The Sound of Many Hands Clapping: Debate Course

The Sound of Many Hands Clapping

Full-time debate course with Geshe Tenzin Losel at Nalanda Monastery

9 Jan – 3 Feb 2023

About the teacher

Geshe Losel is a graduate of the Institute of Dialectics in Dharamsala, India and studied there under the famous scholar Gen Lobsang Gyatso. A British monk, Graham Woodhouse is one of the very few Westerners trained in the traditional Tibetan way as a geshe.

He received his geshe degree from Drepung Loseling Monastic College. He has knowledge of the texts, skill in translating, and an ability to convey the subtleties of Buddhist thought in lucid English.

He lives at Nalanda Monastery, a branch of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, in the south of France.

If you have any questions, please contact us via debate2023@nalanda-monastery.eu.

Brief introduction

The course will offer a hands-on introduction to the study of reasoning and the practice of debate in the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition. These are fundamental components of Buddhist philosophical investigation. A fascinating beginning to the profound inquiry into reality that leads to escape from suffering.

Learn more about Tibetan Debate from Thubten Jinpa:

This course is open both to complete beginners and to those who have already been studying this subject and is available in-person and online.

Complete beginners, who take the first steps in learning how to debate in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, will get all the help they need to get started and, depending on the diversity of the participants and the possibilities of Nalanda, others might continue from where they have reached so far in the main course text, Purbuchok Jampa Gyatso’s Smaller Collected Topics and possibly also earlier chapters of his Middling Collected Topics.

Debate is Tibetan Buddhism’s primary mode of philosophical inquiry and is the liveliest and most amusing way of approaching near to Buddhism’s timeless wisdom.

It is not about making speeches but totally interactive! For that reason attendance in person rather than online, if possible, is the preferred option.

Using directed question and answer with traditional moves and gestures, challenger and defender each energise the other to overcome their own and the other’s ignorance.

In this way they train to make sense of Buddha’s radical teachings on the world, the mind, impermanence and ultimate truth, using reasoning whilst having lots of fun. Students of the upcoming Masters Programme will find it especially useful.

Schedule

Mon 9th Jan – Fri 3rd Feb 2023