Dr. Abdul Kalam visits Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling

On November 17, 2008, Dr. Abdul Kalam, former president of India, visited Nepal to preside as the Chief Guest at the yearly convocation ceremony of Kathmandu University. During his brief visit to Nepal Dr. Kalam took time off from a busy schedule to visit Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery in Boudhanath, Kathmandu.

It was a personal wish of Dr. Kalam to visit a Buddhist monastery while in Nepal and as Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery is also home to the Centre for Buddhist Studies (CBS) at Kathmandu University this monastery was chosen as the venue for this visti. Dr. Kalam was greeted at the monastery gates by the Abbot and co-founder of CBS, Ven. Tulku Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche along with senior monks and all the faculty and students at CBS.

Following a brief tour of the main shrine hall Dr. Kalam and Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche proceeded to have a private conversation in the abbot’s shrine room at the top floor of the monastery. During the meeting the two scholars had a vigorous and warm exchange on the nature of Buddhism and global responsibility. In particular the topic of Buddhism and science was discussed in great detail and both Dr. Kalam and Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche were pleased to share their respective areas of expertise in a conversation of fresh inquisitiveness, humor and mutual respect.

Also present at the meeting were Vice Chancellor at Kathmandu University, Dr. Suresh Raj Sharma, the Indian Ambassador to Nepal, Mr. Rakesh Sood, and several other professors and scholars from Kathmandu University and CBS.

Padmasambhava Meditation Retreat

Rangjung Yeshe Institute

ANNOUNCES

Padmasambhava Meditation Retreat at Asura Cave in Pharping

December 15-21, 2008

The Retreat will be held at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery's traditional meditation retreat center at Asura Cave in Pharping, a picturesque village on the southern rim of the Kathmandu Valley. It is led by Lama Tenzin Sangpo and consists of teachings and meditation on Padmasambhava according to the Trinley Nyingpo Sadhana Practice as well as silent meditation.

To attend the retreat it is a requirement to have received the empowerment for this practice. Chokling Rinpoche has been requested to offer this empowerment on December 1.

Accommodation will be in double rooms. Please bring your own bedding (bed and mattress are provided).

Cost
6.000 NRs. Internationals
3.000 NRs. Locals
Price includes teachings, accommodation in double rooms and all meals.

Registration: at the Shedra office or via email: claudia.roth@shedra.org
Registration deadline: November 30

Since space is limited the retreat may fill quickly, so register early to secure your place.

For Additional Information call us at 4483575 or email: claudia.roth@shedra.org

Workshop on Relative Truth

Kathmandu University, Centre for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute is pleased to announce a philosophical workshop entitled:

Analytic Philosophers and Asianists on Buddhism: What is Conventional Truth and What's True about it?

Speakers and participants:

Dr. Georges Dreyfus (Williams College)
Ms. Bronwyn Finnegan (Auckland University)
Dr. Jay Garfield (Smith College)
Dr. Guy Newland (Central Michigan State U.)
Dr. Graham Priest (U of Melbourne)
Dr. Mark Siderits (U. of Seoul)
Dr. Koji Tanaka (Auckland University)
Dr. Sonam Thakchoe (U of Tasmania)
Dr. Tom Tillemans (U of Lausanne)
Dr. Jan Westerhoff (U. of Durham)

Date and time: November 26, 2008 from 2.00 to 6.00 pm

Venue: The Kirtipur Room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Boudhanath, Kathmandu, Nepal

The workshop is open to the public and free of charge - everyone is welcome.

Symposium on Buddhist Studies

6th Annual Symposium on Buddhist Studies

Buddhism Translated: Language, Transmission and Transformation

Speakers:
Dr. John Dunne, Emory University
Dr. Sara McClintock, Emory UNiversity
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery
Dr. Tom Tillemans, Lausanne University

Venue:
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Boudhanath, Kathmandu, Nepal

Time:
1.00 pm - 5.00 pm
Saturday, December 13, 2008

The symposium is free of charge, everyone is welcome.

Visiting Lecture: Dr. Alexander von Rospatt

On November 7, 2008, Dr. Alexander von Rospatt (UC Berkeley) will visit CBS to give a lecture entitled:

Remarks on a little studied section of the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra: The Bhāvanāmayī Bhūmiḥ and its Treatment of Practice.

The Yogācārabhūmiśāstra, which the tradition attributes to Asaṅga, is the foundational work of the Yogācāra school. The talk will first give a brief overview of this work and the current state of
research, and then deal in more detail with one particular section, namely the so-called Bhāvanāmayī Bhūmiḥ (which survives in form of an as yet unpublished Sanskrit manuscript, and in Tibetan and Chinese translation). Particular attention will be paid to its treatment of practice.

The talk will take place at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery at 9.30 am. The talk is free and everyone is welcome.

New Book: Mipam on Buddha Nature

Mipam (’ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846-1912) is one of the most prolific figures in the history of Tibet and his works continue to be widely studied across the Tibetan cultural region and beyond. Mipam on Buddha-Nature is an overview of Mipam’s view. Drawing upon a wide range of discourses in Mipam’s works, Douglas Duckworth shows how the Great Perfection permeates his writings on the Middle Way and Buddha-nature.

Each chapter illuminates the meaning of Buddha-nature and emptiness to expose a recurrent theme throughout Mipam’s works: the ground of the Great Perfection within the dialectical unity of presence and absence. The book brings together many important topics across a wide range of Mipam’s works and offers new translations from several of his important texts.

Buddha-nature is arguably the most important doctrine in Buddhism. For Mipam, Buddha-nature is equivalent to the true meaning of emptiness; it is the ground of all and the common ground shared by sentient beings and Buddhas. The ground, which is the unity of the two truths, is the foundation of the path of the Nyingma school of Buddhism. Since the view of this ground is the basis of meditation, the correct view is of utmost importance in the Buddhist tradition. This book is thus essential to Buddhist scholars and practitioners alike.

Dr. Douglas Duckworth is an instructor at the Centre for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute and a contributor to the curriculum development at CBS.

RYI Group Photo 2008-2009

Students and teachers at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, October 2008.

Pilgrimage of Hope visits RYI

On October 4 a large group of Australian high school students visited Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery. Led by Brother James, an Anglican Solitary, the students had come to Nepal on "A Pilgrimage of Hope" during which time they volunteer at social work projects, such a caring for the sick, elderly and dying.

The students, who all have an interest in inter-religious dialogue had come to the monastery to meet Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and to listen to his famous Saturday Talk in the temple. Rinpoche spoke to the group about ways to increase our potential as humans through contentment in our daily lives and acts of kindness and benevolence towards others. Afterwards, several of the students mentioned that the meeting with Rinpoche had been the highlight of their time in Nepal. Both Rinpoche and the participants on the pilgrimage enjoyed the meeting greatly and expressed the wish that in the future further exchanges can be organized. The meeting was facilitated by Dr. Gregory Sharkey, SJ, who is a regular instructor at Rangjung Yeshe Institute.

TBRC Donates Manuscript Collection to RYI

On Saturday, September 27, Gene Smith from the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC) in New York visited Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery to donate a complete copy of the digital scans currently held by TBRC.

The scans, which were donated on a computer hard drive, encompass a total of 4000 volumes of classical Tibetan text including all the words of the Buddha (the Kangyur) and their Indian commentaries (the Tengyur). In addition, the collection contains all the central texts for the study and practice traditions upheld by the monks and lamas at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling.

TBRC has donated its scanned holdings to both the monastery and the Rangjung Yeshe Institute and this is sure to become a wonderful resource for both monks and laypeople at these institutions as they study the richness and depth of the Buddhist textual tradition. The scans were received by Chökyi Nyima in a ceremony in the main temple at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery.

Meeting of IABU in Bangkok

From September 13-15, Rangjung Yeshe Institute attended the first summit of the IABU (International Association of Buddhist Universities, www.iabu.org), held in Bangkok, Thailand. The IABU is a new organization, created to increase cooperation and interaction between universities and colleges that draw inspiration from the living Buddhist tradition in their teaching methods and academic perspective.

Attending the summit at the invitation of the IABU were the two senior lecturers at RYI, Khenpo Sherab Dorje and Khenpo Jampa Donden, as well as the Director of Studies, Andreas Doctor. The three days of meetings culminated in the creating of a Memorandum of Understanding signed by more than 100 Buddhist member universities including RYI. Apart from participating in the discussions on the structure and future of the IABU, the two khenpos also performed prayers for the conference together with other scholars from the Tibetan institutions as representatives of the Vajrayana tradition.

Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sutras

Another semester is underway and a class on the Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sutras is now being offered. This important text is one of the “five treatises of Maitreya” and lays out the vast and profound path of the Great Vehicle. The text is taught with two commentaries: one by Khenpo Zhenga and one by Lama Mipam. Both Khenpo Zhenga and Lama Mipam were instrumental in revitalizing the tradition of scholarship in eastern Tibet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and their works have continued to hold a central place in the curriculum of Buddhist monastic colleges. Their two commentaries are particularly interesting to study in tandem because of the contrasting styles of the authors: Khenpo Zhenga primarily comments on the Indian scriptures and Mipam incorporates the Tibetan commentaries of his tradition.

The class is taught by Khenpo Jampa Donden, who trained at Dzongsar College (which is one of the monastic colleges established by Khenpo Zhenga) under the late Khenpo Kunga Wangchuk. The translator is Dr. Douglas Duckworth, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and recently published a book on Mipam entitled Mipam on Buddha-Nature (SUNY, 2008). Students from all over the world have come to partake in what promises to be an “international feast on the nectar of Dharma!”

Fall Semester Classes Begin

On September 1 the fall semester at Rangjung Yeshe Institute began. This year 30 new students from around the world are joining the program for a total of 68 students attending classes at the Institute.

The classical texts that are offered this fall are The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva and Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras by Asanga and Maitreya using the commentaries of Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham.

In an exciting development, as the senior students develop their proficiency in Tibetan, an increasing number of classes are being offered where the students study philosophy directly in Tibetan from Khenpos and Lamas. This semester four such classes are taught only in Tibetan for students from our third and fourth year:

1) Kun bzang bla ma'i zhal lung (Words of My Perfect Teacher)
2) bShes-pa’i springs-yig (Letter to a Friend)
3) Spyod ‘jug sgom rim (Meditation on the Way of a Bodhisattva)
4) Lha rdzas me tog phreng wa (The Divine Flower Garland)

Moreover, this year RYI is honored to host philosophy courses with two distinguished guest lecturers. Dr. John Dunne from Emory University will be teaching a course in the philosophy of the great Buddhist thinker Dharmakirti and Dr. Klaus Dieter Mathes from University of Hamburg will teach a research course on Mahamudra and readings in Sanskrit for the MA students.

Sri Lanka Donates Encyclopedia of Buddhism to CBS

On July 23, the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Nepal, Mr. Sumith Nakandala, visited CBS and donated a set of the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, sponsored by the Government of Sri Lanka, to the research library at CBS. The encyclopedia was received by Greg Whiteside, Principal at CBS.

6th Annual Symposium of Buddhist Studies

On December 13, 2008, the Centre for Buddhist Studies and Rangjung Yeshe Institute is hosting the 6th Annual Symposium of Buddhist Studies. This topic for this year’s symposium is Buddhism Translated: Language, Transmission and Transformation. Among the speakers this year are Dr. Tom Tillemans (Lausanne University), Dr. John Dunne (Emory University), Dr. Sara McClintock (Emory University), and Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche (Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery).

The symposium is held at the Hyatt Regency in Boudhanath, Kathmandu on December 13, 2008, from 10 am – 6 pm. The event is free to the general public and everyone is welcome.

Partnership with The University of Naples "L'Orientale"

This summer Centre for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute joined in a partnership with The University of Naples "L'Orientale" in Naples, Italy. The partnership will promote cooperation between the two institutions regarding student and faculty exchange and joint research activities. The Centre for Buddhist Studies looks forward to working with L’Orientale on these important projects in the years to come.

Short Course

This month RYI is offering a short course on Jigme Lingpa's classic, Staircase to Akanishta. The course, which is taught by Khenpo Sherab Dorje, will introduce Jigme Lingpa's famous treatise on the development stage, and cover the key points of this profound practice. The course begins on Friday, February 22, and will run for three or four weekends according to the following schedule:
Fridays: 4.00-5.30 pm
Saturdays: 8.00-9.30 am
Sundays: 8.00-9.30 am
Pre-registration by February 20 at the RYI office in Boudhanath, or by email (admin@shedra.org) is required.
Tuition: Local: 450 rps.
International: 1800 rps.
Rangjung Yeshe Institute admin@shedra.org

Learn Tibetan Calligraphy

From February 18 – April 11, RYI is offering a two-month introduction course in Tibetan Calligraphy. The course, which is free and open to everyone, is a rare opportunity to learn the art of Tibetan calligraphy. In the course students will learn to write Tibetan classical scripts using traditional calligraphic tools, such as the bamboo pen. The course is taught by the calligraphy teacher at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery, Mr. Sangpo. Time: Mondays and Wednesdays 5.00-6.00 pm. Venue: Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery, Shedra Classroom no. 1. Although the course is free, prior registration by February 15 at the RYI office in Boudhanath, or by email (admin@shedra.org) is required.

Check out our new student blog!

For current student's perspectives on studying at RYI check out:

http://ryi-student-blog.blogspot.com/

Summer Program 2008

Registration for the summer semester of 2008 is now open. This year we are offering Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Tibetan, Beginning Sanskrit, Sanskrit Buddhist Readings, and Nepali languages as well as a Buddhist Studies course.


For more information check out http://www.cbs.edu.np/.

Register early as classes are filling up quickly!

The Khyentse - Rangjung Yeshe Institute Scholarship

The Khyentse Foundation and Rangjung Yeshe Institute are pleased to announce the launch of a joint scholarship fund. For the Spring semester of 2008 there are a limited number of scholarships available. These awards are open to both local and international students at RYI and will be awarded primarily on the basis of academic performance.


Interested students should submit a 250-500 word essay explaining why they feel they are deserving of an award, including a statement of their current GPA.

The criteria to be used in making the awards will be as follows: (i) GPA, (ii) the essay, (iii) overall standing within the Institute.

Interested applicants should submit the above documents by email to admin@shedra.org by January 25th 2008.

Classical Texts for 2008/2009

The spring semester has begun! Classes are underway as everyone returned from a much needed winter holiday. This semester first year students will continue their study of The Way of the Bodhisattva as second and third year students will be studying the Middle Beyond Extremes: Maitreya’s Madhyantavibanga with commentaries by Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham.


The classical texts for next fall semester have now been decided. Once again, The Way of the Bodhisattva will be taught and, if time permits, it will be accompanied by teachings on Nagarjuna’s Root Knowledge of the Middle Way. In addition, an advanced class on Asanga/Maitreya’s Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras using the commentaries of Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham will be offered.