A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN FPMT LAMA

By Fritz Grohmann

Born into a nomadic tribe living in Nagchu northeast of Lhasa, Geshe Ngawang Dakpa became a monk in 1943 at the age of ten. He studied Dharma and worldly subjects extensively before entering Sera Je eleven years later. There he devoted himself to the standard curriculum until conditions became unbearable in 1959 and he had to leave his country. After his arrival in India Geshe-la not only continued his monastic studies but also spent three years at the Sanskrit University in Benares, earning an MA with honors. Invited by the Queen, he taught Tibetan at the University of Sikkim from 1970 for almost twenty years before returning to Sera Monastery in south India and gaining his geshe degree in 1990. Since early 1995 he has been resident teacher at the FPMT center Jinsui Farlin in Taipei.

Usually I get up at five o’clock in the morning. I’ll do my practices until eight when I’ll take breakfast. Regarding my commitments, etc. it’s not necessary to go into details here. After breakfast classes for the nuns follow four days a week. I’m covering Buddhist tenets, The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life and monastic discipline. One more subject was included in the curriculum but has to be given up for the time being. The classes last one and a half hours but sometimes they’re extended for one hour and we finish at half past eleven. When there are no classes in the morning I spend the forenoons with individual students who need some puja to be done or requested private instruction in some particular subject.

Lunch is usually taken at 12, and after that there is some free time unless people come to see me. In the afternoons between half past one and four there might be further pujas or private instruction if requested. One of the students used to come for three afternoons a week to get teachings on the lam-rim but he’s stopped this now because he’s too busy. There’s another student, a dentist, whom I teach each Thursday and Friday afternoon lam-rim and the mandala offering.

At nighttime I’m giving Tibetan classes twice weekly. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are public teachings. That’s my weekly schedule. In terms of months, there are regular Tara pujas on the eighth and Lama Chöpas on the tenth and fifteenth respectively. Besides that, Rinpoche asked me to do each month a Sixteen Arhat Puja on the fifteenth as well as Hayagriva tsog and four-faced Mahakala puja on the twenty-ninth. So much for the fixed dates which are counted according to the Tibetan calendar. Sometimes I’m leading short retreats at the center – Vajrasattva, Nyung-nay or others – but they do not happen on a regular basis.

After the teachings or pujas I go to bed between eleven and half past eleven. That’s how I spend my life.

The job I’ve got here in Taipei is different from what I did in the past but anyway, all the jobs I had were quite different. When I was teaching at the university in Sikkim, I gave only classes in spoken Tibetan, writing, poetry, etc. After that I returned to Sera where many of the new monks requested me to teach. Since there are many other geshes well-learned in Dharma I taught Dharma only to students who couldn’t get another teacher, and usually concentrated on teaching grammar, poetry and astrology, subjects which are not so widely known. After that I went to Italy for a short time where I taught astrology, especially its history in Tibet. So it’s been quite different from what I’m doing now in Taiwan.

Most people who come to the center here have strong faith in the Dharma and a sincere wish to practice. As to their understanding, however, I’m not so sure. There seems to be little reliance on reasoning and it’s somewhat like blind faith. Whatever is taught they are very, very keen to practice. This could be a general phenomenon but I’m not familiar with the situation at other Buddhist places here to say more. In any case it’s not like in the West where people are critically educated and do not simply accept but analyze and follow only what fits their mind. Westerners even get up during a lecture and walk out if they don’t like it!

I do not plan much for the future. I’m just living from one day to the next. Rinpoche asked me to stay in Taipei but let’s see whether the students like it and get benefit from my teaching. If a sentence, even a single word would be of help I’d try to teach it but to teach everything is quite difficult – in order to understand each and every phenomenon and be able to teach all subjects you have to be a Buddha. I can only teach a little bit but it looks as if I would know a lot. And whether it really benefits is hard to say. I’ve no clairvoyance.