RYI STUDENT BLOG

Studying In a Western Academy                   I did my schooling in Kathmandu. After finishing my grade 10, I joined a diploma course in Civil Engineering which is actually a technical course. It was for three years. One can actually go and get a real job after passing the course. But thinking that I want to continue my study further, I got admitted in Rangjung Yeshe Institute.                 Of course I had a feeling that studying in Rangjung Yeshe would not be same as studying in typical Nepali colleges or schools but not to that extend where I had to give up the way I have been studying. It is so different being here in Rangjung Yeshe.                 For someone who has spent all his time memorizing and copying, Rangjung Yeshe has on the g...

RYI: A Place Understood Only Through Direct Experience There is nothing ordinary about studying at Rangjung Yeshe Institute compared to a typical university anywhere in the world. Even here in Nepal, it’s difficult to explain to other Nepalis that I go to a school connected to a monastery, but am not a monk, and many of the students are not necessarily Buddhist. Needless to say, it is impossible for my friends and family back home to imagine how a fully accredited university can operate within a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. Since most Americans are geographically challenged, it’s even harder to explain that this “Tibetan” monastery is founded by Tibetan lamas, but not actually in Tibet, though still near the Himalayas. When asked what language they speak, it adds even more confusion to tell them that, while Tibetan is used in classes at the monastery, the local language, Nepali, has virtually nothing to do with Tibetan. Finally, when I’m asked what language my classes are con...

“School life is a golden life,” I often used to cherish this quote and feel it is so true until I joined the RYI. The beautiful environment here, students came from almost every corner of the world, Modern students  learning from the traditional teacher and exposure to the daily life of Monks in RYI made me rich as a  person. Moreover, studying in RYI proved my presupposed notion of college life as boring life infused  with boring lecture to be wrong rather it induced me to think out of the box and have broader approach to  life. First and foremost I feel blessed to be at RYI is that I got precious opportunity to study Buddhism under  the constant vigilance of Rinpoches and their priceless guidance which I find very rare and I could never  trade it for anything else in life. I feel embraced by Rinpoches’ compassion all the time at RYI. As a student, I got to learn several things in various topics here such as Himalayan Languages, Buddhist  Ph...

Generally speaking, the academic environment is consider to be a place of competition and incentive for  inflated egos. A place where the best ones are persons that, as having a superior status in comparison  from others, always keep a distance that shows and reinforce he or she superiority. As result, to the so  called lower ones there are only the hope to attain the same status, no matter what is necessary to do. Fortunately, in diametrical opposition, even the formal aspect of an university being sustained in RYI - Rangjung Yeshe Institute, here what we experience is a place where the teachers and colleagues support  each other and rejoice for others’ victories and achievements. A place where the role of the worldly identities are object of contemplation and gentle exercises of  transformation and purification. Nothing is discarded, everything is recognized in their wisdom aspect  and as skillful means to generate benefit to others. Who is in...

To reiterate what some others have said in their blog posts, Rangjung Yeshe is a special Institution that combines a monastic style approach with “western” academic classes. Through this blog I have read many inspiring testimonials about Rangjung Yeshe and really do think that the Institute deserves the praise it has gotten and more. Yet somehow I have found it difficult to come up with anything new to say about the Institute. Perhaps it is not enough to just commend the Institute itself. It is definitely wonderful and all that but I believe that Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and gang make this a truly special place to be. Beyond the academic platform it is Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche who seems to make the teachings we receive in the classroom come alive. Being the jaded and small-minded person that I am, I often fall into states of lethargy and procrastination. At times I even find myself labeling the materials I study as dry, intellectual philosophy because they seem far removed from...

The Lonely Mango or ‘How to share a terrace with three dogs, cockroaches, ants and other little critters and experience Boudha with eyes and ear, nose and mind.’ August 2014. Close to Boudha, on a roof, a 5th floor, between monasteries, views, a panoramic view, the Kathmandu valley view. Green hills, grey sky, green-grey, lead-grey, silver-grey, black-grey, dark  blue-grey. Light blue holes within the clouds allow a moment to realize infinity. It is the rainy season. The scent of sandalwood, cinnamon, patchouli, cloves and undefined herbs, drifting smoke, deep-fried  pastries, vegetable fried rice mixed with the odour of urine and burning trash are passing my sense of  smell. Peals of bells, garlings, couch shell trumpets and drumming noises swirl through the air, adding to the chanting of  monks and nuns. Birds are screaming, babies crying, dogs barking. One neighbour’s water pipe is  running and running and running....The bladder is calling. ...