One reason we were rushing to leave the Potala Palace was that we wanted to make sure we made it to the Sera Monastery in time to see the monk’s debating. They do it every day from 3-5pm. It was one of the real highlights of the entire trip.
Now, I am sure that right about now you are thinking, “what the heck is a monk debate?” Well, the way it was explained to us is that some of the monk’s ask questions of the other monks – mostly questions about Buddhist scripture, but also philosophical questions like “how big is big” or “is the glass half empty or half full” or simply “why?” The other monks must then answer the question and they have a debate about the answer. If the questioning monk is not satisfied with the answer, and he generally is not, he will rear back and thrust his hands at the answerer culminating in an angry hand clap by the questioning monk. It is hard to capture it in a still photo but it looks something like this –
Like I said, pictures don’t really do it justice but I shot some video that was just fantastic. It really is a show. Everyone in the group adored watching the debate. It was quite striking to notice how angry and loud the arguments could be one second, and how the very same arguing monks could break into laughter the next moment (see the two pictures below). When you consider that these guys have to live together 24 hours a day, 7-days a week for the rest of their lives, I guess they better get along!
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