J-term welcomes a flurry of new opportunities Forging Global Connections Nepalese Monk imparts wisdom to eager students

Author: Catherine McCarthy

If you can't bring Middlebury to Nepal, why not bring Nepal to Middlebury? When the college cancelled all Winter Term trips due to the financial crisis, Professor William Waldron decided to do just that. Waldron, an associate professor of religion, originally planned to lead a Winter Term trip to Nepal. In Nepal, students would have had the opportunity to study Buddhism under Tibetan monk Khenpo Sherab Dorjee, who currently teaches at a traditional Buddhist seminary and at a modern institute for Westerners in Katmandu. When the trip was cancelled, however, Waldron and Dorjee were forced to devise a creative alternative. Dorjee decided to travel to the West for the first time in his life - and agreed to join Waldron at Middlebury in co-teaching a course titled "Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism."

"I feel like I've had a very typical Western flirtation with Buddhism," said Sarah Harris '11, who is enrolled in the class. "We throw around terms like zen, enlightenment, and 'the path' without actually knowing what they mean."

Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism is allowing Harris, along with 13 other students, to explore these ideas from - as Waldron put it - an "insider-outsider perspective." Quite fittingly, class time is split between the traditional teachings of Dorjee and the contextualizing analysis of Waldron.

On a typical day, I observed as students filed into the classroom and quietly took their seats around the seminar table. Waldron and Dorjee sat at the front of the room - Waldron in slacks and a dress shirt, Dorjee in a drapery of orange and purple robes. Dorjee, according to the traditions of monastic education, began class with a Buddhist prayer. As he chanted, some students clasped their hands and closed their eyes while others chose to watch intently.

"For someone within a religious tradition," explained Waldron, "education is the pursuit of spiritual goals." Though students feel no obligation to take part in the Buddhist prayer, "that is part of what [Dorjee] does; it is important to give students a flavor of his religious experience."

Dorjee looked around the room engagingly, and commenced the lecture in the lilting sounds of his native Tibetan tongue. Students spent the next two hours delving into the philosophies of The 37 Practices of the Bodhisatva, a traditional text of Buddhist beliefs and practices.

"Today we're reading about adhering to solitude - the source of all good qualities," relayed Sophie, his translator. "In solitude, awareness and intelligence becomes clearer; when you are free from distraction, the practice of virtue spontaneously increases," Dorjee and his translator explained. "In Tibetan, the word for monastery actually means far away place."

He speaks from experience. Dorjee chose to leave Nepal around age 13 to study in a traditional Indian monastery and spent the next 20 years becoming versed in Buddhist philosophy.

Harris spoke to the unique personal view that Dorjee offers. "This class gives me an opportunity to learn about Buddhism from someone whose life is dedicated to its teachings and practices," she said.

As Dorjee finished his lecture, students began to ask a series of questions as they wrestled with the differences between the Buddhist mindset and their own Western one - "Why is it necessary to leave your hometown and family? Don't we derive a lot of meaning from those connections? Is a boy liking a girl always a distraction from study? Does that mean dating is always necessarily detrimental to Buddhist life?"

As Dorjee explained his own view, Waldron prepared to continue the dialogue in his own portion of the class, which included a lecture that placed Dorjee's teaching in its cultural and historical context and analyzed Buddhism from a Western perspective.

"The joint teaching is highly effective - we are graced with both a historical perspective from Professor Waldron and scriptural interpretations from the Khenpo," said Harris. (Khenpo means "teacher" in Tibetan, and is how the students of the class address Dorjee.)

Waldron, too, attempted to explain the class' balance between his own secular approach and his colleague's spiritual teaching. "Middlebury is a secular institution, and students are used to studying about religion in an objective, critical way," he said. "Khempo does not teach about religion, but teaches the religion itself."

Their collaboration provides a juxtaposition of both approaches, which Waldron explained as essential to the true understanding of a religion. "If we don't understand a particular religion from the inside out, then we are missing something," he said. "The challenge is to remain objective while trying to see from the inside just what makes a religion compelling."

It is clear that this dichotomous approach has provided students with considerable food for thought. "Not only have I been weighing my own beliefs in regards to Buddhism," said Harris, "but I also find myself talking about dharma and giving up one's home with classmates over lunch and dinner!"

Though the Wright Theatre Seminar Room perhaps does not compare to a monastery in Nepal, this class has provided its students with a remarkable opportunity and challenge, allowing them to immerse themselves in a foreign philosophy and culture while remaining within the context of ordinary life on campus. It is an experience of immersion made possible only by the structure of Winter Term itself. Students are able to, as Harris put it, "become engrossed in the study of one thing."As Dorjee himself described in lecture, a place of study should always be "isolated and free from distraction."

His translator began to laugh as she relayed his next thought: "Khenpo says that Middlebury seems like a good place for that," she said.

This is the first in a two-part series highlighting visiting Winter Term professors. Next week's issue will feature Professor Francisco Del Canto, hailing from Mar de Plata, Argentina.