Sera Monastery

Sera sits against the hills on the northern edge of Lhasa, close enough to reach in twenty minutes and far enough that the city noise stops at the gate. It was founded in 1419 by Jamchen Choje Sakya Yeshe, another of Tsongkhapa's disciples, and grew into the second of the three great Gelug monasteries of the valley — three colleges, thousands of monks, and a reputation specifically for scholastic training.

The debates

That reputation is still the draw, and it is the rare monastic attraction that is a living activity rather than an object. On most weekday afternoons the monks assemble in a walled, tree-shaded courtyard for riglam — formal dialectical debate — and it is nothing like the hush visitors expect of a monastery. Pairs and small groups argue points of logic and doctrine at volume, standing over their seated opponents, driving each question home with a hard sweeping clap. It runs for an hour or more, in Tibetan, and you will follow none of the content and all of the structure.

Check the day's schedule locally before committing an afternoon to it: the debates follow the monastic calendar and do not run every day.

The rest of the complex

Beyond the courtyard, the assembly hall and the three colleges hold the usual sequence of gilded chapels; the Hayagriva chapel in Sera Me draws a steady queue of local pilgrims, particularly families with young children. Behind the monastery, a kora climbs the hillside past hermitages and rock paintings, and it is the better half of a visit if you have the legs and the acclimatisation for it.