It's an old saying in American education that most teachers teach the way they were taught, and it makes a lot of sense. Everyone learns by example, and those of us who stand in front of a group of students are no exception. But to refine the saying a bit, it's probably truer to say that good teachers teach the way their best teachers taught them, so if you know a little bit about a teacher's education, their own methods of instruction will make a little more sense than if you'd known nothing at all. As I've learned more over the years about the Gelugpa educational system, both before Geshe la arrived in Fayetteville and after he took up residence here, his own methods have become clearer and clearer to me, and I thought it might be helpful for all of you if I shared the general kinds of things I've learned over the years.
As most of you know, the Geshe degree, or Geshe Lharampa, as it is officially called, is difficult to obtain. Students who declare themselves as philosophy students in the monastery do so at a young age--Geshe was 14--and then begin a long and arduous course of study that is divided into five major groups:
1) Collected Topics on Valid Cognition--The younger students learn the basic topics of logic, epistemology, and psychology. The fundamental techniques of debate are also taught. Each monastery teaches specific root texts and commentaries that cover these subjects, and this first course of instruction requires a minimum of three years and often requires more.
2) Perfection of Wisdom: This course of study covers Buddhist wisdom relating to practitioners of all levels. It is here that the monk becomes intimately familiar with the various Buddhist practices and their implementation. Five years, at least, are required to master this material.
3) Middle Way: Here, the monk masters Madhyamika philosophy, the most important school of philosophy in the Mahayana tradition. For the Gelugpas, of course, Lama Tsong Khapa is the central figure in this curriculum. Four years are required to learn this material.
4) Monastic Discipline or Vinaya: A four-year course of study in which the monk becomes intimately familiar with Buddhist ethics, and the way in which ethics impinges on all aspects of our lives.
5) Abhidharma: These are the deeply philosophical commentaries on the Buddha's teachings, and they
cover such subjects as cosmology, meditative states, and the psychology associated with the path toward enlightenment. Typically, four years are given to this study.
6) Gyuto Tantric University--After receiving the Geshe Lharampa degree (based on his mastery of the subjects listed above) from Drepung Monastic University in 1994, Geshe la qualified to begin his tantric studies at Gyuto Tantric University in Dharamsala. During his stay at Gyuto Tantic University, as a Geshe Lharampa, he was the chief disciplinarian for a period of six months. He successfully completed his tantric studies in 2005 and received the Geshe Ngagrampa degree for completing advanced studies in the four classes of Buddhist tantra and Doctor of Philosophy in tantra.
One of the difficulties faced by those monks who are pursuing this course of study is that as these monasteries have been set up in exile, the financial concerns are as pressing as they ever were, and because the number of monks in exile is fewer than in Tibet, all of the monks must take time from their studies to assist in the daily activites of keeping the monastery on its feet (certain tulkus or reincarnations are exempt from this). So, Geshe la directed the agricultural department for four years and worked in the kitchen as well, all of which took time from his studies. To acquire the Geshe degree under these circumstances requires an extraordinary will power, and this quality is evident, both in his teaching and in his daily habits. Very little gets in his way, whether it be the instruction of his students or the making of mo-mo's. And that, too, is part of his teaching: the authentic practice of Buddhism requires a great deal of will power.
Another of the important qualities we see in Geshe la's teaching derives from his vast experience with debate, a tradition that arrived in Tibet from India where it had long served as the backbone of the Indian philosophical tradition. Of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Gelugpas are the ones who put the highest premium on debating, while the other schools place more emphasis on formal meditation. But characteristically, the Gelugpas have an explanation for their particular emphasis: the Gelugpas value meditation, they assert, but they also see scholarship, learning, and debate as a form of active meditation as well. In fact, to the Gelugpa way of thinking, study and debate actually remove misconceptions from the mind and make the process of meditation more efficient and less likely to go astray because of fundamental problems regarding the nature of the mind and its inner workings.
There is an old saying from the Kadampa geshes (an older lineage, now largely defunct): "meditating without having listened to teachings is like someone without hands trying to climb a snow mountain" (from Cozort & Preston, Buddhist Philosophy 6).
Often when Geshe la is teaching, he will pause and say, "but we don't want to go into too much detail," or "it's not necessary to go too deep now." This comes from his habit of debating where, like a chess player, he's half-a-dozen steps down the road ahead of us, anticipating the probable and logical unfolding of the argument. And he's matching his presentation to the needs of his audience, another characteristic of Buddhist teaching in general. His teaching style, then, based on answering anticipated questions even sometimes before they are asked, is lively, forward-moving, and rigorous. The assumption behind the Tibetan form of debate--unknown in the West, and unlike what we recognize as debate--is that until you have memorized the appropriate material and shown that you are capable of articulating cogent respones to pointed inquiries of that material, you cannot claim to know the material. This is distinctly different from the Western methods of passive learning and regurgitation on silently taken exams. But Indian and Tibetan Buddhism came of age in an era of philosophical interrogation, and well-honed debating skills were required if the new doctrine were to survive the attacks of its opponents. It is also true, as Geshe la has said countless times, that Tibetan debate is undertaken in a spirit of friendliness and mutual education--there are no winners, as we recognize them, and losers. There are simply two philosophy students following out the logical lines of an argument to their logical conclusions. Both parties gain from the process. From the innumerable debates that I observed at Drepung Loseling this summer, I never saw one that did not seem to me to be carried out in this spirit.
There is also a deeper purpose at work here that is, again, characteristic of the Gelugpas. They firmly believe that because the elimination of our ignorance, what Geshe la calls our "misconceptual thoughts," is the primary goal of those who are Buddhist practitioners, then we must first identify these misconceived thoughts or conceptions, and then bring our reason to bear against these errors. We can then, and only then, begin to correct these problems that we have regarding the way in which we perceive the self and the world. It is one thing to know intellectually that phenomena are "empy;" it is quite another to be able to debate the emptiness of phenomena through the long chain of reasoning that lands one there. The rigorous process of logical debate plants the seed that will bear fruit one day in an accurate perception of the self and the world that surrounds it--that is the purpose of debate, and that is why Geshe la emphasizes the use of reason so strenously in all of his teachings. It is our hedge against ignorance, which is keeping us from removing the obscurations that currently bind us to cyclic existence.
It's equally important to realize that, even though the Gelugpas emphasize philosophy, scholarship, and debate, this kind of study, in and of itself, is not finally liberating. It is an important step on the path, but until the subtlest levels of misconception are removed, misunderstanding and suffering remain. In fact, philosophical speculation will not destroy the very subtlest form of ignorance, the inherent misconceptions of our existence that currently define our lives. For that to occur, a more subtle meditative practice is required, but it must grow out of a firm basis in the philosophical issues that are at stake in that practice--that is the Gelugpa assumption, and that is the assumption that stands behind every teaching that Geshe la gives us. That is also why Geshe la is insistent on grounding us in the fundamental terms of his philosophy--ignorance, emptiness, karma, the 5 aggregates, to name a few.
These are the coins of the Gelugpa realm, so to speak, and as we become more fluent in our use of them, our purchasing power grows as well.
Sidney Burris
