RYI STUDENT BLOG

It’s been just slightly over a year since I first came to Nepal, and the question which comes to mind is the one which I was asked most when I was back in Singapore last December: 'What have you learnt?' I'm not sure what my friends were expecting - some kind of Buddhist halo around my head perhaps? 😊 They must have been disappointed, I think. Academically, it has been a tremendously enlivening (at times even tear-your-hair-out challenging) year at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute - from Prof Julia Stenzel, I learnt about the broad outlines of Buddhism's 2600 year-history (further back, if you count the past Buddhas!), and took a deep dive into Shantideva's 8th-century Buddhist classic, the Bodhicary ā vat ā ra ('The Way of the Bodhisattva') taught in the traditional Tibetan Buddhist style in which a lopon or khenpo (the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent of a university professor) reads and expounds on the text verse by verse, with the help of Lopon Drubgyud She...

Every fall, Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI) conducts the seminar based on teaching and empowerment from Rinpoches: Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Phakchok Rinpoche and Tsikey chokling Rinpoche. This year (2018, Nov 15-21), all old and new disciples of Rinpoches from everywhere throughout the world were participating the seminar. Seminar this year has been exceptionally uncommon for us all on the grounds that Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche has given us extremely significant and down to earth instruction of Dzogchen (great perfection). The teaching was based on the instructions called “naturally liberating whatever you meet” by Khenpo Gangshar Wangpo. Rinpoche guided us through this teaching for ten days. Rinpoche started off from the ten virtuous actions to be embraced and ten non-virtuous actions to be abandoned and finally Rinpoche guided us to recognize our nature of mind. We had Rinpoche teaches us the instruction until lunch break and toward the evening we had lama Tenzin, who guided us ...

As it is already tradition in Kathmandu, in November of 2015, at Rangjung Yeshe Institute,  happened the 35 th   Annual Seminar, which's subject was “The Path to Enlightenment”.  During 12 days many activities were guided  by Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche and  Phakchok Rinpoche. Several teachings, practices and some empowerments were held. It was a time full of joy and great interest for everyone. The students of RYI were present in all activities and many students of the Rinpoches joined from different parts of the world, as they do every year. Some local Tibetan and Nepali practitioners also were present during the seminar and others came only to pay respect and devotion to their masters.    The institute and the Rinpoches created a real familiar and enjoyable environment. We had not only moments of practices and teachings, but also time to do any questions that could be important to us and even join lunch t...

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 ...

The seminar held at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery was an amazing experience for me. The teachings given by Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche touched the core of my heart. I really felt a flow of blessing for all of the people who participated in the program. There were two sections to the program: one included a period of guided meditation, the other included teachings given by Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. Through Rinpoche’s teaching, I realized that everything in this world is mind. If we really know the nature of mind, then and only then can we be free from the suffering of samara. Listening to his words, I understood that I could die at any moment, so this human life is very precious. If everyone, including myself, practices Shamatha and Vipassana, then we can be free from negative thoughts .I also learned that listening to a Dharma teaching is not enough; practice and reflection in life are very important. In the afternoon, Phakchok Rinpoche’s teaching was also great. He shared many of hi...