It doesn't look like a debate among intellectuals but street quarrels between rowdies. Should means to spread Buddhism like this or is it a case of Tibetans rowdies holding Buddhism in the format of cockfight?
They are debating whether the two, fire (me) and smoke (dhuwa), are substantially different or not. It does sound like flower (metok), but they are actually referring to fire-smoke (me-dhu) as a cause-effect dichotomy and analyzing how they exist. Analyzing cause and effect and their relation is extremely important in Buddhist epistemology and in Buddhism in general, since causality explains how the samsara comes into being and it is also the means through which we can find liberation from it.
