RYI STUDENT BLOG

Congratulations to Sophie Greenewalt, who after only two years of Tibetan study is already translating for the Shedra! The she recently translated for a three week short course on The 37 Practices of the Bodhisattva taught by one of our monastery’s newer teachers, Lopon Drupgyu Tendar. In Sophie’s own words: 'I like to listen so I figured I would like translating. In the past three weeks I have learned that translating is more than just listening. I have never had to listen so carefully and I have never been responsible for someone's words in such an immediate way. Nor have I been put on the spot for such an extended period of time.  It's not easy. But, fortunately, I had this opportunity to practice and am slowly becoming accustomed to awkwardly molding Tibetan sentences into English in front of a room of staring people. One has to start somewhere and translating for a short course was a good place to start. I hope the Shedra will continue to provide opportunitie...

The months of March/April are a really nice time to be in Nepal. The temperature in the last weeks has been on average 27 degrees Celsius throughout the day and thus the field trip organized by the shedra was a very much welcomed change of the schedule. The main destination of the two busses filled with students that left Boudha at 8:00 in the morning, was Namo Buddha.  This very important Buddhist pilgrimage site is related to one of the marvelous deeds performed by Buddha Shakyamuni in the lifetime directly preceding his enlightenment. It is said that the Buddha, at that time a young prince, after having seen a starving tigress that was unable to provide its cubs enough food, out of pure empathy and altruism, created a wound in his arm from which the tiger could drink to recoup her strength and then gave his entire body to the tigress, and was devoured. On the way to Namo Buddha one passes the actual campus of the Kathmandu University (KU) in Dulikhel and we used that oc...

As part of the second year philosophy class we need to write a term paper. This time our instructor, Khenpo Sherab Dorje, and translator, Catherine Dalton, gave us a wonderful opportunity to choose our topic from the text we are studying, Madhyantavibhanga by Maitraiya, and to analyze it through our own unique perspective and original ideas instead of copycat the ideas of the philosophical texts. I thought it was a great chance to write about a topic that I am not forced to write about, but to develop my thoughts about a topic that really interests me and that has had an important influence on me through listening and reflecting on it. Therefore, for my paper topic I choose “time.” In class one day we had a discussion on that topic, and that teaching had a great impact on me. My reflections on time floated in my mind for days, and that is why I would like to share these thoughts with more people. Through my understanding and what we discussed in class, ‘time’ is totally a mental a...

Time is running, after few days we will do the middle term exams. We all are ready to do it and this means that we have studied a lot and achieved sufficient understanding in the Khenpo's Buddhist philosophy class and during the lessons of Colloquial Tibetan. Now we are able to speak Tibetan quite well with local Tibetans in their own language and in class we can speak and ask quesions in Tibetan about the texts that we have studied. It is satisfactory to see how we are growing in knowledge. At the beginning of the academic year we were completely uncertain about what we were about to learn, but now I can see that the past semester and half were not wasted time since now I am not as I was in the beginning-- I'm better. In seven months I became able to communicate with people of the Tibetan reality, we are doing a long travel inside something different, it is not our ordinary world in which we lived before, I am experiencing something that is not accessible to the most wes...

It is amazing if you think what big changes time can bring. Three years ago when I announced to my parents that I want to come and study and live in Nepal, they were absolutely negative. Or the word that would describe them better is, TERRIFIED. So now, three years later, not only have they come for holidays in Nepal but they actually admitted that it was the best trip of their lives, and that even in the next 20 years they would have never experienced back in our country what they experienced here in Nepal! With the opportunity of the one week break in the middle of the semester, they came to meet me in Nepal, see how my life is here and enjoy unique sightseeing and activities that only Nepal can offer. We spent most of the time out of Kathmandu city in Chitwan jungle park and Pokhara. Living in Kathmandu I have the opportunity to study the Dharma and be close to Lamas and Teachers, but to be honest, Kathmandu city is so polluted that some times living in this city c...

I would like to share in short, few words on Bodhichitta and its benefits which I have understood from Shantideva’s “ The Way of the Bodhisattva ”. The Sanskrit term c hitta means “mind”, “thought”, “attitude”. Bodhi means “enlightenment,” “awakening,” and is cognate with the term Buddha himself. Therefore, it means “mind of enlightenment,” “awakening mind”, the specific characteristic of buddhahood. The Tibetan term is “byang chub kyi sems”. Shantideva in his “ The Way of the Bodhisattva ” considered bodhichitta as one of the root aspirations for buddhahood. It has two aspects – absolute and relative. On the relative level, it is great motivation to attain buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings and practice the path of love, compassion, the six transcendent perfections, etc., for achieving that goal. On the absolute level, it is the direct cognizance of reality, the truth of emptiness. Benefits of Bodhichitta : Bodhichitta brings temporary and ultimate benefits. Te...

In 2002 I was living in Chagdud Gonpa Khadro Ling, in Brazil with my Root Lama Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. During that year I heard of the Shedra by a former student and made aspirations to come and study Tibetan Language and Buddhist Philosophy there. Since I was scheduled to go into long retreat I thought I would have to postpone this plan. With the Paranirvana of my teacher, his son Tulku Jigme Rinpoche, sat with me and said that it would be good for me if I came to Nepal to study, “specially if you go to Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s Shedra.” Following Tulku Jigme’s advice I came to Nepal in 2003 to study under Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. From then until today almost five years have passed, and during that time I had amazing opportunities. Nepal in general and Rangjung Yeshe Institute in particular offer an environment rich in opportunities to each and every individual that wishes to learn Buddhism, Tibetan and Sanskrit. Here I have met amazing Lamas, learned Tibetan in the classroom, sittin...