One More Semester Is Gone

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In our “shedra”, these days are the busiest. We are about to finish the semester (only 2 more weeks to go!) and just today we finished the Annual Fall Seminar, where we received teachings from Ven. Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and K. Phakchok Rinpoche. 
Annual Fall Seminar

During the seminar we spend all day –from 7:50 in the morning to around 5 pm– in the gompa. After that, we still had to engage in the usual homework and study workload. Even though it has been really challenging, it was such a wonderful opportunity!  Most of the people who joined the seminar these days had to travel from different parts of the world in order to receive these precious teachings from such realized masters. I just had to cross the street from home or walk downstairs from my classroom!

This is my third semester studying Tibetan Language, both Colloquial and Classical, and I feel there’s still a long way to go to accomplish my goal, which is to be able to translate Dharma texts and oral teachings from Tibetan into Spanish. Some days it seems so difficult I almost feel I won’t be able to ever accomplish it. But these days, while listening to Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s teachings in Tibetan, and seeing people from all over the world listening to them, I feel again very much inspired and motivated to continue my studies, no matter how much effort and time will be needed. It is also very exciting when I understand some of the words or even full sentences that Rinpoche says in Tibetan during his teachings! And when I listen to the translation in English, I also realize that I’m studying amongst some of the best translators from Tibetan and in the very same place where they studied. 

So when my family and friends in Mexico ask me, “Why did you go to study to the other side of the world?”  “What’s so special about Nepal?” I show them pictures of the stupa taken from my window at home, and from the life in the monastery where I’m studying, and say that I’m one of the few fortunate people with the opportunity to live and study in this place.

And of course, we sometimes find time to have some fun… 

Halloween Party

~Marcella from Mexico

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