RYI STUDENT BLOG

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!

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...