Have you heard of the 900+ years old debating tradition of Tibet? In 2005, I saw many examples of it in Dharamsala. Though fascinating to watch, their nuances were lost on me since they took place in Tibetan. This Asia Society video (1 hr, 42 mins) begins with an introduction by Daniel Perdue, showcases four debating Tibetan monks, includes an excellent lecture by Geshe Thupten Jinpa (the star attraction), presents a sample debate between Perdue and Jinpa in English, and ends with an engaging Q&A. Here is Perdue’s intro to the tradition:

Since the time of the early Buddhist kings, Tibet has enjoyed a rich history of philosophical enquiry … Buddhism is a “wisdom tradition,” meaning that it is based on the realizations or insights of the historical Buddha and that it holds that all suffering and even the suffering of death are related to a failure of wisdom. They hold that one is freed by wisdom, by seeing the nature of things. Philosophical debate is part of this effort … The central purposes of Tibetan monastic debate are to defeat misconceptions, to establish a defensible view, and to clear away objections to that view. [The point of debate is] to understand the nature of reality through careful analysis of the state of existence of ordinary phenomena, the basis of reality. (Read more)