-Gustav Runge, MAPREP student from Denmark

One aspect of studying Buddhist philosophy at Rangjung Yeshe Institute that has differed markedly from my previous studies has been the role of memorization.

Whereas my prior education primarily consisted in interpreting texts, analyzing arguments, and evaluating competing positions, studying classical Buddhist philosophy at Rangjung Yeshe Institute frequently involved committing extensive enumerations to memory. Preparing recently for the written examination on the Uttaratantraśāstra, for

example, required memorizing the fifteen ultimate qualities of buddhahood.

Initially, this type of memorizing struck me as somewhat puzzling. From the perspective of western academia, memorization is often regarded as something rather secondary.

Yet, more interesting than the act of memorization itself was the object of

memorization. The very first of the fifteen qualities states that buddhahood cannot be conceived through study and reflection. Likewise, the text repeatedly emphasizes that buddhahood is not an object of ordinary conceptual thought and compares ordinary beings attempting to understand it to people blind from birth trying to comprehend

visible form.

At first glance, this seems paradoxical. Why memorize fifteen propositions concerning something that ultimately transcends conceptual understanding?

What this experience has gradually made me appreciate is that Buddhist scholastic education does not treat conceptual knowledge as an end in itself. The purpose of

learning such lists is not necessarily to capture their object exhaustively within thought.

Rather, conceptual understanding functions as a framework for further reflection and contemplation. In this sense, memorization is not opposed to transcending concepts. It may instead be one of the means by which one is gradually led beyond them.