Course In Buddhist Reasoning And Debate

Step-by-step lessons in building the skills needed to engage in Tibetan Buddhist philosophical debate and that have proved successful in the college classroom.
Debate is the investigative technique used in Tibetan education to sharpen analytical capacities and convey philosophical concepts. Reading and memorization are not enough; students must be able to verbalize their understanding and defend it under the pressure of fierce cross-examination. This book, based on the author's successful undergraduate course in the subject, trains readers to develop the analytical skills used in Tibetan-style debate. Making use of sample debate exchanges and definitions and classification systems drawn from Tibetan Buddhist debate manuals, the book shows how to challenge and defend assertions made in the course of debate.
Buddhism is a wisdom tradition. It asserts that we are liberated by the power of our own understanding. The three purposes of Buddhist debate are to defeat your own and others' misconceptions, to establish your own correct view, and to clear away objections to your view. It is like the approach of a physician—to remove what does not belong and to strengthen what does. Thus, for Buddhists, reasoning and debate are not ends in themselves or idle intellectual speculation. Rather, they are used as one path to spiritual wellness, taking practitioners closer to the health of liberation through these efforts to remove mistaken views and to understand and strengthen correct ones.

Reading and memorization are not enough. Students must be able to verbalize their understanding and defend it under the pressure of cross-examination. This book teaches the basic analytical skills and procedures used in Buddhist debate. It is based on the author's own practice and experiences gained in the debating courtyards of Tibetan monasteries in India and matured through years of leading popular university courses on the subject. Sample debate exchanges show readers how to get started with the Buddhist style of analytical thinking to challenge and defend assertions.

Learning is supported by guided reflections, practical advice, and verbal exercises to be completed in practice with a partner. By the end of the course, readers will be able to engage in unscripted, full-fledged debates with a qualified partner about Buddhist characterizations and classifications of phenomena using the format and procedures of Buddhist debate. Moreover, these skills, once mastered, can then be applied to investigating the truth and falsity of views in any other subject.

"Lucidly written with a conversational style, this book beckons you into a shining world of rational insight, glistening with light, and reveals how to utilize the gifts of your own mind. Magnificent, highly accessible."—Jeffrey Hopkins, author of Meditation on Emptiness

"In the great monastic universities of Tibet, two modes of learning were central: memorization and debate. Tibetan debate is known in the West more for its color than for its content. Daniel Perdue explains with patient clarity just how Tibetan monastic debate works."—Donald S. Lopez Jr., author of From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha

"Daniel Perdue's book presents in a lucid and engaging manner the methods and practice of the remarkable debate system of Tibetan monastic education. For the first time, the contemporary English reader has the chance to experience the clarity, swiftness, and precision of thinking that the Tibetan debate training is so famous for."—Thupten Jinpa, principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama and author of Essential Mind Training