Tibetan Buddhist Debate - Dhiji Itar chos can

If using reason as opposed to faith ( being a rational being ) makes it
difficult to be altruistic is it worth while being a rational being?

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Procedures and Rules of Debate

Tibetan debates involve two parties: a defender (dam bca' ba), who answers,
and a questioner (rigs lam pa). The roles of defender and questioner imply
very different commitments, as Daniel Perdue explains: "The defender puts
forth assertions for which he is held accountable. The challenger raises
qualms to the defender's assertions and is not subject to reprisal for the
questions he raises." The responsibility of the defender is to put forth a
true thesis and to defend it. Hence, the defender is accountable for the
truth of his assertions. The questioner, on the contrary, is responsible
only for the questions he puts forth. His questions must be
well-articulated, must logically follow from the points already made, and
must be relevant to defeating the defender. Their truth content is
irrelevant, however, for his task is not to establish a thesis but to oblige
the defender to contradict either previous statements or common sense.

The debate starts with a ritual invocation of Manjushri, the celestial
bodhisattva patron of wisdom: Dhi? ji Itar chos can (pronounced "di ji tar
chö cen"). This invocation can be translated as "Dhi? [the seed syllable of
Manjushri]; in just the way the subject." Obviously, this statement is
rather unclear and hence offers ample scope for various creative
interpretations, as is often the case with ritual. Some scholars take the
statement to mean "Dhi?; in just the way [Manjushri investigated] the
subject." 38 Others, myself included, read it more simply as "Dhi?; in just
the way the subject [is investigated]." This invocation, however, also plays
on the homophonic similarities of the syllable dhi? and 'di, that is,
"this." Thus, the statement can also be heard as meaning "This is the way
the subject is," a statement that can be taken as having deeper implications
(an explanation offered by Lati Rin-po-che). The subject, this, then refers
to conventional objects and the predicate, is the subject, to the empty way
in which they exist.

After this ritual invocation, the questioner proposes the topic of the
debate in the form of a question, which seeks to elicit the defender's
thesis. The defender answers, stating his position. The questioner may then
immediately begin the debate, or he may first seek auxiliary explanations to
clarify the position of his adversary. The point of this crucial preparatory
phase (sbyor ba) is to establish a starting point for the debate, an area of
agreement between the two parties. This may be one of the most delicate
phases of an argument, especially if the two parties do not belong to the
same tradition or monastery.

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