Beneath the benevolent, protective gaze of the venerable Boudhanath Stupa, in the Buddhist enclave of Boudha in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, stands Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling, a sanctuary dedicated to the study and practice of the Buddhadharma that lies at the heart of the growing mandala of Dharmic activities of Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, considered to be one of the greatest living masters of the Dzogchen or “Great Perfection” tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism.
In 1997, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche established the Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI) within the grounds of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling. For more than a quarter of a century, the RYI has been conducting seminars and study programs in Nepal for those wishing to deepen their understanding of Buddhist philosophy and practice.
The institute became affiliated with Kathmandu University in 2001 to form the Kathmandu University Center for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute (KU-CBS at RYI), and today the center offers a range of courses at various levels, including BA, MA, and PhD degrees in Buddhist studies and Himalayan languages, with classes held at the monastery’s shedra or monastic college.
Under Rinpoche’s guiding vision and influence, the Rangjung Yeshe Institute has grown into a global leader in Tibetan Buddhist philosophical and contemplative studies that combines the best of traditional and modern academic Buddhist educational approaches. The institute is also a manifestation of Rinpoche’s vision for a vehicle that can offer easy access to the study Buddhism and related research languages in order to cultivate and nurture the qualities of wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Earlier this year, BDG had an opportunity to speak with the Rangjung Yeshe Institute’s visionary founder, the esteemed Tibetan Buddhist teacher and Dzogchen master Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, and with Dr. Thomas Hove Doctor, who has been the principal of the Kathmandu University Center for Buddhist Studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute (KU-CBS at RYI) since the beginning of 2024, to learn about the evolution of Buddhist studies at RYI and about their reflections on the future in an increasingly uncertain world.
BDG: Rinpoche, I wonder if you would mind briefly sharing with us a little about your vision for the RYI and for the future of the institute?
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche: Well, as you know, Rangjung Yeshe Institute is a Buddhist institute that combines the approaches of the international academic system with the monastic scholastic tradition. This is, I believe, extremely important for all of us, especially now that we live in a such a fast-moving modern world, which has good and bad implications. On the positive side, our lives are, generally speaking, much easier and more comfortable, but on the other hand, suffering and destruction are as a result also more widespread on this planet.
So I think it’s now all the more important that we seek opportunities to bring together scientists with religious leaders, with business people, with politicians, and with scholars of all types. We need to hold in-depth talks about the direction we are moving in as a society, and about what we can do that will be helpful for the future. For example, in terms of artificial intelligence: how important it is; how helpful it can be; how dangerous it might be. This is just one aspect of the sorts of things on which we need cross-disciplinary dialogues.
At the same time, we really need to learn—each of us—about kindness. Kindness is the source of our peace. Kindness is the source of world peace. Kindness is the source of all goodness. If we can keep only one thing in mind, it should be to maintain a kind heart, then people will never do harmful things to themselves or to others. In this way, we can bring about individual peace and world peace. So kindness is extremely important.
But kindness must be accompanied by intelligence; we need intelligent kindness. Artificial intelligence may be intelligent, but we have doubts about whether it can be kind. Certainly, AI appears to have the potential for great intelligence—perhaps even more than humans—but what will these smart machines do? We don’t know. I hope that scientists might be able to give us some answers, but I have doubts about how much they can know clearly, because none of us can predict the future.
As such, there are many reasons why this Buddhist institute is extremely important for our efforts to bring about a peaceful world—and not only based on one religious tradition, or one religion’s system of education. Buddhism is the science of the mind; scientist are experts about material objects, while Buddhists are experts about the mind. Therefore, these two fields need to work together more closely so that they can examine and discuss—clearly, openly, thoroughly, and genuinely—in order to reach conclusions that can be put into decisive action, rather than just talk, talk talk. We need such discussions followed by agreements and decisions.
BDG: Rinpoche, my sincere thanks for sharing your wisdom with us today.
Although Dr. Thomas Doctor, was appointed as the principal of the KU-CBS at RYI at the beginning of 2024, he has in fact been involved with the Rangjung Yeshe Institute since its early formative days.
He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Tibetan Studies from the University of Copenhagen, before going on to attain a PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Lausanne. Since the late 1980s, he has been a student of Buddhist philosophy and practice at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling, where he has also served as a senior translator for the lamas and monastic and lay scholars. He has translated several classic texts of Buddhist philosophy, including: Speech of Delight, Ju Mipham’s commentary to the eighth century text the Madhyamakalamkara; and Ornament of Reason, Mabja Jangchub Tsondru’s commentary to the Madhyamakalamkara.
Dr. Thomas Doctor is also a contributor to 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, a global nonprofit initiative founded by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche to translate into English and publish all surviving canonical texts preserved in the Classical Tibetan language—70,000 pages of the Kangyur (the translated words of the Buddha) in 25 years and 161,800 pages of the Tengyur (the translated commentaries on the Buddha’s teachings by the great Indian Buddhist masters and scholars) in 100 years.
BDG: Thank you Thomas, perhaps we could begin by talking briefly about your history with the RYI?
Dr. Thomas Doctor: I was involved in establishing the KU-CBS at RYI back in 2001, when the agreement with Kathmandu University was signed, and even during the early years of the RYI leading up to that point, when we ran a program of just four months per year. In those days, I was also translating Tibetan texts and I aways felt that it would be a fantastic opportunity to develop an institute with this kind of academic accreditation. So in the days when we were working to bring this opportunity into reality, I was doing a lot of legwork, together with an old monk who knew everybody!
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche had expressed a wish for a very long time to create a shared platform to cultivate academic study and the traditional knowledge that is thankfully still alive and kicking in our monastic institutions. Rinpoche would encourage us to go and listen when the monks were taught, and some of us did just that, sitting in the back of the room and listening in on the discussions. It was just an amazing intellectual environment to be exposed to in the monastic shedra: the open-mindedness, the sharpness of intellect, the attitude of not taking anything for granted, and the willingness to question the foundations of one’s core beliefs—something I had never encountered anywhere else. It was very inspiring.
And I thought, if academia is supposed to educate one to become a critical thinker and to be able to think outside of the box, then there ought to be a space for establishing a common ground—a common platform to pursue this.
BDG: Sometimes it can be difficult to adopt a critical perspective with regard to the Buddhist teaching; many people are looking or expecting to accept certain things at face value.
Dr. Thomas Doctor: Yes, this can be true. It’s also very natural in many ways. When we’ve grown up and gone to school being told every day that we need to be skeptical and critical, to learn more and to acquire more knowledge, and to have a personal opinion about everything, then when you find something that stands out as having some deep value, there’s a wish that you can just jump in and swim—and some people can do that.
But my personal belief is that most people who have grown up the way I grew up, in that kind of Western educational system, I think it’s worth taking the time to learn and to really force oneself to be skeptical about the Buddhist teachings—but skeptical in the right way, because there’s also a risk that we could too easily dissolve the value of the teachings.
For example deep philosophical analysis and debate, I think, is very, very useful. And if we allow ourselves the time to pursue that, then what one can often discover is recognizing the feeling that there’s something called “Buddhism” that is “over there,” and the feeling that I’d like to go “there,” or sometimes I feel that I am “there,” and sometimes I leave “there.”
But subsequently, we can also recognize that this perspective is not really the way things are. Buddhism is a teaching about reality; it puts us face to face with reality, helping us to realize that we are a part of that reality. And this realization can sink into us in a very nice and constructive way if we follow that route. This is not to say that we become a perfect practitioner, but there’s a distinct difference between Buddhism as something that we are very inspired by and would like to engage with and learn from and so on, and the understanding that Buddhism really addresses and expresses the deepest issues of reality, of which we are all of course a part, because we’re here.
In this way, the risk of a feeling of separation, of alienation, is reduced, if that makes sense? There’s not this kind of object “over there,” albeit a beautiful and deeply meaningful object, when in fact we are here and a part of something that is vast and deeply complex. As long as Buddhism remains something that is “over there” that we are chasing after, then there is the risk of finding out that it is something that wasn’t as profound as we first thought—it was useful at the time but then our attention sort of moves on to something else when we begin to feel we’ve learned enough. This is something that can commonly happen with this sort of view.
However, if we can take the time and energy to conduct a deep, personal inquiry into the Buddhist teaching on emptiness (Skt: shunyata; Tib: tongpa nyi) in Nagarjuna’s philosophy, for example, then that can quite easily, and in a surprisingly a short amount of time, give us a very real sense of being somehow all together on the same journey, in the same boat, and that Buddhism is everywhere in the boat. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we’re not in any danger; this can still be a risky journey. But we also gain that recognition of being part of something that is very much alive and enduring. In this way, the whole experiential dimension of the Buddhist teaching can unfold much more organically.
BDG: Which is what Rangjung Yeshe Institute is all about: cultivating this kind of experiential inquiry and insight.
Dr. Thomas Doctor: Like Rinpoche always says, it should be a place where scholar-practitioners can come to flourish.
We also want to see Buddhist scholars with traditional backgrounds—monastics and people from around this region—come here and teach in a way that for them is characteristic of good teaching practices. And at the same time, we want whatever modern academia in Buddhist studies is now to also be present here, so that there can be a real dialogue between these academic traditions.
Of course, those who choose to stay here all share the perspective that the Buddhist teaching is one of practical application, as we were saying before. It’s not that you have to commit to some particular method to come and teach here, for example. Basically, all the difficult questions that come up about the authenticity, or otherwise, of the teachings and the history of Buddhism—which can also be quite demoralizing sometimes—we very much need the scope and freedom for those types of discussion to take place. That’s very much a part of our culture here.
As such, the RYI is a matter that’s very close to Rinpoche’s heart. He receives reports continuously, and he speaks to the faculty and to the students, and shares his thoughts about the shedra all the time. So he’s a continuous source of inspiration and direction.
BDG: How many institutions is RYI cooperating with thus far?
Dr. Thomas Doctor: I think there are about a dozen other universities with which we have agreements.
BDG: I understand that this includes the University of Hong Kong (HKU)?
Dr. Thomas Doctor: Actually, not yet formally, but including HKU should soon be happening. We’re thinking in terms of a large research project.
BDG: How many programs are currently available at the institute?
Dr. Thomas Doctor: There’s a BA in Buddhist Studies, an MA in Buddhist Studies, and a master’s in textual interpretation, translation, and philology. This MA was created when 84000 began its work, and it’s basically trying to bring together an education that will produce translators for that project. That’s another area of close cooperation.
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche is also heading something called the Dharmachakra Translation Committee, which has contributed very substantially to 84000—probably the largest single contributor.
And then we also have our PhD program, which we are thinking to develop further. The BA and MA programs have been remarkably successful, I think. From the very beginning, we received a lot of support from professors of Buddhist studies around the world, who would come to teach a course here, spend a semester here, and share about our projects at conferences, and so on, which has been very fortunate for us.
As a result, many of the students who have graduated from here with a BA or an MA have been able to continue their studies are very respected universities and receive scholarships for PhD programs.
BDG: Looking toward the future, is there anything you can share in terms of aspirations or plans already in progress?
Dr. Thomas Doctor: I think we can look forward to a greater quantity of the scholarly output from KU-CBS at RYI becoming more widely available—such as research projects that faculty and students have been producing. The fruits of this work will become much more readily available, including in a journal that will publish some of this.
In addition, we would like to participate in more interdisciplinary work than we have been able to so far, including environmental studies, psychology, and so on. We really encourage the faculty to do this, and have also introduced some courses that are structured in this way.
Speaking personally, I’ve been working on a project creating interfaces between AI and Buddhism in a group comprising computer scientists, AI scientist, neuroscientists, biologists, and evolutionary biologists. It has been very very challenging and very, very rewarding, and I think very meaningful.
I believe that our combination of real access to the way studies take place in the monastery, combined with the academic world of Buddhist studies is really quite valuable. That environment of traditional learning, in which you are introduced to the entire corpus, not just a specific chapter or page, and discussing it along the way, the potential there for really internalizing the Buddhist teaching is beyond compare. In this way, all the methods of academia can be applied in a much more meaningful and incisive fashion.
Here at RYI there is an opportunity to really get in touch with the classic texts of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy in a very comprehensive way—and in a way that also enables students to talk about what they’ve learned and assess what they have learned through many different lenses.
BDG: Thomas, thank you so much for sharing your time with us!
See more
Related features from BDG
Buddhism in the Hidden Valley, Part 5: In Conversation with Rachen Gompa’s Geshe Tenzin Nyima
Licchavi House, a Refuge for Art, Culture, and the Buddhadharma in Kathmandu
Clearing the Path to Compassion: A Conversation with Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche
Bodhicitta and the Buddhadharma: An Interview with His Holiness the 41st Sakya Trizin
Related news reports from BDG
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche Inaugurates New Dharma Center in Lisbon
Special Report: Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche Marks Vesak with First-Phase Consecration of New Monastery in Lumbini
Sahaja: Siddhartha’s Intent Announces Buddhist-Inspired Art Show in Bodh Gaya
Tergar Institute in Nepal Welcomes Inaugural Cohort of Buddhist Students
His Holiness the 41st Sakya Trizin Visits Nepal for the First Time Almost a Decade
BDG Special Issue
Digital Dharma – Buddhism in a Changing World
