Very few of the students can obtain the Doctor of Divinity degree, the highest degree in the institute, and those who do will be at least in their 50s. Students in the institute come from Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The students have to rely heavily on their families. Their food is either sent by their family members or carried to the institute by themselves when they come back from their vacations. If they want to sleep in the monastery, they have to do some work to hand some money to their masters, some of whom also tutor their students.
Study is the life for young monks in the monastery, and they have only oral exams.
Wherever you go, you could see young monks reading or reciting Buddhist scriptures attentively. They live in low mud- rooms near the monastery along winding roads. Passing these shabby houses, we could see from the doorway four of five monks sitting in a group, facing the wall and reading scriptures. The Buddhist Nunnery of Xiahe county is one kilometer away from Labrang Monastery. The life of the lamas in the monastery is to study, and the life of the nuns is to read scriptures.