12

Education in Khordong
Monastery
In brief, whoever comes to the monastery to enter the religious life is taught the
alphabet, reading and writing. The entrants usually come at about the age of five
but I have also seen them above the age of eighteen. Also in my monastery there
were two or three monks who had never learned to read and write but who had
memorised all the necessary texts and had studied and practised well. Their
learning was not less than that of other monks and they spent almost all the time in
practice since they were not distracted by reading books on history and so on.
The children begin their education with reading and spelling and then they learn
some verses of praise to Manjusri called Gang bLo Ma. We believe that by reading
this the children will develop be!er memories and more intelligence. Memorising
texts is important for many reasons. If a text is in your memory you can recite it
under any circumstances, including in total darkness. The texts ll the children with
beautiful words, images and rhythms, as well as making them part of a tradition.
Students are introduced to each text by having it read to them, so that they
experience the transmission of the sound, lung (rLung). A"er that they start
memorising the Chos-sPyod Rab-gSal which contains over two hundred pages of
prayers and Buddhist instruction. This text is the basic deity practice of all the monks
in the monastery. When that is mastered they start to memorise the Jangter practices
of sGro-Ba Kun-Grol focussed on Chenresi, Rig-Dzin gDung-sGrub focussed on
Padmasambhava and Thugs-sGrub Drag- Po-rTsal focussed on a wrathful aspect of
Padmasambhava. Memorising these frequently used texts is necessary because the
monks are not allowed to look at their texts during the main parts of the practices of
extensive ritual visualisation.
Traditional Tibetan education and modern education are very di#erent. For
example, in the modern system all school education must be nished within about
twelve years but in the Tibetan system the students continue to study until they have
mastered their studies, whether it takes ten or twenty or even forty years. This was
possible because in East Tibet the monks had no need to get a job and if there is no
need to get a job, then there is no question of needing to quickly gain a qualication.
The education provided in the monastery was purely for Dharma and not for any other
reason and so the only texts used were Dharma texts. Moreover in strict monasteries
such as Khordong, Bane (Ba-gNas), Dodrubchen (mDo-Grub-Chen), Dzogchen,
Dorje Drag and so on even the study of poetry, for example the Kavyadarsha by
Dandin, was not allowed. This was because many poems were about love which was
held to be disturbing for monks. Also history and legends, either of Tibet or of other
countries, were not allowed. Even very high Dharma stories were not permi!ed until
all studies were nished because the students might then be tempted away from the
necessary Dharma studies by these other texts which were easier to read.
Now as regards the main texts studied for Sutra and general Buddhism, the Dul-
Ba mDo rTsa-Ba and the So-So-Thar-Pai mDo and others were used for the Vinaya,
the study of monastic rules. The main texts on logic and analysis were the
Pramanavar!ika and the other six famous texts by Dharmakirti. We also studied
the mNgon- rTogs-rGyan and the rest of the famous five texts of Maitreyanath. For
Madhyamika we studied the dBu-Ma rTsa-Ba Shes-Rab, the dBu-Ma- rGyan and
others. For Abhidharma we studied the mNgon-Pa mDzod and the mNgon-Pa sDus-
Pa and others.
Students had to give detailed a!ention to the Bodhicaryavatara (Byang-Chub Sems-
dPai sPyod-Pa La Jug-Pa) and the other root Indian texts found in the thirteen
volumes of the traditional Nyingma study programme. For Tantra the texts used are
the gSang-sNgags Lam-Rim by Padmasambhava, the Chos-dByings mDzod and the
rest of the mDzod-bDun by Longchenpa, the Kun-bZang bLa-Mai Zhal-Lung by
Patrul Rinpoche and the sNgags-Rim of Pema Trinle. The Ye-Shes bLa-Ma and
dGongs-Pa Zang-Thal were used for teaching Dzogchen.
There was no entrance fee or course fee for studying; the only things the students
needed to provide were the books for their own use. In East Tibet all the monks,
even the poorest, had su$cient food and clothing and did not have to use their
education to gain these things. However in Central Tibet, some government or
semi-government service might be necessary.
The period of teaching ran from the eighth month to the "h month of the following
year. The teaching was done by the Khenpo (mKhan-Po) scholars, specialist Khenpos,
high Lamas and other experts. Whoever wished to hear the teaching was allowed to
a!end but if, for example, there were one hundred people present, perhaps only
"y would really study, while the rest were thinking that attending was part of
their religious duty and that by doing this every day some Dharma would continue
for them. Those who had studied well were called Lopon (sLob-dPon), or Kyorpon
(sKyor-dPon), assistant professor or teacher. At the monastery there were some
scholars who had studied the same texts "y or more times; since there was no
age- or year- limit, scholars could a!end the same teachings again and again. For
that reason there was no question of pass or fail. Those who became experts or were
acknowledged by many monasteries to have understood, were considered to have
passed.
From cockcrow in the morning until 12 oclock at night the students pursued their
studies. Teaching was given from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m. Perhaps three or four Khenpos
would be giving di#erent teachings. This gives you a general account of our system of
education.
They were extra subjects such as medicine, architecture for stupas, for mandalas, for
monasteries and other buildings, as well as painting, statue-making and so on. The
text used for this is the bZo-Rig Pa-Tra, Arts Education, by Mi-Pham Rin-Po-Che.
Now someone might object that it was stated above that the education was only for
Dharma and so how can these other subjects be introduced? But our idea is that
medicine is also a part of the Dharma. Out of one hundred doctors, "y will never
take any money for diagnosis or treatment. However if someone should o#er doctors
such things as medicines or ingredients then they will accept these happily and use
them to treat other patients. The subjects and cra"s taught in the bZo-Rig Pa-Tra
are actually only for Dharma. Sometimes the topics look easy and sometimes they
look very very di$cult.
To become a high scholar like a Kyorpon in East Tibet, or a Geshe (dGe-Shes) in
Central Tibet, might take "een to twenty years. But if one wishes to gain these
levels by modern methods of study it would require more than two hundred years.
Now I say this because rstly our teachers would teach one subject for two to three
hours, or even for four to five hours if they wished to nish one section or
subsection of the text. But in modern education the lesson period is forty-five
minutes and at the beginning of the lesson each student has to answer his name for the
roll call which can take five to ten minutes, leaving only thirty-five minutes for the
actual teaching. Then when the teacher starts to teach he must be always looking at
his watch to see how much time he has le" and that distracts his a!ention from
teaching, so that in the end the students get only about thirty minutes of instruction.
Secondly, in the modern education system the students only study selected items
from here and there and do not work systematically through any book from
beginning to end whereas in Tibet the whole text has to be fully understood. Also in
Tibet the great teachers did not have to wonder about whether their students would
turn up or not because they knew that all the students liked study. The teacher is
perhaps "y years old and he believes that all his students, aged from "een to "y,
will come due to their own interest and so he does not need to call the names and
check if they are present.
I once spoke about this with a colleague at the university in Santiniketan and he said,
Yes, we have a teacher like that here. One day he started teaching at 3 p.m. He was
famous and very much respected and his audience paid a!ention. At 9 p.m. the
janitor came and said, Sir, my duty is nished and now I have to lock up. And
then the teacher checked his watch and ended the lesson. But there are not many
teachers like that and so I say that what was possible in twenty years in Tibet would
take two hundred years in the modern system.
EDUCATION IN KHORDONG MONASTERY 5
I do not say anything here about relative degrees of intelligence but merely that the teaching
systems are like that. Also in Tibet the teachers became great scholars because they were paid no
salary and so they focussed only on their study for the benet of their own and others
understanding. However in the modern system even professors need money and so we cannot
really know if they are good scholars who love learning for its own sake.
Students did not need to pay fees to the monastery for their education and they were also free of
any worries about food and lodging since, from the moment of starting in the monastery, they
received every- thing free of charge. Those who were from big houses would be sponsored all
their lives and the families of some monks would even sponsor other monks every year. In this
way poor monks would get food and other necessities either directly from the monastery or from
some rich people. For example at Khordong Monastery there was a monk called Pema Legden
(Padma Legs-dDan), who was not a very high monk, but his family was middle-class and he
would give food and education to the new scholars for their rst four to five years. He liked to
live a li!le outside the monastery because the young monks made a lot of noise of reciting their
texts. In Tibet there was a saying, Chos-Pa Ri La sDud Na Zan Gong Gyen La Ril, Even if a
Dharma practi- tioner lives at the top of a mountain, food will roll uphill to him.