I was reading Buddhadharma or Tricycle over coffee the other day at Borders, and came upon an announcement for a new institution called Maitripa Institute in Portland Oregon that hopes to begin a serious academic program in Tibetan Buddhism in January 2006. There are no DL plans though, that I can see. http://www.maitripa.org/about.html The thing is divided up into Western-style classes, semesters and credit hours. Initially it leads to a certificate/diploma in Advanced Buddhist Studies. This four year program isn't something to take lightly. They say: "The program will be on a semester schedule running from January to May, and September to December, with the summers off. For Regular Program Students (see below), there will be approximately 8 hours of class a week, including philosophy classes, Tibetan language, discussion groups, and meditation, meeting three nights a week and Saturday afternoons. There will be a minimum 10 hours of reading and homework a week. A service requirement is part of the curriculum and will require a minimum of 10 hours of time a semester. A language requirement is part of the curriculum. The program will also include regular exams, midterms, and finals, as well as mandatory mid-term and semester-end retreats. There will also be two pilgrimages to India led by Yangsi Rinpoche throughout the four years, which are not mandatory." A thesis and/or translation project is also required. The best of both worlds: no accreditation, no degree waiting at the end... AND you work your butt off. Very Buddhist. http://www.maitripa.org/curriculum.html It costs $3,600/year or $1,800/semester. Individual classes are $480 ($550 for Tibetan language classes). They do plan to turn it into a degree-granting university at some point in the future. (Our friend Alan Contreras will probably have something to say about that.) Almost certainly Maitripa would qualify for an OR religious exemption, but I don't think that they want to go that route. They are talking conventional accreditation. (If you are gonna do it, then do it right.) Maitripa is associated with the (Gelugpa) Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition and apparently the Tibet Office likes it (the Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelug school). http://www.maitripa.org/letter.html The Tibetans are kind of fascinating because they evolved a unique academic tradition, a distinct kind of scholasticism in fact, up there in their Himalayan fastnesses. The Maitripa site includes a history of the Tibetan Buddhist universities, with photographs. It also has a very interesting account of how the Tibetans reestablished some of them in India (again, with photos) after the Chinese invaded and set about trying to destroy Tibetan Buddhism. http://www.maitripa.org/universities.html I find it particularly noteworthy the Tibetan monastic universities preserved a style of higher education very similar to the original medieval universities in Europe. Note the monastic ties, the long period of study, the emphasis on formal disputation and the small number of texts studied (remember that medieval books were treasures that were copied by hand). "Students at these Gelug monastic universities undergo a rigorous 20-year degree program, culminating in the rank of Geshe (dge bshes). The curriculum of these universities is distinguished amongst Tibetan scholastic centers by several notable features. Most prominent is the crucial role given to formal debate. Before 1959, monks at the three seats would debate as many as eight hours a day. Students were required to pass annual examinations, and were further tested at the conclusion of their course of study in public debates. Another distinctive feature of this curriculum was the relatively small number of texts studied: during the course of the entire 20-year curriculum only five root texts are studied." Of course the root texts all have numerous commentaries. This emphasis on explicating ancient authorities is another medieval characteristic. (Of course Bible study isn't tremendously different.) And in medieval Europe the practice was to award doctorates after formal public disputations, not after dissertations were written. The Maitripa Institute (someday to become Maitripa University) will be offering lay students a considerably Westernized version of the traditional monastic syllabus. But it certainly doesn't look to be your normal Oregon fare.
A fascinating development, especially for those of us married to Buddhist teachers who have reflected on semi-retirement in Portland. I believe I've read that the Dalai Lama earned his title of 'Geshe' after a many-hours-long interrogation, on a balcony of the Potala Palace, with 70,000 monks, nuns, and others in attendance.
Interesting stuff. Thanks, Bill. The Tibetan conversion of the Mongols (at least the upper strata--much like Confucianism elsewhere) is one of the more interesting tales of proselytism.
