The Beginning of Something Exciting

The beginning of the construction of the new library in the nunnery has been set into motion, and I couldn’t be more excited! I am a part of a group of individuals who are working on the construction of the sutras that will in the library and help constituting was goes into them. It is so wonderful to see so many members of our small community come together to help make this possible. The members in this group to construct the sutras are a range of different types of people; there is Chodrak Dawa, who is a healer, Jatsun, an artist, and Lavender, a trader who also works on translating books. I think that together we can do a fantastic job.

I feel so honoured to be a part of this construction, because the library and books hold such a powerful meaning to me. Now that I start to think about it, books are highly valued by our whole village. Growing up, learning to read scripture was a big part of my childhood. My parents read scriptures most days and they would include my sisters and I by reading them to us and when we were old enough to learn how to read it was scriptures that taught us. Everyone in my village would probably have a similar experience. For many, the reading to sutras and tantras can be an experience of great transformation. I remember my father would tell us the story of how Buddhism came to Tibet; that one day several books of scripture fell down from the sky and rained upon the castle of the Tibetan king Lantotori. From there, Tibetans copied these Buddhist texts and started creating the long tradition of the construction of books.

Here at the nunnery, there is also another group of people who are putting together the printing press that the lama so generously gave to our village. The copying of Buddhist texts is very important to us not only economically but also culturally. The act of printing is very meritorious. At first the medium was hand printing and then progressed to woodblock printing. Having a printing press is very exciting for our village and will definitely increase the amount of text we are able to output not only for scholars to access, but the entire community. Books here have a sort of “social life” by bringing together the entire village through a communal religiosity. Everyone shares some sort of knowledge over the Pali canon and it has a big social and cultural impacts.

To me, knowledge is the key to enlightenment, and one gains knowledge through the information given in books. Texts and sutras in particular are very important to not only my studies, but the education of all monks and nuns. In Tibetan Buddhism, to be a monastic scholar everyone need to be monastically educated. The first round is called preliminary studies, and this is what I am studying right now. I started these studies two years ago when I was eighteen years old. Along with my intense studies of some sutras, this first stage of monastic education will help prepare me for the art of debate, which is crucial for a scholar.

For the past two years, I have been going through the “Collected Topics” which include the basic debate structure, techniques, and terminology. I am learning all the necessities to the practice of debate. I have also gone through the second stage of the preliminary studies, called types of mind which consists of the nature of knowledge, its types, and objectives. Right now, I am studying the third stage, called types of evidence. Currently I’m learning about the types of reasonings I can use in debate and finding out different tools that I can logically use to aid my arguments.

The preliminary studies normally last about three years before entering the next stage of scholarship, the “Central Exoteric Studies”. I know what I have left to learn, from what other girls at the nunnery have told me, is that I am going to examine both Buddhist and non-Buddhist systems of belief. I’m also going to study the concept of logic and Buddhist epistemology. Once I complete that I can graduate onto the next level of education.

Throughout my preliminary studies the procedure for each topic I have studied has pretty much remained the same. When I need to learn more about a topic I turn to text for information. In Tibetan Buddhism, there are three textual layers for studies. The first is a foundation of root texts, which are considered a canonical foundation of Indian sutras. These are often committed to memory, which I have done for many. There is also Indian commentary that goes along with the text but the issue is that they are very difficult to understand. So most scholars, including myself turn to the second layer of texts, the Tibetan commentaries of these texts. They explain the difficult points in the roots texts and the Indian commentary. On top of that, is the third layer for studying, which is the monastic manual. These differ for each monastery and nunnery, and are used quite extensively. This includes the Collected Topic that I study to learn about debate. They also summarize the general points of the root texts in a much simpler version.

Through the monastic education, it shows how important texts, books, and library really are. For us, to be able to build a new library and have a printing press to create a lot of books will only help advance our community and help us all have more knowledge to learn and reach enlightenment. I am so excited to be apart of the library renewal and cannot wait to get started!