We now have students who have completed or almost completed the homework assignments for the Dharma Discourse D02-Suffering and who will be preparing for debate. The debate part of the Seven Dharma System developed by the Buddha Master is only required for the Seminary students with an option for the Buddhist Studies students on a case-by-case basis. That part of the program has been a bit vague, but it is now time to set guidelines on how to proceed.
First, I would like to invite as many Seminary and Buddhist Studies students to take that course now so we can have more participants. It is a basic course with only 17 simple homework questions. There are other courses that are much more demanding. This is a good course to test the debate part of the courses.
One of the challenges in arranging these debates is the fact that there is no set time to take any course. Some courses do have prerequisites, but in general, we have open enrollment so that once you have met the prerequisites, anyone can take a course whenever they like and take as long as they want to complete it. We need to schedule debates when there are a sufficient number of students ready to participate.
We did experiment with a modified debate with some of our Lemonade Classes. You had an option to participate or not. I believe we will experiment with format, size, frequency, etc. as these proceed. We will need some flexibility due to the varying complexity and nature of the different discourses.
If anyone would like to complete the course and join the debate, please register for the class and let me know asap at zhaxiz@gmail.com. I would like to schedule the zoom session for the debate on either Saturday or Sunday at a time that would be convenient for everyone. I will also invite all Seminary students and any Buddhist Studies students who have expressed an interest in participating in the debates to join as observers.
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