31 Jan 2012
5 min 29 sec
Video Overview
Creators:
Unknown
In an interview with Professor Jose Cabezon, Geshé Sopa talks about his early life at dGa' ldan chos khor Monastery
- Ganden Chönkhor
- Lhasa
- Geshe Sopa: Then in [the] monastery is the very very special...that area
- Geshe Sopa: Shang, Ganden Chokor, you know
- Geshe Sopa: In the Tsang area,
- Geshe Sopa: Trashi Lhunpo is the Panchen Lama's place, the blessed one.
- Geshe Sopa: [The] next one, Ganden Chokor is the [one with] 500 monks
- Geshe Sopa: We have many, many great scholars who from there go to Sera Monastery in Lhasa
- Geshe Sopa: and [are] educated and studied and some of them come back and they are, some are already still there.
- Geshe Sopa: So this kind of exchanging, many, many...we have those things.
- Geshe Sopa: So Ganden Chokor is a very, very famous monastery
- Geshe Sopa: And so they have...I was there...
- Geshe Sopa: Ganden Chokhor...
- Geshe Sopa: I was there...first several years, two, three years,
- Geshe Sopa: They have memorization...
- Geshe Sopa: all prayers, daily prayers,
- Geshe Sopa: almost one huge volume, almost in there [are] many, many different prayers, rituals, and places, etc.
- Geshe Sopa: All of them, many of them have to [be] memorized.
- Geshe Sopa: Not only that [they had to be] memorized, also have to
- Geshe Sopa: [have an] examination court in the assembly, great assembly hall.
- Geshe Sopa: You have to...with the special kind of...read them,
- Geshe Sopa: say them, the monks, all the assembly hall when they have tea,
- Geshe Sopa: when they have soup or whatever they have,
- Geshe Sopa: and everybody [is] quiet [at] that time, this child have to recite in a special kind of reading, okay?
- Geshe Sopa: That is [at] every tea or anything like that way.
- Geshe Sopa: So we have many, many, quite many children at the end of the...all of the row,
- Geshe Sopa: chosen every year that kind of thing.
- Geshe Sopa: So they [?] this examination, recitation...[they] cannot do [it] at once,
- Geshe Sopa: so [they] take turns, the children next to you, next to me, etc.
- Jose Cabezon: This is one by one?
- Geshe Sopa: One by one.
- Jose Cabezon: I see.
- Geshe Sopa: And the young monks stay there,
- Geshe Sopa: and then they have to recite at the handing [out] of the...whatever, tea, or whatever.
- Geshe Sopa: And there are offering things, and when they finish, you have to start.
- Geshe Sopa: And then your until... "Ge gul" means monitor, or what do you call, leader,
- Geshe Sopa: who says...some kind of...with a stick, kind of put [the stick] on the ground and makes noise...
- Geshe Sopa: until that, you have to say that.
- Geshe Sopa: so that is the...sometimes quite many children you have, then you have...
- Geshe Sopa: take even a year or several months, six months is short.
- Geshe Sopa: So anyway, during that time, all [the children] have to finish your memorizations [of] those things, prayers.
- Jose Cabezon: In Tibetan, this is like a chojo?
- Geshe Sopa: Chojo, Chojo Rapsa, one big volume.
- Geshe Sopa: So that is the memorizing.
- Geshe Sopa: And then after that, until that you don't enter to the philosophy, how to say, section or whatever
- Geshe Sopa: So therefore after that you go to debating and philosophical, many, many levels again.
- Geshe Sopa: Dura ("Collected Topics"; Tib. bsdus grwa), dura means the really beginning, early stages of the debating form.
- Geshe Sopa: There are many, many literature [they] have...they will start with that for a young child,
- Geshe Sopa: and then from there, classes depend [on the] classes, depend [on the] subjects,
- Geshe Sopa: you have those, this is the kind of philosophy...what do you call [it]? Section or department?
- Jose Cabezon: Program.
- Geshe Sopa: Program, okay. And the zindra, zindra means classes, different levels of classes.
- Geshe Sopa: So I was at the beginning, after these [were] finished, after three years finished,
- Geshe Sopa: and then beginning these in Ganden Chokor already.
- Geshe Sopa: You have to begin with some special kind of teacher who does the teaching for children,
- Geshe Sopa: and those...and then to the chora means the place where everybody gathers together debating
- Geshe Sopa: [at] this place, so that is [the] dura part, some beginning part of dura I did at Ganden Chokor.