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In India, many such events may be happening but he shares how it is in fact both wonderful and ironic that such a convention of Buddhist scholars is the first one take place in Nepal, the birth place of the Buddha himself. Such meeting of minds was long overdue and he expresses his deepest gratitude to Tsadra Foundation and Shechen monastery for organising and hosting such an august event.
The event, which he says might have taken years to plan, is also exemplary in bringing together the traditional wisdom and learning with modern methodology and tools. Abstracts, paper and presentations are easily available online making it very convenient for access. Moreover, every monastery and scholarly centre in Kathmandu and areas in the vicinity were invited and asked to send their members to benefit from the event. Thus, as a participant, he states it was a free intellectual feast which each of the participants must have enjoyed and will cherish. He prays that all the attendees make the best of such an endeavour and continue to learn from the scholarly presentations.He expresses gratitude to the presenters, who represent the best minds of the different Buddhist traditions, for their learned presentations and the abstracts and papers, which contain many months and years of work on their part. He also conveys his thanks to the monastic centres in and around Kathmandu for taking the rare opportunity and attending the conference despite busy schedule in the holy month of Saga Dawa. Invitations have been sent to most monasteries and centres in the area, with earnest request to attend, and the response was great. He explains that it is imperative that all traditions come together, given the easy communication facilities, to discuss and share their understanding and interpretations instead of remaining secluded and antagonising each other. It is time for the Buddhist scholars to also engage in conversations with non-Buddhist schools and update our knowledge and understanding. He requests the young attendees to take extra interest and zeal in studies and grasp opportunities such as this conference, and make use of the research papers even after the conference.
He, then, expresses his gratitude to Dr Karma Phuntsho, the convenor, Eric Colombel and Andrea, who have done so much for Tibetan Buddhism through the programmes of Tsadra, Marcus Perman, the director of Tsadra, and the team including Gwen Witt-Dorring, Dawa, Migmar and Kiran who helped organise the conference. He also thanks the Shechen team for moral support and actual organisation, particularly Lopen Karma Jurme who was the focal person for the conference. He also acknowledges Koncho, the treasurer of Shechen for the help in arranging the meals.
He also makes requests that more such events are organized in the future.