RYI STUDENT BLOG

Kora around the great stupa tends to end our evenings. Less people and noise inspires a sense of  sincerity difficult to cultivate during the day.  As a student of Rangjung Yeshe Institute, our days are quite  busy, and the focus is on study and reflection. The early bedtimes of residential Boudhanath makes it  easy to set aside one method of progressing along the path for another. I have found such appreciation  and practicality in this great stupa of ours. Lucky to have the opportunity to study at an institute that has  an appreciation for the unity of study and practice, I make aspirations to understand and engage in the  day’s lesson.  Coming from Bhutan, the blessings and places of power that are spread throughout my country are said  to be limitless. Yet, here, I am fortunate in that I am studying and contemplating the teachings, and am  motivated by more than just the transformative power of this historic place.  M...

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...

Picture shows me camping at RYI yard during earthquake It’s now over six weeks that the massive earthquake hit Nepal. The changes that began through it are still in the works and their ends are not to be seen, yet. Houses, monasteries, temples…in fact the main class rooms and offices of RYI needed to move and are on the way to being rebuilt. One might wonder, what is it like to be in a massive earthquake like that? While individual experiences differ, one can summarize this experience as being very un-grounding. All that was familiar and considered stable before the earthquake, now seems unreliable. A massive earthquake that changes ones lives so drastically, does indeed give much insight into impermanence, one’s mortality and the preciousness and fleeting nature of this moment of our life.  Although impermanence is generally considered frightening and a topic most likely avoided, in Buddhist studies this topic is not only discussed, but its contemplation highly enc...

My alarm rang at 5:30. But I stopped it, and again, I slept because the day was Saturday and I don’t have class at Rangjung Yeshe. After one hour I woke up and had one cup of coffee. That is how I start my day. Then I started reading articles, writing papers and so forth as my exam was scheduled just the following Monday and therefore I had to prepare for it.  Suddenly I got a call from my friend who stays in swayambhu and he wanted me to join his house to have lunch together, as he had made vegetable momo, which is my favorite dish. I left from my apartment (Boudha) around 11:45 riding my scooter towards Swayambhu. I just crossed the Hyatt gate when I lost my scooters balance. I tried my best to handle it and it worked.  Then in front of me I saw two bikes that had fallen. So I put on my scooter brake when I saw people running out from ten directions. All the buildings were dancing, the vehicles were parking on the middle of the street. I felt like watching the m...

Learning, exam, exam, essay, exam….Done! The last weeks of a study semester at Rangjung Yeshe are – probably like at most universities, full of effort, eagerness and emotion. Like walking the last stretch of a steep mountain slope, there are pain and excitement mixed with fear, while just following each step with a sense of purpose to reach a goal.- How refreshing is it then to then, to make the last step onto the reached plateau and experiencing the new view! And that I did reach a new perspective became especially palpable after this last semester in Madhyamaka reasoning. Through the help of the Indian Buddhist pandit, Chandrakirti’s text the Madhyamakavatara and especially through our wonderful Lopon Shedrup Gyatsho, I can’t help but notice now a subtle difference that is hard to pin down or communicate. Yet, imagine the following: Imagine you had had an eye disease since the beginning of your life, which made you see small purple flowers anywhere you looked. Like ever...

As a reader there are innumerable books to get yourself immersed into. Books can bring us everything, namely; wealth, power, merriment, grief, humility, desire, wisdom, ultimate bliss, as well as hell, and so forth. Yet, without reading books no one improves or reaches merriment or blissful states. As human beings we are by nature supposed to creep towards the virtuous life without any pause. This whim or vigor to do so is the best gift we have for all other beings. To be a virtuous and kind loving person towards others, reading books takes precedence for every single one of us. Well then how to be a virtuous and kind loving person through reading books is to be selective between right and wrong. Just one right book one can bring us all the ample insights that we could ever need.  Since the fact that we are all caught up in this samsaric marsh, all we have to do is just to follow or read the books by those great saints who have already extricated themselves from the marsh...

From when our friendship begun, he gives no clue, and even I know not whence this  beginningless started its voyage. But, I am curious to know how all this began, because I have  already started to look for cessation. When all I have is that friendship alone as a support, I  wonder if this search is meaningful. However, though it looks crazy, I have chosen the pursuit to  unshackle the chain of this friendship. When bed, the mother calls me at night, I soon disappear  to nowhere—with no clue where I had been, and for how long! It feels like I have gone to the  rest into the lap of my mother, giving up the indulgence that my friends make me do, at least  for a while. But soon, they wake me out from that blissful sleep, and once again under the  persuasion of habit, ego turns to repeat its naughtiness. I know that they are playing with me  and all they had given is but the betrayal. Though it is clear that these doors of senses take me...