Shedra Education

Tibetan Buddhist Scholastic Education - Jules B. Levinson

Which works shall we translate into English? The sutras translated into Tibetan fill more than one hundred volumes and many thousands of pages. The translations of the treatises composed by Indian masters fill another two hundred volumes and many more thousands of pages. Add to that the many thousands of texts composed by Tibetans of many different lineages, temperaments, and interests. We have only the rest of our lives in which to work—not very long—what shall we translate? Sometimes we respond to the needs of practitioners. Sometimes we know of a particular series of lectures given by a teacher whom we respect on topics of interest and importance, and we give our time to putting those instructions into English Sometimes an esteemed teacher requests that we work on something we know to be of great value. Sometimes our own interests meet with the centrality of particular cycles of texts and the passion of an appropriate master.

Shedra Education
Sangye Khandro and Jules teach at the Tashi Chöling Shedra program in Fall of 2005.

We could continue in this way more or less endlessly, and there would be no particular fault in our doing so. Yet something else beckons to us, for when we look further and think of how best to lay the ground for the translators, scholars, and earnest students who will come after us, we are drawn to the great Indian texts from which the curriculum of Tibet’s monastic universities have been constructed. This leads us further to the finely woven commentaries on those texts composed by many centuries of Tibetan scholars, which give to any particular path of inquiry its focus. These texts have formed the durable center of education for all the Buddhist orders of Tibet, and they deserve a new life in the literature of the Buddhadharma now seeking a voice in the English language.

Several versions of comprehensive education in such literature flourished in Tibet. Here I will describe three, which will indicate both a pattern and some alternatives. I am drawing on conversations with various Tibetan teachers about their own studies in Tibet and in India, a book published recently by a European scholar who completed a course of study typical of education in the Geluk colleges, and my own studies in a variety of institutions.

Sera Jay Monastic University

At the Sera Jay monastic university, originally founded in 1419 by Jamyang Chöjé, a follower of Tsong-ka-pa, and now flourishing in exile in southern India, we find a twelve- to twenty-year curriculum oriented by five texts summarizing the tradition of the Buddha’s sutras. The course of study begins with an introduction to the vocabulary and style of the principal texts. This is followed by an analysis of cognition describing the ways in which various types of consciousnesses apprehend their objects with varying degrees of accuracy, and a presentation of the process of reasoning and the varieties of correct and incorrect signs that will be used throughout one’s education. These preliminaries equip the student to dig into the challenging texts that form the core of the curriculum.

For the next six to ten years, a student at Sera Jay will study Maitreya’s Ornament for Clear Realization, Chandrakirti’s Entrance to the Middle Way, and Dharmakirti’s Commentary on (Dignaga’s) “Compilation of Valid Cognition.” Maitreya’s Ornament describes the paths that are followed by various types of practitioners—hearers, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas—as well as the fruits they achieve. Chandrakirti’s Entrance portrays the journey of a bodhisattva over the ten grounds leading to the rank of a Buddha. In that portrayal Chandrakirti delves deeply into the meaning of emptiness by studying two of the principal reasonings that lead to inferential realization of the profound lack of inherent nature that characterizes all phenomena. Dharmakirti’s Commentary explores the mechanism of cognition in its various forms and the evidence upon which different types of consciousness rely in the process of apprehending their respective objects.

"Which works shall we translate into English? The sutras translated into Tibetan fill more than one hundred volumes and many thousands of pages. The translations of the treatises composed by Indian masters fill another two hundred volumes and many more thousands of pages. Add to that the many thousands of texts composed by Tibetans of many different lineages, temperaments, and interests. We have only the rest of our lives in which to work—not very long—what shall we translate? "

The curriculum at Sera Jay concludes with four to eight years given over to Vasubandhu’s Treasury of Manifest Knowledge and Gunaprabha’s Aphorisms on Discipline. Vasubandhu’s Treasury consists of eight chapters setting forth an understanding common to many Buddhist schools of: the elements of experience, the structure of the world, the relationship between actions and their results, the development of afflictions, the cultivation of meditative absorption, and other topics related to these. Gunaprabha’s Aphorisms gives the now mature student a detailed explanation of the discipline to be upheld by those ordained in the Buddhist tradition. After completing this course of study, a few students will go on to one of two tantric schools where they will study the Tantra of the Gathering of the Secret, a tantra central to the Geluk tradition of Secret Mantra. Before turning to the course of study followed at the Ngagyür Nyingma Institute in Bylakuppe, just up the road from Sera Jay, I would like to recommend a wonderful book that Georges Dreyfus has written about his education in several Geluk colleges, including Sera Jay. Read his The Sound of Two Hands Clapping if you would enjoy learning about this tradition of education from someone who has explored it thoroughly.

Ngagyür Nyingma Institute

The Ngagyür Nyingma Institute for Higher Learning is housed within the Namdröl Ling Monastery that is overseen by Drupwang Penor Rinpoche, leader of the Palyül tradition of the Nyingma. The Institute presents an approach to education in the Buddhist tradition that resembles Sera Jay’s in some ways while departing from it in others. The course of study offered at Ngagyür Nyingma may be traced to a tradition of commentary that, in Tibet, stems from Sakya Panchen Künga Gyaltsen. Annotated commentaries composed much later by Shenpen Chökyi Nangwa, gave both form and substance to educational institutions that flourished in the eastern Tibetan cultural area during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As these schools played an important role in the non-sectarian movement spearheaded by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, who was closely affiliated with Dzongsar Monastery, their curriculum became known as the Dzongsar syllabus. At Ngagyür Nyingma, the study of Sutra follows the pattern of this syllabus and relies heavily upon Shenpen Chökyi Nangwa’s annotated commentaries. However, Jamgön Mipham’s lucid and elegant commentaries often supplement or replace Shenpen Chökyi Nangwa’s corresponding works. Together, these two strains of commentary provide a six-year curriculum consisting of thirteen texts that summarize the tradition of Sutra. These six years of study will be followed by a further three years devoted to the Tantra of the Secret Essence, a tantra central to the Nyingma tradition of Secret Mantra.

"This leads us further to the finely woven commentaries on those texts composed by many centuries of Tibetan scholars, which give to any particular path of inquiry its focus. These texts have formed the durable center of education for all the Buddhist orders of Tibet, and they deserve a new life in the literature of the Buddhadharma now seeking a voice in the English language."

The thirteen texts introducing a student to the tradition of Sutra at Ngagyür Nyingma include all five of the treatises from which the curriculum at a Geluk school is constructed and add to it a number of others, all of them familiar to any well educated Tibetan Buddhist scholar. Vasubandhu’s Treasury of Manifest Knowledge, representing the Lesser Vehicle’s knowledge of central topics, is paired with Asanga’s Summary of Manifest Knowledge, thus augmenting the discussion with a response representative of the Great Vehicle. Chandrakirti’s Entrance to the Middle Way, which has defined the study of the Middle Way in Tibet for many centuries, is amplified by Nagarjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Way, Aryadeva’s Treatise in Four Hundred Stanzas, and Shantideva’s Entrance to the Conduct of a Bodhisattva. Maitreya’s Ornament for Clear Realization holds a place of honor at any Tibetan Buddhist institution where the Indian Buddhist tradition of Sutra is studied seriously; adding wealth to wealth, Ngagyür Nyingma’s curriculum guides a student through the whole of Maitreya’s Five Sets of Dharma by also offering instruction in his Ornament for the Sutras of the Great Vehicle, Differentiating the Middle from the Extremes, Differentiating Phenomena and Reality, and Great Vehicle Treatise on the Sublime. Other texts enhance the curriculum of the first six years, but those mentioned here supply its substance.

Tashi Chöling Shedra program students Fall 2005

Having completed this introduction to the tradition of Sutra, a student who chooses to continue will then give three years to the study of Gunaprabha’s Aphorisms, mentioned previously in connection with Sera Jay, and to the Nyingma tradition of Secret Mantra. Commentaries on the Tantra of the Secret Essence (guhyagarbha) composed by Jamgön Mipham and Dodrup Jigmé Tenpé Nyima; Jigmé Lingpa’s Precious Treasury of Good Qualities; several works by Longchenpa, including his Trilogy of the Mind at Rest in the Great Completeness and his Trilogy of Intrinsic Freedom in the Great Completeness; and Jamgön Mipham’s Explanation of the Eight Words form the heart of this exploration into the further reaches of Buddhist knowledge. In this way, a nine-year course of study provides an introduction to the Nyingma tradition of Sutra and Mantra.

Nalanda Institute

At the Nalanda Institute established by the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa, Rangjung Rikpe Dorje, in Rumtek, Sikkim, we find a nine-year program focused upon texts summarizing the tradition of Sutra. Although the series of Indian texts that forms the core of the Nalanda Institute does not differ substantially from the curriculum of the Ngagyür Nyingma Institute, the two programs rely upon different commentaries to the Indian texts. Where the syllabus in Bylakuppe features the commentaries composed by Shenpen Chökyi Nangwa and Jamgön Mipham, the explanatory works upon which students in Rumtek have relied are drawn mainly from authors such as the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, the Seventh Karmapa, Chödrak Gyatso, the Eighth Karmapa, Mikyö Dorje, Rendawa Shönu Lodrö, Pawo Tsuglak Trengwa, Situ Chökyi Jungnay, and Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Tayé. It is interesting to note that Jamgön Mipham’s work also figures significantly in Nalanda’s curriculum, as it does at Ngagyür Nyingma. In part, this attests to the impact of his work upon his contemporaries; in part to the clarity of his prose, the breadth of his learning, and the depth of humanity one meets in his knowledge. Where Ngagyür Nyingma has designed an education in the tradition of Sutra that requires six years of intensive study—the remaining three years spent as a student at the Institute are given to the study of the tradition of Mantra—Nalanda asks for nine full years. Students who desire training in the literature and knowledge of the Vajrayana of Secret Mantra will accomplish this in a different setting, usually subsequent to completing the program offered at the Nalanda Institute. It is worth noting that either alternative may well mark only the beginning to a lifetime of study, over the course of which a passionate scholar will return to these central texts many times, steadily absorbing their meaning in a long and gradual maturation.

In Conclusion

I would like to conclude by returning to the question with which I began: which works shall we translate into English? ‘The ones that will help us to understand and practice the Buddhadharma.” Isn’t that the answer? Yet which ones are those? Some texts will speak to us and others may not. What combination of beautifully complex treatises, advice given by seasoned practitioners, and personal instructions imparted by those adept in meditative craft will provoke transformation of the sort we have met in our teachers and desire to bring forth in ourselves? I imagine that we will need to translate many texts and patiently open the kernels of meaning locked away in Tibetan and other Asian languages before we can discern which words of instruction liberate the insight that delivers us from ourselves. In the meantime, it seems best to turn to the task of translation driven by conviction that the tapestry of knowledge studied so ardently by twenty-five centuries of Buddhist practitioners may well serve as a reliable guide.