically.
And, yeah, I mean, also, it’s it’s considered a really nice offering to one’s teacher, you know, in the in terms of the three offerings. Like, offering practice is a really nice thought that, you know, teachers often ask you, have you memorized this? And they give out, like, prizes for people who memorized stuff, and the teachers are there. So this is this is a really nice component that, you know, you can see that your teacher’s really happy with the work you’ve done with that. It’s also, a really nice group energy.
You know, it’s usually done in the context of, like like, monks kind of households where there’s between two and, like, even a 100 monks living in one one house. So they’ll be all outside, you know, just, you know, the periods and just screaming their lungs out. And, yeah, it’s basically, it brings a lot of energy, you know, even though you get tired because other people are doing it, is it brings this kind like, yeah. I’m like, I wanna do it. I thought it was really cool.
And maybe, like, an element of competition with a lot of these things, but, you know, if it works, it works. Basically, it keeps you out there. So so that’s the way that’s the big thing is your memorization. As I mentioned, tutorial classes. So this is where most people have between two or one and even, like, four different debate tutors.
So they basically tutor you on all the material that you are kind of gradually going through the classes at debate with your class at debate. And this is, like, we’re really, I wanna say, compelled again and again to, like, have a full kind of lama, you know, like a spiritual teacher relationship, rely on them as a as a spiritual teacher the same way we would, like, his holiness and so forth. Because this person is teaching, like, literally, you know, from just teaching you, like, this presentation of colors and the presentation of, like, all these, like, really kind of intellectual and really kind of beginner topics. He teaches you all the way up to, you know, ultimately, probably tantra and high seer of the tantra and so forth. So we’re kind of, yeah, encouraged again and again to reflect on their kindness and take them, yeah, basically as a teacher.
So that’s really cool because, you know, if you can do that, it’s someone you’re working with on that level, you know, probably every day. So it’s wonderful to have this kind of, you know, just direct contact with someone like that, you know, every single day. That’s really special. The style of the class, I guess, is just a kind of a few things that come up in terms of it being a bit different from Western education before. Like, it’s quite participatory at times.
Like, there’s the teacher asks a lot of questions. Often, he kind of manifests like a not knowing about a topic. What do you think? Ask the students. And, you know, there’s he often debate the students.
Yeah. And there’s a real emphasis on question and answer back and forth. Very often, the teacher says, like, I don’t really have a final position. I can go and analyze it and work it out with the beta. That’s a really common theme, and it’s really useful, I think.
And, also, at that time, you get a lot of, like, personal advice. I think that’s kind of usually the component of most lessons is sorry. Excuse me. You get that, yeah, you get that stuff that I think we we all need so much, you know, really the same with us. We have a busy lifestyle as well.
So you need that kind of kind of kind of, you know, instructions that kinda keep you on track. So you definitely get that as a component of that. So after that, we have, like, a self study time. So that’s where we basically in our rooms, we go through various texts, like anything you know, if you do it well, or anything loosely related to the topic you’re studying, try and work out if there’s any, basically, contradictions between that. Is there anything that needs to be investigated further?
You know? Basically, does the thing you’re looking at right now, does that make sense? If it doesn’t seem to make sense, is there something in another text that seems to make it make sense, or does it just flesh out something which is really kind of ambiguous and unclear? So that’s something I really enjoy. That’s really probably the fact that the nicest part of the day is sitting down in the afternoon doing that for two hours, and it’s just really peaceful.
It’s really, like a lot of people say it’s just no no worries in the world, so that’s a really nice time. So yeah. And then that’s usually in preparation for debate. So I guess as debate gets a little bit closer, there’s more worries. Can I have to be ready for debate?
So once yeah. Once so you have to kind of prepare as well in that period to sort of what am I gonna investigate tonight at debate? How am I gonna try and fend off the kind of obvious, you know, arguments that people are gonna throw at me, so this kind of stuff. Yeah. And, yeah, we’re kind of in that kind of space where I’m encouraged, like, to do I read for thirty minutes and think for thirty minutes.
That’s kind of one instruction I heard once. So it’s kind of it’s not just kind of taking in the material. It’s sort of thinking for yourself, does it? Yeah. Is there any contradiction there?
How does it all fit together? So, yeah, then that kind leads up to debate, obviously. And debate is it’s often being compared to, like, this idea of, like, dialectic, like, in, I think, in the Western tradition, like, as far back as ancient Greece. So, like, I think for, like, Zeno, he thought that dialectic was like how to say? Basically, a way of, like, following an opponent’s hypothesis hypothesis to see if it makes sense.
You know, are there any faults? Are there things that you just simply can’t accept? And in doing so, kind of refute that hypothesis. So that was one kind of take on it. And then I think for the softest, like, protagonist and stuff, it was like it’s a way of, like, like, kinda like lawyers, you know, just defeat your opponent, you know, using all these kind of trickery, just kind of, you know, playing with words, you know, a way that you can learn the system and be able to defeat anyone in an argument, but not necessarily kind of sometimes for nefarious purposes.
And then for Socrates, it was sort of this this kind of wondering about truth, you know, and often kind of, you know, in in this wondering and asking many questions, showing another person and everyone there that nobody knows a great deal about anything. But, you know, I guess encouraging the search. And then later, I think for Aristotle, it was more like, you know, in the absence of, like, a first degree, like, in a direct knowledge of something, then, you know, we use this dialectic in order to kind of reason into what what might be going on there. So some people have argued that, specifically, Georges Dreyfus who finished his Geshe degree, the first Westerner to do so, I believe. He, yeah, he argued that, like, it’s close to this Tibetan debate system.
It’s closest to Aristotle’s kind of conception. But when I list them off, I kind of think, you know, it’s kind of all of them in practice. You know? There’s so many different elements. You know?
In some ways, it is learning how to defeat, you know, at least poor opponents, you know, in under any circumstances. And in some ways, it’s, you know, fleshing out problems in someone else’s hypothesis or having your own problems kind of fleshed out. And in some ways, it is this search for truth that shows us that nobody really knows a great deal about much. We really love it.
Yeah. And in some ways, is it’s definitely something that we’re you reason into that level of phenomena, which we kinda can’t all agree on. You know? That’s that’s where we’re debating all the things that are obvious to everyone. So so, yeah, it’s whatever you wanna say about it, it’s a wonderful system.
For me, it’s it’s really useful. It only goes so far, but it’s a fantastic way to kind of try and unpack, like, a scriptural system. And it’s a huge part of, like especially these kind of Gelug scholastic institutions we do. At Sarah, we do about, like, between three well, yeah, Between three and, like, five hours a day kind of as in terms of what you have to be there for. And then, yeah, beyond that, if the really enthusiasts enthusiastic guys will stay even longer.
Yeah. The other kind of the beauty of it, I think, is, like, it’s sort of the sport aspect of it. And I think if people have seen the pictures, there’s a lot of fun involved in it, and that’s a real, really cool aspect is that we’ve got thousands of young guys, you know, often with kind of hormones rushing. And it’s just a and and it kind of opportunity to kind of channel a little bit of that into this this kind of really high energy kind of game. It’s really like no holds barred.
A lot of the time, like, this kind of those people are friends. There’s, like, you know, insults kind of flying back and forth, but, you know, you only need to you know, when you know the person really well and you know that, ultimately, they won’t actually take offense, then it’s yeah. It really is a a high energy kind of thing. So that’s really cool, I think. And, also, yeah, that kind of brings out the importance of, like, classmates in that process.
Some people want, some of you might remember, one of Rinpoche’s attendants. He was recently saying, like, in some ways, your your classmates are kind of almost a bigger part of your kind of learning than than your teachers in some like, in terms of just the time that you spend with them and how much stuff you flesh out kind of in this this shared process. It’s really important. So yeah. For me, debate as well, like, there’s the main things that come out is when you’re answering, you know, you immediately see how little you know about things, which is really useful, I think.
You know? Because otherwise, you can, a really long time, think that you understand something, and and then someone ask two or three questions. So it’s really good for that. It’s really good. So it also stops.
So it stops arrogance in that process, but also in terms of showing you things you need to look into more. You know? It’s really good. That’s one thing. And then, yeah, seeing if you’re kind of you have these kind of hypotheses you come up with with respect to things that just aren’t clear anywhere.
So then when you really put them on the line, having thought about them a lot, you know, it’s a fantastic opportunity to see if that might make sense. You know? Especially when you do it with the sharpest people, you know, then you really feel like, oh, that might actually might actually work. You know? Because they they weren’t able to come up with any obvious faults, you know, in the idea you have.
And then debating, you know, you really get this this wonderful opportunity to sometimes yeah. I mean, mostly try and go at like, really go at the doubt that you have, you know, and really don’t leave anything behind in terms of, you know, seeing if it actually doesn’t make sense as you sort of seem to almost believe or, you know, at least literally. Yeah. So that or, you know, it’s seeing if it’s just your kind of misunderstanding and somebody else can kind of clarify that for you. So those are some of the best things.
And then there’s also just the aspect of doing that. You know, you go back and forth over material again and again. You know, there’s always things like the outline involved of the whole text. You know, every time it goes through, like, you know, this Tibetans love outlines. You know, there’s always this you know, this has three, and this has two, and this has four.
But in that process of just this kind of back and forth, it’s a really good way to go over the stuff because doing that on your own, you get you get so bored, I think. But but, to be honest, but with you know, in in the context of this game, it’s actually it’s really kind of a game in some ways. You know? It, yeah, it actually it spurs you on to do it and to put the effort into kind of holding that material, which is really important. Yeah.
And it’s also like a form of of analytical meditation. Very often, you know, when people ask you these really quite difficult and sharp questions, and, you know, and say that that means that this, you know, this will follow from your position and so on. It’s it’s a really good way for people and ourselves to kind of find it difficult to generate that questioning mind just on their own, you really follow like that. You know, where does that go? What happens if that happens?
Does this all make sense? And although you’re not you might not be sitting in, you know, an impressive position, it really is so wonderful in the implementation. So yeah. And just to kind of, I guess, touch on that. Beyond that, analytical meditation, especially as as you guys probably know in the is really emphasized.
So it’s done in that context definitely. It’s now at least the meditation period has been instituted, like, within the debate session in the evening. So, like, there’s time when it’s done as a in a group setting. Not necessarily analytical meditation, but, you know, whatever people wanna do. Yeah.
And I think, again and again, we’re encouraged to do that stuff, you know, in your own time, whatever that is. So so I guess that’s the that’s kind of where meditation sits in the process. But I think it’s important to maybe say that what the program is providing with mostly is like the the kind of the first two levels in terms of getting towards realization, like, as Tsongkhapa said in his biography. You know, first, I saw it extensive listening. Second, I am in middle.
All the teachings arose as practical instructions. And finally, you know, practice staying aligned and had every everything’s the benefit of of teaching other teachings and my graders. So I think, yeah, what what we’ve really given in this Scholastic system is an opportunity to get this kind of the teachings arising as practical instructions, you know, all these things that we’re banging on about at a certain point, the system itself makes sense. And it seems like Tsongkhapa kinda realized that in the context of studying Dharmakīrti’s Pramanavartika, and that was relatively early in his career. That was up until then, he’d mostly you know, he’d studied.
He showed the aspect of being a great, you know, debater, a great student. But he had you know, it’s in his first one of his first few retreats when he had that kind of realization. So I think what we’re doing, you know, principally is that kind of level. And the very you know, the guys with the imprints, the very cream of the crop, are also kind of combining that with the placement meditation on the stuff that they kinda really they already understand. So that’s just my kind of assessment with the the system and how kind of it might fit together.
So, yeah, I could wrap it up for a second pretty soon. But just in terms of, like, all of that study, the person so there’s main the main two people involved with that in terms of teachers are this debate tutor. He’s like the real he shows the scholarly aspect and and different levels of, I guess, direct kind of involvement and love for the student. And then you have this other teacher called the the Kashagan who’s like the the house or the residence kind of lama or teacher. So he’s kind of like the person who when you enter a monastery, he sort of takes you on and says, like, he’s with me.
Basically, whatever kind of welfare needs to be provided for the person, whatever problems they have with their studies, with sustaining themselves if they get sick. This person says, like, I’ll look after him, whatever happens. And he sometimes gives advice. So that’s and not necessarily. Sometimes it will be the same as your debate tutor, but quite often not.
But you have this kind of these two really important people in your life in in the context of your studies. And just thinking about that, I guess, I think some things in that those relationships aren’t necessarily relevant, but to you you guys here. But I think with someone like Geshe-la around, like, he can almost fulfill the equivalent of those two teachers, you know, depending on how open we are to kind of receiving advice, personal advice from him, from, I guess, asking questions and that sort of stuff. So so I kinda thought that was a nice idea. Yeah.
So just to kinda close-up just in trying to, again, bring this back to you guys maybe. I think a few things stuck out, and maybe just to talk about Sera, the harmony, I guess, the the emphasis on harmony, like, in in terms of not becoming jealous of others, you know, due to their success or their kind of seemingly, you know, ability to understand things without even effort. That that stuff is whatever way you look at it, really impressive at at Sarah. Just the the maturity of people, you know, despite the quite intense competition at times. There’s that competition, but not with any ill feeling.
And every like, in my class, everybody gets on. I’ve never noticed any hint of some, you know, weirdness between people despite us. You know, when we debate, it’s it’s really hard. But but outside of that, everyone gets on really well. So there there’s that kind of there’s no this is a really good feeling of harmony, basically.
And that kind of helps the it helps get the best results. And then, like, the yeah. Just thinking about working for the kind of commitment to working for the community. So, like, even, like, the best scholar months, the real, like, top of the class. You know?
Even those people have to, you know, when the when the monastery calls for them to, they have to work in the kitchen. They have to, you know, go and cut cut off branches off trees and do these kind of less glamorous things. So there’s basically no no exceptions at all in this context. And, you know, they do that with, yeah, with humility. And then there’s another kind of type of person who doesn’t gravitate towards study as much, and they often willingly take on, like, roles to kind of just benefit the community in their own way.
So they kind of yeah. They might kind of go into administration or they might, you know, work in the the kitchen and so forth. And those people are really, like, esteemed by others. You know, they really kind of pray, especially when they do it with a good motivation. They really prayed by others, really looked upon really well.
So I think these are just some things that are kind of appear to me are really relevant in the data center context. Yeah. And then finally, as I mentioned no fun. Yeah. Like, with that reliance on one’s classmates, I guess, for you guys, it’s the the people who also attend the center.
It’s kind of a a resource for your your learning, you know, just being really open to at least that’s the way I feel it is there is, you know, really open to putting your own positions on the line, exploring whether they make sense, being really kind of forthright with other people’s opinions. And I guess when that’s done in a safe environment, it’s it’s a really good way to learn. And finally, I think the the idea we’re kind of drummed in again and again in the context of being like at Sarah and and those kind of monasteries is you have to kind of be the the change you wanna see in the world. No? You have to have to be the kind of the change you wanna be seeing the teachings.
So, like, the kind of way it’s presented to us often is if the kind of level of, you know, the scriptural under you know, understanding of the teachings or the realization level of the teachings, if that kind of degenerates here, then it’s pretty safe to say it’s degenerated in a big way, perhaps in an untenable way. So so I guess it’s that kind of identifying the teachings as, you know, this either this the scriptural level understanding what’s being said really well and being able to explain it to others or, like, just striving for realization. And I think, you know, the first ideally supports the second, but, you know, I think it might be a mode of practice where where you’re striving for that realization level of teachings, despite not having much time to study. So that kind of I really like that narrative, the idea that, you know, that it’s something that we have to strive for ourselves to make happen. Otherwise, it it kinda dies away, and then for the next generation, it’s not there.
So yeah. So that’s kind of a bit of a look at life at Sarah. Yeah. I haven’t kind of thought that much about my own experience, but, anyway, maybe unless you guys have any questions, we can take right? Is that Yeah.
Take a break. Did did anybody have any questions in the meantime or comments? Yes. Yeah. I was nervous when I did Rachel.
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty. But the one the role I had was was not so I was kinda like, I can get this. You know?
It’s basically you have to sing a little bit, and you have to answer. And I I usually answer okay, and I was like, I used to better sing okay. And, ma’am, can you give a hint? Yeah. So and congratulate, you know, congratulate for, you know, how much he, you know, achieved.
And you should have said, you know, we continue to to study and until, you know, some sermons of the work we do. I guess I guess I said, yeah, I said we listen and contemplate well, and the main thing is to, you know, apply the teachings to your mind. That’s the main thing. Yeah. Yeah.
And also look after your health. Yeah. So it’s really it’s really wonderful, you know, six years achieved. You know, the language is not easy. You know?
You can ask Geshe-la. Isn’t it? No. I I have no time. You know, it’s not easy.
And not only that, you know, it’s a classical, you know, that when you study in Buddhism or the you know, there’s a slightly different, you know, on a language. So that you it’s quite amazing. And not only that, and receiving a ritual is I think I have mentioned in a in a during our weekend course. It’s not that easy to receive the ritual. You know, there is so many classmates, and they own lots of good ones.
And you choose there’s only 16 seats, and that, you know, it’s hard to get receive, you know. And we really to congratulations and, you know, wonderful your achievement and, you know, you know, his effort in such short time. So we would like to thank for him and and and we encourage and, you know, continue and until Gishi. And then after that Gishi, you know, there’s maybe time for, you know, going in solitary retreats and lot of people. You know?
So, anyway, it’s one of the our teachers, you know, I think this is very wonderful that we can congratulate, you know, some of you have a team such as it’s really fantastic for my asset. You know? I can see this is so much effort. You know? And that’s that.
And we will see again, you know. And you probably know that we have a magazine, time to time, you know, very much. Know, what’s my
And on in Sarah. So there’s always a time we could do, and TBI has a great, tremendous relationship there so that we can continue that. And, you know, sometime future, maybe, you know, we can come back and maybe give, you know, some guidance for our TBI members in in the future. So anyway, I think that’s about it. There is a chat there.
Maybe you can chat ready to all. We can bring a child here only if you can make sure look after. I’ll get into trouble. Someone there. But, you know, definitely, there’s a child.
Child has no sugar. You can put a sugar yourself, but because I’m making it really easy because some people don’t drink sugar, don’t take sugar. So you can two or three, you can go out there, hold the chai. Chai is already in a pot, and you can bring one for Geshe la and all the venerables here. And who’s going to do voluntary?
Good. Probably need the three yeah. And then, meanwhile, we once your chart’s ready, you can don’t pull it. So you can you can sit there. Okay.
And if you have any questions. Yeah. Yeah. Was Uh-huh. Bless you.
Oh, yeah. You said the things are much, much easier on edge. Oh, yes. I think mainly the profile of Sera Je in particular, I guess, has got a lot to do with it. Like, some of the the various, like, great lamas that have come out of Sera Je in in the last generation, for whatever reason, they’ve had a huge impact in the West, and also in East Asia, I guess.
I think primarily, like, that kind of connection, especially with East Asia, there’s been basically a lot of sponsorship. Yeah. People wanting to, I guess, benefit the place where those where their teachers have come from. I’d say that’s the biggest reason. I mean, the monasteries had some kind of ventures, like, you know, they they, at one stage, had crops and stuff like this.
Yeah. But I don’t think that’s a big component. Crops. Yeah. Kind of the so I don’t think that’s a big component of that process.
I’d say it would be mainly that, but just the kind of volume of sponsorship, and that’s because of those those teachers, I think. Yeah. Has about a thousand. Thought that was about right. A thousand.
He said, usually, we say that Tsel Ganden, where Geshe-la and Khensur and Geshe-la’s college have actually slightly more monks than in all of Sera Me. So it’s just one unit of Sera Me College, but the whole Sera Me College has less than that. So I want everybody to come back. If you have another question, please. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Meant to make that clear. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a ferocious debater, I’m told. I guess that’s what they used to happen to him a lot during the winter debate session very often. Yeah.
This is kinda like another walk in Did that get difficult? Oh, yeah. It’s like pushing to, like, be the one who gets the challenge, the guy answering. Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. That’s the main thing is everyone wants to be the guy who kind of shows this guy who’s wrong and basically yeah. So so they’re like, no. I’m gonna tell him. I’m gonna show him.
You know? So in that process, there’s a lot of ripping. Yeah. Usually, the kind of instruction that the kind of elder monks give us is like, you should be have like a black face and a white heart. So like that.
The the idea is a really mean face as you’re debating, but like in in the inside, have really good motivation. So yeah. I just missed one word. The Western techniques for? Yep.
Do you do that? I think we do. We have our own language for doing those kind of things. But, yeah, I think there’s a lot of harmony between the two traditions. But do most monks pay attention to the history of that stuff?
And, no. Not really, but some do. You know? There’s guys coming through the school now, which I I hear had a a hand in actually instituting. So that school now is really starting to a little bit show the the dividends of that kind of giving the young guys, the young months, the Western education, you know.
And then the really good ones, there they are paying attention to those things. I heard that now sixty months within the Geshe program have basically started doing some study at an open university, like, on the side of their studies. So within that, I know one guy, for example, is doing a philosophy, certificate. So there’s this a certain kind of, I guess, cream of the crop which are paying some attention to it, but not broadly speaking, not really. Yeah.
But they have their own ways for kind of, I guess, yeah, analyzing a proposition for us, you know, as you say, soundness. I think that’s an aspect of the tradition, but it’s not this language isn’t used, I guess. But yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay.
Well, to be honest, I don’t I don’t I don’t know. You probably know better than me whether it’s it has is actually an advanced beyond what is is already being discussed in our tradition. But, yeah, I I honestly don’t know. I suspect there’s probably a lot of crossover, and it’s like we’re using different language for something that both traditions are probably doing. But, yeah, maybe we can flesh that out or something afterwards.
If you wanna talk about it, yeah, I probably I’m don’t have the background really to yeah. Sure. Okay. If anybody guess what I just said, if anyone else wants to ask anything. What’s How long how long does it take to your?
These days, it takes twenty four years. That’s actually I guess, Geshe-la quickly corrected me. You have to make the distinction between whether it’s a Lharampa Geshe degree or one of the other. So there’s different grades of Geshe you can do. But to do Lharampa Geshe, the last level.
Yeah. So is the highest level of Laram. To do that, you have to take twenty four years. The others, it kind of Yeah. So the actual formal study component of the other Geshe degrees, the other three, is only eighteen years.
But When start at the age of 20, you could have finished about 40 five. Yeah. And then you go to a final 12. I’ve been studying for a long time as well, and you’ve already done, like, our whole Western education system, and then you get told, oh, by the way, you’ll do another 23. But yeah.
No. No. It’s I mean, it’s it’s more than just, you know, the scholastic aspect of it, isn’t it? You know, it’s about you have to change the mind, and the rigor is really it’s intense. I mean, you can see if you ask Geshe-la any question about this stuff, you can answer and you can provide a doubt.
You can, you know, go deeper with it. But I think with most academics, often, you go around the question or something like that. So it’s it’s it’s really rigorous. Yeah. Basically.
Alright. Yeah. Everyone’s telling me I should. So but I wanna I wanna at least finish the Madhyamaka classes. So that’s that’s still another nine years.
So I figure you do that, and a lot of my teachers have said that’s a good way to proceed. Definitely finish that. Like, everyone’s like, no. No. You’re not going anywhere for nine years.
Like, forget about it. But beyond that, then you have to see what’s more beneficial taking doing the degree and benefiting people through that that kind of way. Or, you know, do you wanna actually go off and, basically, maybe do retreat a little bit earlier? You have to see. Yeah.
So I see how it goes. I mean, it’s a long it’s a long way away, to be honest. So when you went in, were you what what ages can people go into the issue degree? It’s not much of a downward restriction, but the earliest people tend to go in is, like, 10 or 11. Some people are really smart kids, like, 10, 11, 12, just like freak memorizers, guys who’ve been ordained for a few years already.
And some of the teachers say, oh, just go straight in. You know? Yeah. So there’s not but there’s not much. I don’t know if there’s a restriction.
Is there? I think Yeah. There is a a normal school. You’re supposed to be until the eighteenth. Mhmm.
Should be there studying. The kinda like eighteen on the roof? Mhmm. Yeah. And can you I mean, if it’s all the study with this?
Or No. Yeah. I mean, can you No. Geshe la was just saying that in the sutras, there’s a particular a story of a guy who was ordained really old. So I don’t know I don’t know how to translate the name.
So just sort of saying that this monkey, Buddha ordained him at the age of maybe, basically, past 60, and it was said that Śāriputra, which is one of the Buddha’s kind of students, He didn’t realize that he had this subtle very subtle seed of liberation that only the Buddha could perceive. So that and he said, alright. It’s okay to ordain him. You’re wrong. You can’t ordain him.
So yeah. So you’re never too old, basically. Can you ask, Why do we actually have that? So, yeah, Geshe-la was saying probably because, you know
On the basis of a former rebirth, he, like, had, he had, like, stable imprints, like, with respect to, like, basically, having meditated on, like, the idea of liberation and striving for liberation and that sort of stuff. So that’s probably the reason there. So generally speaking, we all have to see the liberation. I think in this case, it’s talking about something, some level of kind of habituation with that possibility. Yeah.
Like this shit. So really really is me referring to, a, yeah, stable kind of habituation with liberation and, I guess, striving for liberation. Eventually okay. We did make some, like, prayers down the front there, but I kinda somehow skipped through that. And then this is you just do about the first ten minutes of the twenty five, thirty minute recitation.
So one of the two one of the group has to do a recitation on the topic that they’ve been given. So our topic was, like, mind generation, which is bodhicitta. So what I’m reciting is, like, all of these quotations basically about the definition and the divisions and that kind of this kind of collection of quotations and so on is like supposed to have been handed it down over, like, many, generations. And it has this kind of tune. You can’t just do the tune you wanna do or whatever.
Choose your favorite song. You have to do you have to practice with this quite elaborate tune. So yeah. Just the practice run. I just maybe go to the next day.
But he also has he also has his, like, section because he’s he’s the challenger. So he has to also have some stuff he recites, and then before he begins his actual debate, he stops because if he doesn’t now, then I’ll know what he’s gonna debate next day. So yeah. Let me do some, like, dedication prayers and stuff. There’s all these kind of rituals involved with how you wear the the long coat that we don’t usually wear and how you know, when you wear the hat and when you sit.
Get up pretty soon. Yeah. It is probably about as nervous as you get. It’s actually like the people filming it, there’s actually like a designated group of monks within the monastery who who look after camera work or video camera work and still pictures. It’s just their tradition that they would they film it.
It’s just yeah. It’d be strange if you told them that. Yeah. As I said, the first part is I basically have to recite all this all this stuff for about half an hour. I went and shot all, obviously.
And then after that, he starts debating me. I put in all these captions that I won’t show up. But, basically, maybe I’m not sure. This is just the same. Maybe it might be interesting because it shows some of the different verses that a bit faster.
Sorry. It’s very quick. Yeah. But this is if you’re a quick reader, that’s some of the some of the verses that I’m reciting really slowly. So it’s cool stuff that are reciting, ultimately.
So my goal of this was to basically not get laughed at. So I don’t think I got laughed at. So that was kind of a success. Even the computer’s giving me the wind up.
This is where people generally start to stir again, you know, because this is where when the action restarts. He’s got a bunch of stuff. Maybe show that. It’s kinda like the the prelude to the debate. Yeah.
Everyone’s kind of Talking about some of the things he decided to you know, does it necessarily take three countless eons to achieve the object of observation of bodhicitta or can it take long? He did pretty well. He did very well. He You’d have to have a pretty big hat. Trust me.
Yeah. This stylistic thing. And, basically, when you say khor wa gsum, it means you’re confused. You know, it means three circles literally. There’s lots of different explanations, but ultimately, it means, you know, you’re confused.
And then he quotes a, you know, he quotes a scriptural quotation saying why I’m confused. But this isn’t actually the start. He hasn’t this is actually the day hasn’t started. Yep. This is more like the still prelude.
Yeah. And look. Yeah. When I say to align, it means I I accept. So he basically said but he was talking about the way you pause it, the door of entry to the Hīnayāna.
So he’s saying, you know, is it something where if you attain it, you have to necessarily enter Mahāyāna. And if you don’t attain it, you have to say that. You necessarily have to say they don’t enter the Mahāyāna, let’s say as an example. And I said, I accept.
This format, you don’t have to justify your answers. So it’s kind of an uncommon format like this ritual. Usually, they can ask you why, like, why does that make sense? Yeah. It’s definitely easier than normal.
Yeah? In that sense because you don’t have to you know, you just have to be consistent. You don’t have to explain why. And he was saying, you know, like, I got you on I tagged you on your end. And, yeah, the more of them you get, the more embarrassing it becomes, ultimately.
There’s no limit point scoring system, but people keep foreign opinions about who’s winning. Guess. Yeah. He was saying like so your position is that if you meditate on a mind which has a similar object of apprehension as, like, say, great compassion, then you necessarily meditate on great compassion. And that was I said, yes.
But that’s actually against our, like, monastery textbook. So that was kind of a little bit carried, but He has to, like, basically react to my position as it’s evolving. So, I mean, ideally, he will look prepared for something like this, but generally speaking, the idea is you have to as it’s happening, you have to say, okay. He’s going there, and you have to respond to his position and show him the faults as he sees them. And it’s yeah.
So I’m just like, it’s a one stop thing, but that’s the case. Usually, we have to give reasons for things. But for this, it’s it’s just the the format. So this section took, I think, it was just under half an hour, and the first section also just under half an hour. So the whole process just under an hour, really.
So here’s similarly to the day before we finish off with, like, a each of us has to recite a dedication versus with, like, the long life, you know, praying for the long life, his holiness, you know, the, you know, preservation of the studies at the various monastic centers and all these sorts of things. No. That’s also in the, like, kind of yeah. The the group of stuff that’s supposed to reside, which has come from a really long time ago, apparently. And then we we finish off kinda make your own prayers and frustration.
Got that. Yeah. So this is our this is in the little temple at the house where I usually live, which is like a house for for for Western months. Just studying at Sarah. So this is some some of my friends.
They’re basically yeah. They’ve been helping mostly helping with this. This is kind of like a thing that all the people who do Richung and also who do Geshe do. Yeah. That guy also got Richung.
Yeah. Exactly that. American monk, got Richong about three years ago. They just harvest And I think maybe total of, like, four or five westerners have got it before. Definitely four.
These are some my classmates who just briefly come to congratulate me, and, yeah, we just have some tea and stuff. Yeah. From there’s another monk there called Lhundup Ketropi. He’s from Queensland. Originally, I think from Albury.
He’s an Albury boy. This guy who’s offering them to you very kindly. It’s the most polite I’ve seen in Luke. Yeah. So that guy is sitting up very straight there.
He he also did Richung about three years ago. Very well. Are doing pretty well. Yeah. In general, we’re doing pretty well.
Yeah. Australians and Americans are overwhelmingly the the most common out of the three states for some reason. The Europeans are kinda dragging their feet for some reason, but but this guy, as as Tenzin was mentioning, there’s a a Dutch monk who’s been there for nineteen years, and he’s gonna take Geshe next year. Yeah. Yeah.
He’s our director at the house at the moment. There’s, I think, only two that have taken so far. Yeah. They’re both yeah. Another one.
I know. That’s yeah. That’s one of my teachers, Geshe Chimitso, and that’s my I’d like to debate tutor, Geshe Yama Rinchen. Yeah. Geshe Yama Rinchen came a few years ago to teach briefly at.
That’s what I was mentioning, the resident teacher, the teacher who kind of looks after you in terms of taking responsibility for you and stuff. That’s that’s the reincarnation of Kyimi Khensur Rinpoche, who’s one of the previous, yeah, is one of the students from Geshe-la’s teacher. That’s his house. Just in his room, so he’s dressed a little bit in family. That’s the that’s the chef, the the kind of old monk who cooks for us at our house.
He’s very nice guy. Some kids from from the Tibetan house, which we have a relationship with. This is my classmates. Yeah. This is the ones that took Richung.
And Thank you very much. And there is Moonshine. And somebody who’s leaving next Tuesday, Wednesday morning. Great. And you’re expecting a safe journey, please. Yeah.
Thank you. Sorry Wednesday if it went on in a long time. Can you take your cup, please? Thank you.
Right.