The Nine-Year Monastic College

Upon successful completion the Elementary and Middle School curriculum, nuns are allowed to enter the Nine-Year Shedra. Most of the 14 nuns who entered the 2016 inaugural First-Year Shedra Class range in age from mid-twenties to early thirties. Over nine months each year, beginning in the third month of the Tibetan calendar, the nuns study Monday to Friday and half-day Saturday.

Curriculum for the New Monastic College at
Nagi Gompa

First Year: 1) Word Commentary to Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva by Śāntideva and Khenpo Shanga; 2) Gateway to Knowledge, Volume One by Mipham Rinpoche; 3) Types of Reasoning by Khenpo Tsondru; 4) Commentary to the Thirty-Verses by Thonmi Sambhota and Karma Situ.

Second Year: 1) Commentary to Distinguishing the Three Vows by Ngari Pandita and Lochen Dharma Shri; 2) Commentary to the Ornament of the Middle Way by Śāntaraksita and Mipham Rinpoche; 3) Types of Consciousness by Khenpo Tsondru; 4) Commentary to the Use of Inflections by Thonmi Sambhota and Karma Situ.

Third Year: 1) Commentary on the Entrance to the Middle Way by Chandrakīrti; 2) Root Verses of the Middle Way by Nāgārjuna; 3) Commentary to the Four Hundred Verses by Āryadeva and Bopa Trulku.

Fourth Year: 1) A Treasury of Logic by Sakya Pandita; 2) Commentary to The Adornment of the Mahayana Sutras by Maitreya and Mipham Rinpoche; 3) Commentary to the second chapter of the Kāvyādarśa, a classic Indian text on poetry by Dandin and Bokhepa;
4) Commentary to the Establishing Valid Cognition chapter of the Commentary on Valid Cognition by Mipham Rinpoche and Dharmakīrti.

Fifth Year: 1) Word Commentary to The Treasury of Abhidharma by Vasubandhu and Mipham Rinpoche; 2) Distinguishing Views and Practices by Bopa Trulku; 3) Religious History by Kongtrul Yonten Gyatso.

Sixth Year: 1) Commentary to The Ornament of Manifest Realization by Maitreya and Bopa Trulku; 2) Commentary to The Light of Precious Certainty by Mipham Rinpoche and Khenpo Kunpel; 3) Commentary to Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being by Mipham Rinpoche and Maitreya; 4) Commentary to Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes by Mipham Rinpoche and Maitreya.

Seventh Year: Texts on monastic discipline (Vinaya) and Sutra teachings are in discussion.

Eighth Year: 1) Commentary to the Treatise on the Sublime Continuum by Maitreya and Kongtrul Yonten Gyatso; 2) Commentary to the Treasury of Qualities by Jigme Lingpa and Khenpo Yonten
Gyatso; 3) General Commentary to The Essence of Secrets Tantra by Dodrub Tenpai Nyima; OR The Profound Inner Meaning by Karmapa Rangjung Dorje.

Ninth Year: 1) General Commentary to The Guhyagarbhatantra by Mipham Rinpoche; 2) Commentary to The Heart of Wisdom: Stages of the Path by Padmasambhava; OR Comfort in the Essence of Mind by Longchenpa; 3) Notes to the Development Stage by Khacho Tenpai Nyima; OR General Presentation of the Development Stage by Shechen Gyaltshab; 4) Commentary to the Hevajra Tantra by Kongtrul Yonten Gyatso.