RYI STUDENT BLOG

            "Wooow! Here I am back again! And I will go for the second year!"                       This is what I thought last week when I found myself lying once again on my back-breaking Nepali mattress inside my tiny student's apartment that I had swapped for my fancy German  two-and-a-half-room-apartment one year before. At that time, since I had only arrived one day before classes started, I had not even had the time to think about getting settled in Boudhanath. Instead, I had been completely occupied with learning how to spell my first Tibetan words and how to cope with the whole bunch of literature that we had to read for the History class.             I had also been occupied by finding out how to get a new cell-phone (since my old one had disappeared in the first Nepali toilet that I had gone to) as well as to remember the name of my grandfather (who passed away 50 years ago) in order to open a Nepali bank account. I was completely absorb

Congratulations  to Alexander Yiannopoulos, who successfully defended his MA Thesis! " LUMINOSITY Reflexive Awareness in Ratnākaraśānti’s Pith Instructions for the Ornament of the Middle Way ". The thesis supervisor was Dr. Karin L. Meyers and the External Reader was Dr. John Makransky from Boston College, USA.  Alexander came to study at Centre for Buddhist Studies in 2005 as a visiting student from Boston College. After graduation he returned to Kathmandu as a Fulbright scholar in 2007 to research translation theory and Buddhist philosophy. In 2009 he started the Master of Arts program at the Centre for Buddhist Studies at RYI.  Our best wishes for you and we hope to see you again in Boudhanath!

Looking back at my almost five years at the Shedra, my overall impression is that it has been quite enjoyable: there is a warm atmosphere, deep emergence in Tibetan culture and language, interesting people from all over the world and so forth. This time I want to write about our Tibetan monastic teachers, simply referred to as Lopons. When I was studying in the Translator Training program, I had different Lopons instructors every month, so there was not really enough time to see their unique and special qualities. It took a few years of taking classes with one after another for me to come to how I feel now: an overwhelming sense of gratitude, appreciation and respect.  Lopon Shedrub Gyatso, Lopon Tsundru Sangpo, Lopon Karma Gyurmey, Lopon Lodro Rabsel, Lopon Urgyen Thenpel and Lopon Zopa Sangpo (left to right)     All of the Lopons have their own particular way of presenting the Dharma. Lodro Rabsel and Tsondru Sangpo have a more traditional style, and tend to expl