For those of you familiar with my blog you will know that I am a student of His Holiness the Karmapa and so from time to time I will announce events relating to His Holiness.
Today he is to be giving the first of a series of Dharma talks to the Kagyu Gunchoe Sangha in Bodh Gaya, India.
If you are interested in viewing these talks live, please click on this link: Live Webcast
To those of you perhaps unfamiliar to Buddhism, the word Sangha is a Pali term which translates roughly as 'community' or 'assembly'. The Sangha in this context refers to the annual gathering of monks for the Kagyu Gunchoe, or winter debates. Each year monks from the various Kagyu philosophical disciplines meet for three weeks of rigorous and often lively debates.
Traditionally the debates are overseen by His Holiness the Karmapa who listens in on random debates and provides opinions, suggestions and corrections where needed.
Monastic debates are fascinating, I first saw debating on a television documentary and was captivated by the zeal and passion displayed by the monks. I have since witnessed it at Sera Monastery in Lhasa, see my post from the 28th November 2011 and the image of a Sera monk engaged in a debate. I also saw debating at His Holiness the Dalia Lama's Temple in Dharamsala though I enjoyed the Sera Monastery atmosphere more. If you've not seen debating before, watch the video below, these monks are from Sera Monastery. The monks who are standing and clapping are presenting the monks sitting with a philosophical question and when he claps his hand, it is to accentuate the point he is making. I have seen very 'heated' debates and those monks who are presenting a good argument can often attract many monks into the debate.
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