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Core Courses
These courses provide students with a systematic foundation in the view of the Hinayana.
- 111 Mind & Its World I
- 119 Introduction to Collected Topics & Debate
These two courses are taught in conjunction with each other during the first session of the year that a student enters Nitartha for the first time. Key topics include:
- An overview of where the study of foundational Buddhism (Hinayana) fits into the traditional Tibetan philosophical curriculum. This includes a presentation of how the four traditional disciplines of foundational Buddhism taught in all Tibetan shedras systematically reflect each other. These four are:
- Collected Topics (Düdra)
- Classifications of Mind (Lorik)
- Classifications of Reasons (Tarik)
- Philosophical Systems (Truptha)
Included here is an introduction to the Vaibhashika (Particularists) and Sautrantika (Followers of Sutra) schools, focusing on their ontologies, their presentations of relative and absolute truth, and their explanations of how we perceive the external world, all of which is based on the Philosophical Systems literature.
- A detailed analysis of the objective and subjective sides of experience. The analysis of the objective side is based on Collected Topics, which presents the divisions and definitions of objects as presented in the phenomenological Abhidharma tradition of Vasubandhu.
- The analysis of the subjective side of experience—mind and how it perceives its world in valid and invalid ways—is based on Classifications of Mind, which provides the divisions and definitions of the types of mind identified in the epistemological tradition of Dignaga and Dharmakirti.
- Introduction to Debate presents the basics of Tibetan debate and logic, drawn from Classifications of Reasons, which students apply to debating material from the introductory companion course, Mind & Its World I. Students work particularly with the material presented on objective phenomena from Collected Topics, as is traditional in the Tibetan curriculum. Root texts and commentaries of the Tibetan tradition, including the Vajrayana genre, often use the logical forms of expression found in debate to articulate their view. Thus this short course directly enhances the student's capacity to study a wide variety of textual materials.
- 112 Mind & Its World II
This course involves a detailed discussion of several central shedra topics on foundational Buddhism, including:
- A detailed investigation of causes and conditions from Collected Topics, which applies to both mind and the objects that it perceives.
- The distinction between primary minds and mental factors, with a detailed presentation of the mental factors from Classifications of Mind.
- A return to a discussion of the Vaibhashika and Sautrantika schools from Philosophical Systems, now in more detail in light of the material previously studied in Mind & Its World I. The subject matter includes definitions of the two schools, a discussion of their subschools, more in-depth discussion of their presentations of the process of perception, and the differences in their presentations of objects of knowledge and their subdivisions.
- 113 Mind & Its World III
Course III continues the integrated study of the phenomenal world and how mind perceives it. In particular this course presents:
- The “Modes of Engagement” from Classifications of Mind and the “Methods that Lead to Cognition” from Collected Topics, both of which deal with the ways in which the mind cognizes phenomena, particularly the ways in which conceptuality functions.
- The paths and fruition of foundational Buddhism according to the Vaibhashika and Sautrantika schools as presented in Philosophical Systems.
At the conclusion of this course, a student will have read in their entirety the Collected Topics, Classifications of Mind and Philosophical Systems root texts, along with the pertinent commentarial literature.
- 114 Mind & Its World IV
Course IV brings the study of Hinayana to a conclusion in the foundation curriculum. This course includes:
- A detailed presentation of Classifications of Reasons, which considers the different types of syllogisms and the conditions for correct and faulty reasonings. The presentation from Classification of Reasons is supplemented by material from the related intermediate-level text, Conclusive Analysis of the Classifications of Logic, also by Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, which in part presents logical reasonings in support of the existence of past and future lives.
- A more in-depth presentation of important topics pertaining to Classifications of Mind, based on Conclusive Analysis of the Classifications of Mind, a commentarial work by Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche.
Mind & Its World IV brings the initial study of all four major disciplines of foundational Buddhism to a conclusion. More in-depth study of these disciplines takes place in the advanced curriculum.
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