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FPMT News Around the World
Geshe Lobsang Jamphel, abbot of Nalanda Monastery. Image www.nalanda-monastery.eu.
Nalanda Monastery has opened the application process for their residential Masters Program. Beginning in September 2013, this is the first time the full-time study program will be offered in France. Nalanda Monastery abbot, Geshe Lobsang Jamphel, will be the main teacher for the Masters Program, which is the most advanced and in-depth of the FPMT education courses. Sze Gee Toh, a well respected translator and scholar, will serve as the teaching assistant. Classes will be held in English.
The Masters Program is based on Lama Yeshe’s vision for a comprehensive educational course similar to the traditional geshe programs of the Gelug monasteries. Geshe Jampa Gyatso helped develop the seven-year program of study and retreat. The program has been offered twice at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy. With its combined focus on study, meditation, behavior, service and teacher training, the Masters Program offers students the opportunity to become well-rounded Dharma practitioners as well as qualified teachers to others in the FPMT community.
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
It’s not too late to become a Friend of FPMT at the Basic level or higher and receive the April-June 2013 issue, featuring the complete “Skies of Benefit” article!
FPMT News Around the World
FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche continues his tour of Asian centers, offering teachings at Mahayana Buddhist Association (Cham Tse Ling) in Hong Kong on March 23-24. The teachings, which are scheduled for 3-7 p.m. local Hong Kong Time (UTC +8), will be streamed live.
On Saturday, March 23, Rinpoche teaches on “How to Face Death without Fear.” On Sunday, March 24, Rinpoche will give a motivational teaching before offering a Vajrasattva initiation.
This will be the last live webcast from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Asia tour. Video of other recent teachings given by Rinpoche in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia are available to watch online.
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
It’s not too late to become a Friend of FPMT at the Basic level or higher and receive the April-June 2013 issue, featuring the complete “Skies of Benefit” article!
FPMT News Around the World
Ven. Rita Riniker. Photo by Martin Schwall.
Shedrup Zungdel, an FPMT study group in Belgium, welcomed FPMT registered teacher Ven. Rita Riniker in February. Ven. Rita taught on “The Four Immeasurables,” calling them “the immune system for our consciousness.”
Shedrup Zungdel wrote to Mandala:
Some of the audience remarked on how pleased they were with Ven. Rita’s way of teaching, commenting: “She is so grounded;” “She speaks out of her experience;” “She speaks in a suitable way for me;” and “I can understand; it’s not too high for me.” Others felt encouraged and inspired to continue their efforts in practicing loving kindness and compassion.
Shedrup Zungdel formed as a study group two years ago. The success of the weekend teaching with Ven. Rita reinforced “our confidence in our innate potential,” the group shared.
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
It’s not too late to become a Friend of FPMT at the Basic level or higher and receive the April-June 2013 issue, featuring the complete “Skies of Benefit” article!
FPMT News Around the World
If you’ve ever wanted to see what pilgrimage is for a teacher like Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Mystic Tibet, the 2007 documentary by Christina Lundberg, offers a priceless portrait of amazing selflessness and devotion, chronicling the experiences of a rare 2002 retreat with Rinpoche to Tibet. In celebration of Mandala’s newest issue, the Foundation Store is offering Mystic Tibet at a 40% discount.
“We are doing pilgrimage, but we have to understand the benefits. We have to understand what skies of benefit we get each time we see a statue of Buddha, a picture of Buddha. Like that, [we have to understand] what happens to this mental continuum,” Rinpoche told his students and fellow pilgrims. “Pilgrimage is to subdue one’s own mind; to use every opportunity to do the most extensive purification and to accumulate the most extensive merit so that we can have the realizations of the path.”
Find the trailer of Mystic Tibet below. Read a review of Mystic Tibet on fpmt.org/mandala/.
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
It’s not too late to become a Friend of FPMT at the Basic level or higher and receive the April-June 2013 issue, featuring the complete “Skies of Benefit” article!
FPMT News Around the World
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Singapore, March 2013
FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore, March 8-10. During Rinpoche’s teachings, FPMT offered live streaming video to the international FPMT community.
But if you weren’t able to watch live, you can find the videos online. Included in the videos are a motivational teaching from Rinpoche before a Medicine Buddha jenang, teachings on refuge and on making light offerings, and the long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
You can keep up-to-date with news on FPMT video streaming by visiting the “FPMT announcements” page and subscribing (in right-hand column of page).
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
FPMT News Around the World
His Holiness the Dalai Lama reading sutra on Vulture’s Peak, India, 2002
“Although a bit belatedly, it’s the time of year to happily reflect on what our international sutra reading group accomplished ‘virtually’ in 2012,” Doc O’Connor Nemoto, director of Do Ngak Sung Juk Centre in Tokyo, wrote in a recent email. The Japanese center has a “virtual” sutra reading program, where participants from around the world read a specific sutra at the same time twice a month.
In her email, Doc quotes Yangsi Rinpoche’s advice on sutra recitation published in Mandala’s January-March 2013 issue:
The purpose of practice is merit accumulation and purification, and if we read just a portion of a sutra, it is effective for both of these. You don’t need to read all the sutra at once. I’ve been doing a translation of a text with my class at Maitripa College, and it says that if you read even only one shloka, one verse, of a text about emptiness, there is even more merit in that than doing millions of offerings.
“So with this thought of all the positive we created not only for ourselves but what we’ve spread around the world,” Doc continues, “let’s analyze the numbers from 2012:”
- 3 – number of languages our readers read in (Japanese, English, Chinese)
- 9 – number of countries we had readers (Japan, USA, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, India, Canada, China/Hong Kong)
- 24 – number of times we read
- 30 – average number of people who read each time
- 91 – total number of Sutras of Golden Light read
- 131 – total number of Sanghata Sutras read
“How absolutely wonderful! With heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you, especially Jean Chen for organizing on average 22 of her friends and family to join in with us. Thank you, thank you!” wrote Doc.
Mandala rejoices with Do Ngak Sung Juk Centre and all participants in their virtual sutra reading group.
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
FPMT News Around the World
Lama Zopa Rinpoche reading FPMT Taiwan’s Mandala in Mandarin, February 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
FPMT Taiwan published what may be the first-ever version of Mandala magazine in Mandarin and presented a copy to FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche during his recent visit.
According to Ven. Roger Kunsang, Rinpoche’s assistant and CEO of FPMT, the first part of the magazine contains a selection of key articles from the 2012 issues of Mandala (originally published in English). The second part has articles featuring the three FPMT-affiliated centers in Taiwan: Shakyamuni Center, Jinsiu Farlin and Heruka Center.
Mandala applauds the work of FPMT Taiwan and encourages other centers around the world to contact us about publishing articles translated into the language spoken at your center. Currently we offer some articles translated into Spanish, French, Vietnamese and Russian.
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT,
which supports our work.
FPMT News Around the World
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
FPMT Around the World
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, October 2011. Photo by Philippe Garric.
On Saturday, February 23, Lama Zopa Rinpoche will be broadcast live over the internet from Jinsui Farlin in Taipai, Taiwan, giving a motivational teaching before bestowing the Chenrezig jenang.
The live webcast is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. Taiwan time (UTC +8; see chart of times in other time zones); time is subject to change.
The webcast can be viewed at http://new.livestream.com/FPMT/JinsuiFarlin.
FPMT News Around the World
Host FPMT Mongolia is sending out the invitation to come to the retreat worldwide, encouraging people to not miss this precious opportunity:
In the infinite kindness and compassion of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, we have the great blessings of this fortune to be guided by Rinpoche, in the 100 Million Mani Retreat in Mongolia.
As Rinpoche would say, “The benefits of reciting the Compassion Buddha mantra are infinite, like the sky.”
The reason why the benefit of reciting the six syllable mantra is quite unimaginable, and why it is an extremely popular practice in all the four great traditions of Tibetan Buddhism is because this is the essence of all Dharma – the very purest Dharma – thus, making it the most powerful way to purify negative karma and the easiest way to collect extensive merit to quickly achieve enlightenment.
We need the special blessing of Compassion Buddha to transform our mind into bodhichitta – to renounce self and cherish others and make our meditation on bodhichitta effective. Without bodhichitta there is no true happiness in our own lives nor can we cause all the happiness for all sentient beings.
The retreat is scheduled August 1-30, 2013, at Chinggisiin Khuree, a ger (yurt) camp 14 miles [23 kilometers] from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. More details will be coming soon to FPMT Mongolia’s “100 Million Mani Retreat 2013” website.
Rinpoche has a very strong commitment and connection to Mongolia, as documented in “Looking to Mongolia” from Mandala January-March 2011. For more, you can read online Mandala’s coverage of FPMT in Mongolia and Rinpoche’s trips to Mongolia, including entries from Ven. Roger’s “Life on the Road with Lama Zopa Rinpoche.”
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
FPMT News Around the World
The 26th Mind and Life conference recently wrapped up at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod, South India. His Holiness the Dalai Lama convened the six-day meeting, titled “Mind, Brain and Matter: Critical Conversations Between Buddhist Thought and Science.” Video of the proceedings can be watched online.
The conference brought 20 well-known and respected scientists and philosophers together with His Holiness and other senior Tibetan scholars. Several thousand monks and nuns from numerous Tibetan monastic centers of learning also were able to watch the meeting, which explored questions concerning the fundamental nature of the physical world, consciousness and scientific research of contemplative practice. In addition, monastic students attended an educational session on the historical development of science and the influence that scientific thought has on how we understand the world.
The Mind and Life Institute, which organized the conference, supports ongoing dialogue and research to better understand the benefits of contemplative practice. The Institute grew out of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s interest in modern science and his desire to discuss the nature of reality with scientists.
With more than 160 centers, projects and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
These days I’m at Sera Monastery studying with my dear Gen-la (Teacher) Geshe Gendun Choephel. It is so wonderful to hear the Dharma in such simple and clear terms, while clearing so many doubts I’ve had during a long time of my life. Understanding the teachings without having to clarify with anybody but myself. It has been 10 magical days here, and another week to go! I’m so grateful for the understanding and help I have received.
Thank you for the time to find myself, thank you for the patience and dedication, dearest Gen-la. You are like my Father and Mother, and will always be in my heart.
Estos dias estoy en el Monasterio de Sera estudiando con mi querido Genla (Maestro) Genshe Gendun Choephel. Está siendo maravilloso escuchar el Dharma en unos términos tan simples y comprensibles, mientras se me aclaran muchas dudas que he tenido durante mucho tiempo de mi vida. Entendiendo las enseñanzas sin tener que clarificar con nadie mas que mi mismo.
Han sido 10 dias mágicos aquí, ¡¡Y me queda otra semana todavía!! Estoy tan agradecido por la comprension y ayuda que he recibido.
Gracias por el tiempo para encontrarme a mi mismo, gracias por la paciencia y dedicación queridísimo Genla. Eres como mi Padre y Madre, y siempre estas en mi corazón.