Daily Chanting Ritual Texts (Tsogchen) and Their Usage in Monastic and Secular Buddhist Education: the Mongolian Example

Majer, Zsuzsa (2024) Daily Chanting Ritual Texts (Tsogchen) and Their Usage in Monastic and Secular Buddhist Education: the Mongolian Example. MONGOLICA: AN INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL OF MONGOL STUDIES, 55. pp. 413-436. ISSN 1024-3143

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Abstract

As part of a recently started comparative study of the daily chanting ritual texts of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries of different Schools, including Mongolian monasteries, the current paper focuses on the Mongolian Tsogchen (T. tshogs chen) textbooks, and especially on the way their texts are used not only at monastic training and at individual Dharma teachings but for educating laypeople either in monasteries or outside them in Buddhist associations and centers, at degree programs, certificate courses, or short courses. This later was studied with the aim of answering the question of „What can we learn from the Mongolian example?”. Teaching at the only accredited Buddhist College of Europe, my interest is not only bringing new research results, but to actually use the research outcomes in teaching practice for the benefit of students. In general, these texts do not get enough research interest perhaps as daily rituals are not as spectacular as, for example, a Tsam (T. ‘chams) dance or any other ritual. In my opinion, they should, as they, in spite of their shortness, contain basic Buddhist teachings, theories, ideas and terminology in their fullest complexity. The texts of these collections are the most basic texts and prayers of Tibetan monastic education that novices memorize and learn first during the basic part of their training and then monks of the main assembly hall recite daily. Laypeople, devotees and practitioners similarly listen to the explanations of these texts first before meeting more deep, lengthy or philosophical texts or topics. We can learn much from the experience, example and teaching methods of Mongolian Buddhist teachers: from their traditional methods for teaching the classical Tibetan language to Mongolians, nowadays also including laypeople, or from their ways of teaching Buddhism through these basic Buddhist prayers and texts to them. The paper consists of four parts: Tsogchen textbooks in general; the specialities and special texts of Mongolian textbooks; usage of these texts in monastic and secular education; and examples of implementing these practices in teaching European/western students.

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