In a not too distant pass, well- really less
than 45 minutes ago this Saturday, me and the others clapped our hands, stomped
our feet, laughed, ridiculed, and pointed fingers at each other at the Main
Temple. This now being the end of our fifth week of class-phew!!!, The first week
of class felt like a month, and we have already just finished our first topic
also. The weather at this time is just as awesome as weather gets around here;
one day last week when we had that week off of debate while I was studying on
my balcony I witnessed sunbow after sunbow all day long, from sunrise to
sunset. It was just a day that only thin feather-like cirrus clouds floated high
in the sky above and when the sunlight poked them it made a perfect roygbiv
around it. Next to that, my favorite is the butterfly invasion, which is just a
constant stream of small yellow and white butterflies flying up the mountain.
These days HHDL is in ‘da house’ so we see the
constant flow of people who had received audience with him leave his residence
with their necks bedecked with white Tibetan scarves and big ecstatic smiles on
their faces as we debate. During night debates I at times think to myself ‘Wow,
the sound that just emitted from my clapping hands can be heard by HHDL’. Ah! Such
a childish thought really since with all of us clapping, stomping and yelling
at the same time the cacophony just become background noise.
Being back in class is always a bit of a shock
especially after vacation and one spent for the most part here, beside three
super duper awesome weeks in Norway, in the winter. I sat on my ass for the
most part, all sense of motivation totally evaporated from my system. It got
quite dismissal for me especially towards the end of February when it was the
most desolate and the weather was going straight up buck wild. I recalled my
mild and amusing shock as I woke up one morning to see the town covered in snow
and going to bed with most if not all of it melted.
As the date for the beginning of class
approached I slow welcomed back my classmates, many whom had spent their vacations
in some really high, really cold places such as, Ladakh, Spiti and Mon-Tawang
which are as far as I know still snowed in. One of them had to take a
helicopter to reach his village by the Indo-Tibetan Border. Everyone though
looked refreshed and healthy from smacking on all that home cooked grub and receiving
all that family lovin’.
When class started we had one very significant
change and that was a new teacher. The school secretary had told me that our
previous teacher Gen Tenzin Gyurmey a.k.a Gen Druptop was over worked by
teaching two perfection of wisdom classes. Gen Druptop is the kind of guy who
definitely prepares before class and his intellect as far as reasoning goes is
superb. I could imagine that teaching one perfection of wisdom class will be
enough but two is a heavy load for sure. And so they found us another teacher who’s
teaching style to closer to our first teacher at Sarah College Gen Lodoe a.k.a
Morphesus. He more than likely doesn’t prepare for class, he is filled with
clever and cute anecdotes and has a roaring laugh as he schools us in debate in
class. His name is Gen Thupten Kunkhyen but he is better known as Gen Tsa
Gyakpa for reasons that are unknown to me. He is a bit of a chubby dude so I
can see why there is the gyakpa (fat) part but the tsa part is still a mystery
to me. He used to teach Collected Topics (བསྡུས་གྲྭ), intro to debate
logic, to Upper TCV students, actually I wonder if he still does or not. His
brother, who I think attended I.B.D., is the English Translator for the HHDL
when he teaches here. Last year he would come to our afternoon debates to do
some schoolin’ and he substitute taught us for one class when Gen Druptop went
M.I.A. The word is that he has memorized mass corpuses of texts and that they
are all fresh in his mind. One thing I can say for sure is that the dude can
talk, our class time which is supposed to be an hour and a half long tend to go
on for two hours. I have no doubt that homeslice could teach all day without
any fatigue if given half the chance.
We have also changed teachers for our Wednesday
cutting doubts (དོགས་གཅོད།) class, a class that helps us to
generate debate out of our topics, Gen Alak Khenpo who I think is a classmate
of Gen Druptop, teaches at Kirti Monastery up the road. His style of teaching
is very similar to Gen Druptop with superb and ultrafast reasoning abilities
and a badass memory. Though, based on his accent, I assume he is from the Amdo
region of Tibet he speak very clear albeit lightning fast. In fact, now that I think about Geshema
Kelsang Wangmo, who has been kind enough to answer my question over the phone,
has this quality as well. She is also classmates with Gen Alak Khenpo and Gen
Druptob, hmmmmm!
Although since this is technically our third
year of the perfection of wisdom course, it is this year that we really get to
study it. The first two years one get bits and pieces of it scattered about but
this year we go in the study of the Mahayana path hardcore. The topic for this year
is called The Arousal of Mind of Enlightenment (སེམས་བསྐྱེད།). Even though we will spend the majority of our time studying The
Instructions or Advice for Gaining Enlightenment (གདམས་ངག), the
course is named after the first topic studied.
So where does this all come from?
Well, we get our order of topics to study based on the outline of the main
Indian Buddhist text that we study, The Ornament of Manifest
Realization (མངོན་རྟོགས་རྒྱན།) by the future Buddha Lord Maitreya. This a text
takes all the topics found in the perfection of wisdom sutra literature which
is quite vast and condenses them into 70 topics (དོན་བདུན་ཅུ) which is condensed into eight manifest realizations (མངོན་རྟོགས་བརྒྱད།). For each one of these manifestations one chapter is dedicated to it thus
making the text eight chapters long. The first manifestation is the omniscient
mind (རྣམ་མཁྱེན།), or the mind that a Buddha
Superior (སངས་རྒྱས་འཕགས་པ) is said to possess. An omniscient
mind is said to be “an ultimate exalted consciousness that realizes directly
ten phenomenon, the arousal of the mind of enlightenment etcetera, (སེམས་བསྐྱེད་སོགས་ཆོས་བཅུ་མངོན་སུམ་དུ་རྟོགས་པ་མཐར་ཐུག་པའི་ཡེ་ཤེས།)” which is the definition of an
omniscient mind. Of the ten phenomenon, the
arousal of the mind of enlightenment is the first and the Ornament of Manifest
Realization discusses the ten phenomenon in turn starting with the arousal.
What the Ornament actually states
about the arousal is really brief, three four line stanzas in fact and so we
have other many texts (which are stacked like a mountain next to my computer)
that elucidates on these three stanzas. What the teacher lectures from is Panchen
Sonam Drakpa’s “The General Meaning of the Perfection of Wisdom” (ཕར་ཕྱིན་སྤྱི་དོན།). The Ornament must be memorized of course and the important points from
the General Meaning must be learn by heart. The other texts though they are
extremely important are taught in class sometimes for they are mainly to be
read on our own time if there is any. I find for myself that The Ornament and
The General Meaning alone fill up all of my study time.
The arousal of the mind of
enlightenment is extreme important to the practitioner of both the Mahayana and Vajrayana paths, for without
it one is technically not on the path to enlightenment. The arousal is known as
the door through which one engages the great vehicle path (ཐེག་ཆེན་ལམ་གྱི་འཇུག་སྒོ) which is explicitly stated in its definition.
As we got deeper in the study of
this topic debates arouse thanks to the texts which guides us; does a Buddha
Superior possess this mind or not? Or does he/she possess great compassion? If
one is a Bodhisattva
does that being necessarily possess the arousal of the mind of enlightenment?
What are the criterion that is needed for the aspiration of the arousal of the
mind of enlightenment (བྱང་ཆུབ་ཏུ་སྨོན་པའི་སེམས།) and the engagement of the
arousal of the mind of enlightenment (བྱང་ཆུབ་ཏུ་འཇུག་པའི་སེམས།) which are the two main divisions of the arousal, for
there are many different opinions stated in various texts. And there is even
more to cover, our teacher said that all year could be spent easily on this
topic but we have more than ten topics to study before exams roll around again.
I just wanted to provide a brief snidbit into what I have been thinking about
as far as class goes without boring you and without writing a lot like a sometimes
tend to do.
I always think about this blog
and I am glad that I have been able to keep it going for this long though my
regularity in keeping it updated has been compounded by the amount of school
work. Last year was just really bad in
that respect and I hope I can be better this time around but of course that is
yet to be seen. I hope that this find everyone around the world in happy
spirits. Much Love.
Pax
P.S. If you are interested or
curious about studying the Perfection of Wisdom, I.B.D. graduate Geshema
Kalsang Wangmo la teaches it in English at I.B.D. two months in the spring
and fall, mp3’s of her lectures and PDF class handouts can be downloaded from
the classes’ blog http://ibd-buddhist.blogspot.in/. Class for this spring is to start
this Monday April 8th.
