In the undergraduate path at Giao Long Monastery, your learning begins with the most essential skill in Buddhist education: learning how to look inward. Through meditation, mindful awareness, and simple daily discipline, you begin to notice the movement of your mind, the texture of your thoughts, and the habits that shape your life. This clarity becomes the foundation upon which every teaching rests.
You will study the roots of Buddhist philosophy—the Four Noble Truths, the nature of suffering, interdependence, karma, compassion, and the training of the heart.
These teachings are not approached as abstract ideas but as living principles meant to be experienced, questioned, and applied. Here, study does not distance you from life; it makes life more vivid.
The undergraduate program guides you gently into the structure of Tibetan Buddhist education. You learn the early forms of Madhyamaka reasoning, the first steps of Abhidharma analysis, and the foundational language skills needed to read classical texts.
These studies prepare you not only to understand the Dharma intellectually, but to stand inside the lineage of scholars who preserved it.
Most importantly, you will receive teachings directly from Tibetan Rinpoche la, Geshe la, and Khenpo, lineage holders trained in some of the greatest monastic universities of the Himalayas. They teach not only the texts, but the living experience behind them:
The subtle meanings, the oral commentaries, the nuances that do not exist in books. Their presence becomes part of your training the warmth of their compassion, the sharpness of their insight, and the steadiness of their discipline quietly shaping your own path.
You will learn the basics of classical Tibetan: reading, pronunciation, grammar, and key Dharma vocabulary. This gives you access to the root scriptures in their original form—unfiltered, unaltered, alive. Even simple progress in Tibetan transforms the way you experience Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and ritual.
Meditation is not treated as an accessory to study; it is the method by which knowledge becomes wisdom.
In Shamatha, you learn stability.
In Vipashyana, you learn to look deeply.
In analytical meditation, you learn to question your assumptions.
Everything you study—from philosophy to ethics—returns here, becoming a lived experience rather than an idea.
You will train in moral discipline, community practice, service, kindness, and mindful behavior. Ethics is not taught as a rulebook but as a way of aligning your life with clarity and integrity.
Living in a simple environment, sharing work with others, and caring for the community help soften the mind and open the heart.
GL–Shedra I gives you the foundation.
GL–Shedra II strengthens your understanding with deeper reasoning, stronger textual work, and more confident meditation.
Together, they prepare you for the possibility of advanced Shedra studies—or simply for a life lived with greater stability, compassion, and insight.
GIAO LONG MONASTERY
GIAO LONG MONASTERY
GIAO LONG MONASTERY
GIAO LONG MONASTERY