An American Shugdenpa teaches English at Serpom Monastery.

[Ven. Lozang Gyaltsan]

Chinese is indeed rapidly becoming a vitally important language for international discourse  and this makes it an important one for monastic institutions as well.  My granddaughter {now 8 years old} has long been attending a Spanish Language Magnet School in California where instruction is almost exclusively in Spanish. Two years ago, she came home and said she'd learned that Chinese was an important language to learn and asked to be allowed to attend a local Chinese school on Saturday to learn Mandarin. She is now in her third year of studying Chinese. Many of the students here are from Nepal and Sikkim. Upon arrival, they must immediately begin learning Tibetan, as it is the basic language of life, as well as instruction. English class is also begun right away. Even the youngest receive constant lessons in basic English vocabulary long before instruction in formal English grammar is begun. Additionally, they begin to learn and use the local language of Karnataka which they must also know to communicate with locals who do business here in the colony and in the nearby towns. Monks today are and must be multi-lingual. Marshall McLuhan was correct when years ago he wrote that the world is becoming a Global Village.

[kurava]

Yes, studying the Chinese language will be very good to reach the multitudes in China.

Mainland China should be quite ready to adopt DS practice now as the practice will help bestow the condition for them to have the material benefits ( which the people pursue fervently) in order to walk the spiritual path.

[Ven. Lozang Gyaltsan]

Yes, I believe that the government there will find many unintended consequences of their having been so generously accepting of the practice of Dorje Shugden in an effort to further drive a wedge between the people of Tibet and HHDL.

[DharmaSpace]

Ven Lozang Gyaltsan, you are right being multi-lingual means the dharma can spread everywhere and much easier and reach out many people who thirst for the dharma. Well I suppose the Chinese do adopt the stance of the enemy of my enemy is my friend . Chinese emperors were practitioners of Lama Tsongkhapa's tradition for hundreds of years especially during the time of the Manchus. Though I think it was reserved for the elite as the practises were so effective they probably did not want the masses to have it as well.

Lama Tsongkhapa is no stranger to them, Dorje Shugden will once again introduce Lama Tsongkhapa to the Middle kingdom!

[icy]

Dear Ven Lozang Gyaltsan is such an inspirant for future English-native-speaking Sugdenpa to teach in Serpom and Shar Garden.  Thank you for your detail updates.

I surely think that Chinese language will be a world important language both for commercial and spiritual reasons.  When I was in Beijing recently, I observed many mainland Chinese have mala prayer beads worn around  either their necks or hands as if a fashion.  On enquiring further, they do mantra recitations.  Many have Tibetan gurus.  One traditional courtyard hotel where I was staying has photo of their Lama on the wall.  The owner and his staff always wear mala beads and do mantra recitations.  Apparently their guru comes from Qinqhai and visits them frequently.  This is a case in hand but there could be more.

My point is Dorje Shugden will hit the Chinese market like wild fire.  Anything materialistic sells well in this emerging market with huge population.  They are becoming more affluent in the cities and they will hunger for more materialistic spirituality.   I would to like to see and experience when this happens.

[kris]

I have been reading some old posts, and I am to find this post!!

Venerable Lozang Gyaltsan, I rejoice for everything I read in all the posts here. I pray I have a chance to serve the monastery one day, and until the day I die...

Your posts are about 1 year ago. Do you have any updates lately? What have you been doing, and have you been coming back to the monastery? I would really like to hear more from you, either in monastery or wherever you are now.

Keep up the good work and come back here to write more

[Ensapa]

China now has a huge market for Buddhism. Many of the Tibetan monks in Tibet have penetrated the Chinese market, literally and more and more Tibetan monks are actually reaching in China and learning Chinese alongside with english and their native language. Although, at the moments, learning Chinese may have implications in confirming the rumors and lies about Dorje Shugden practitioners being spies of China. But having said that, it would have benefitted even more people who are currently residing in China and bring them to the authentic tradition of the Ganden Lineage. Then, there are also other Chinese residing in other places around the world that could benefit greatly from Chinese speaking monks such as Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong to name a few. So having Chinese as one of the subjects is actually quite important but due to the current political situation, it could be counterproductive.

That aside, I am actually very touched to see someone in the western world coming all the way to Ganden with the motivation of wanting to benefit the monastery as opposed to taking from them. how many people are willing to give up everything just to teach the monks there on how to speak english so that they can out reach to many more people? This is a very interesting development for Shar Ganden, so to speak, and would even be the beginning of the dawn of a new education system that encompasses all subjects, globally.