RYI STUDENT BLOG

My favorite class at the  Rangjung Yeshe Institute was the philosophy class, which was very interesting. I experienced as I was in nirvana at that moment while listening to the Lopon. I compared every teaching with my own life, certain facts just matched with my own life. I was very lucky that I got an opportunity to study in the Rangjung Yeshe Institute. In the philosophy class I learned basic things of Mahayana Buddhism, such as the proper method of giving rise to Bodhicitta, practicing the six paramitas and so forth. Teaching of this kind will help me in my entire life to practice Buddhism. Lopon also mentioned in the philosophy class the right way to listen, meditate and reflect on those teachings. In the last chapter 'dedication' we learnt that in the Mahayana tradition, at first we must give rise to Bodhicitta, then follows the action and dedicate the virtue of this action for the benefit of all sentient beings. Whenever a practice contains these three...

            "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 dis...

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 styl...

Do you have memory problems? Join the Shedra Do you have concentration problems? Join the Shedra Guaranteed anti-aging and anti-Alzheimer program! Study Tibetan, and when you come home, your work will feel like a holiday playground. You will appreciate it so much and also think that you get paid without doing any effort! Study Tibetan and encourage your brain, combine it with prostrations at the magnificent Stupa, and get fit to fight all the demons in this and next-coming life's challenges! If you, on top of that, do some regular meditation in-between, you will be unbreakable and guaranteed a wrinkle-free mind!" Ingrid from Sweden Beginning Tibetan Summer Program 2012

Another year is gone. Do I really learn the Dharma? Am I more compassionate, kinder, more open hearted? While in daily classes of one of our texts “Entering the Middle Way” by the great master Chandrakirti, our teacher Lopon Tokpa Tulku, constantly reminded us every beginning of class about our motivation, an aspiration of directing our mind to not just learn concepts but contemplate about them, live them and share them in the world, often recollecting Kyabje Chokyi Nyima’s enlightened aspirations that we train in the direction of being not just learned but Dharma practitioners as well. Definitely we all are searching for something. I guess deeply we all are looking for happiness, no matter what we do, in every breath, in each heart beating. Are we looking for happiness in the right places? After a year of deconstructing reality through the profound Middle Way view do we still believe that the fragile causes and conditions of samsara will bring us true happiness, wil...

Ani Sangye and Lopon  Chodrup In Spring 2012 we continued studying Introduction to the Middle Way and The Jewel Ornament of Liberation , with our lopons, who are excellent at relating these classic texts to our experience as modern Buddhists.  Chandrakirti says,  “Of Buddhahood’s abundant crop, compassion is the seed/ It is like moisture, bringing increase and is said/ To ripen in the state of lasting happiness/ Therefore to begin, I celebrate compassion!”  Which really touches on the essence of Madhyamika.  What is it that prevents us from being genuinely compassionate with others?  It's this subtle sense of being separate from situations, other people and other beings—basically it comes down to our sense of “self-ness,” that the center of space is right here called “me.”  When we’re suffering from negative emotions, Madhyamika really gets down to the heart of it.    We are all naturally compassionate, but there is some...