(TibetanReview.net, May06’25) – An ecumenical meeting of representatives of various Tibetan monasteries belonging to different philosophical schools is being held near Dharamshala from May 4 to 7 to discuss key religious treatises, reported the Tibetan-language tibettimes.net May 6. This is the eighth such conference since 2015.
The conference is being held at Dzongsar Shedra (the Dzongsar Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies), Chauntra in Kangra District, Himachal Pradesh, which is jointly organizing the event with the Department of Religion and Culture of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).
A total of 17 monks and nuns from various Tibetan religious traditions are participating in the discussion, with 92 participants from 47 monasteries, apart from the monks of Dzongsar Institute.
The texts for discussion at this conference are the root text of Abhidharmakosha (choe ngonpa dzoe) by the Indian Master Vasubandhu, one of the five major Buddhist treatises, and the Bon religious text Sipae Dzoephug, which is on basic cosmology and metaphysical theory of Abhidharma (higher teaching or doctrine) philosophy of the Bonpo tradition.
Papers authored by two monks and a nun from each religious tradition had been submitted nine months earlier, and the discussion are being held on these research works.
The aims of these ecumenical discussions include promotion of religious knowledge, development of amity among the different religious traditions, and the creation of awareness about the different religious centres.
The conferences were stated to have been live webcasted since the 5th, with those unable to travel being able to participate online.
Nuns participated only as listeners from the first to the fourth conferences, when it was suggested that they too should be able to present papers and take part in discussions. This was duly accepted.
Regarding the importance of holding the event, organizer Tenzin Naljor from the CTA’s Department of Religion and Culture has explained that His Holiness the Dalai Lama had repeatedly called for such conferences, that in 2013 representatives from 50 monasteries were accordingly invited to a conference on the promotion of study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism, which led to the adoption of a resolution for holding the first such conference in 2015 at the Gyutoe monastery.
This was followed by the conferences at the Kagyu monastery of Palpung Sherabling in 2016, at the Sakya College in 2018, at the Bon monastery of Pal Shen-ten Menri Ling in 2019, at the Nyingma monastery of Thekchen Namdol Shedrub dhargyeling in 2020, at the Gaden Monastery in 2023, and at Khamgar Druk College, Dharma Kara Institute, at Tashijong in 2024.
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Meanwhile, Sikyong Penpa Tsering of the CTA has said senior Tibetan religious leaders will convene for a conference in Dharamshala from Jul 2 to 4, ahead of the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday Jul 6.
“We will be holding a conference of all the religious heads of Tibetan Buddhism in Dharamshala from Jul 2nd to 4th. And we are hoping that His Holiness will address this conference,” he said in an NDTV interview May 6, amid speculations that the spiritual leader of Tibet may address the issue of his reincarnation then.