Wednesday, September 17, 2008

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.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

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!”

Monday, September 01, 2008

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.