The Catechism is generally held at some beautiful place, where there are many fine trees, such as elms, willows, nuts, peaches and various others which are not found in Japan, though on the whole Tibet does not possess a large variety of trees. The ground under the trees is covered with beautiful white sand. When the first Catechism is over, the priests have what is termed the Garden of Truth, at some equally well-wooded place, where there are varieties of flowers. The ground there is also covered with white sand, and enclosed by stone walls five or six feet high with a gateway constructed in Chinese fashion. The priests gather themselves there to read from the Scriptures, and after the reading, they begin questioning one another. Here they make no difference of classes, but ask one another concerning their text books and everything else. This helps them a great deal to improve their knowledge and wisdom.
At the other place, there may be no more than one questioner and one answerer, the rest keeping silence, whether the class consist of fifty or a hundred priests. The questioner and the answerer might change, but they could be taken only from that one class. In the garden, however, there are no such limitations, there is no difference of classes, and young and old priests are seen questioning each other. So one may easily fancy how noisy and excited they are. While I was having a Catechism among them under a peach-forest in blossom, snowflakes began to fall on us. I stopped questioning and, struck with the beautiful scene around me, I wrote two Japanese poems which served to give my friends at home some idea of my thoughts.
In spring the blooming flowers of the peach
Are fully blown in “Dharma-garden” there,
Greeting with welcome glee the friendly snows.
Under their shades the wrangling priests discuss,
With their vehement, uncouth gestures strange,
Their doubts to melt, like to the melting snows
Beneath these trees emitting odours sweet.
Day and night I studied in this way. But finding soon that it left me too many precious hours to have only one teacher, I now found another priest to teach me. I went to them to receive their instruction, while they too sometimes came to teach me. I thus made considerable progress in my learning.