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FPMT News Around the World
FPMT Taiwan celebrated its “Thanksgiving Day to Teachers” on September 30 in conjunction with the traditional Chinese Mooncake Festival. The event began in the morning with a Yamantaka fire puja hosted by the resident geshes of the three FPMT Taiwan centers at a retreat site surrounded by green hills.
Yamantaka fire puja, September 2012, Taiwan
Afterwards the geshes and participants, which included 20 Sangha members and more than 50 lay students, had a nice luncheon at a nearby resort. During the lunch, the three geshes were thanked in a speech for their generous service to the FPMT centers.
“Geshe Gyurme [of Jinsiu Farlin] is the longest resident geshe in FPMT Taiwan. Geshe Gyatso [of Shakyamuni Center] has been living in Taiwan for three years. Geshe Tsethar [of Heruka Center] came to Taiwan most recently for a year,” Ven. Osel, director of Jinsiu Farlin in Taipei shares.
Geshe Gyurme, Jinsiu Farlin
“The luncheon speech not only let the geshes know about our appreciation, but it also reminded everyone that despite how much difficulty we have in our lives and Dharma practices, our resident geshes, who put aside their monastic lives and students and came to Taiwan to live with us, also undergo difficulty of which they never complain,” Ven. Osel writes. “Meanwhile we also thank Kopan Monastery, Sangha, translators, staff, volunteers and everyone.”
Geshe Gyatso, Shakyamuni Center
The three geshes were presented a long khata, a bouquet of flowers and a card signed by everyone. Sangha each received a thanksgiving card from FPMT Taiwan. Then lay students took part in a festive gift exchange game, ensuring no one went home empty-handed.
After the luncheon, the geshes, Sangha and students had a relaxed walk in a nearby forest.
Geshe Tsethar, Heruka Center
With 158 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
Cover of Wisdom No. 2, 1984. Photo by Ueli Minder, Geneva, October 1983.
In addition to back issues of Mandala magazine, our archive includes the two issues of Mandala‘s predecessor, Wisdom. Published in 1983-1984 by Wisdom Publications, the magazine is a valuable record of FMPT activities in the early 1980s.
Wisdom No. 2, published in late 1984, shares an extensive and heart-felt tribute to Lama Yeshe, who passed away in March 1984. Over the course of 30 pages, Lama Yeshe is remembered by his students and teachers through stories, teachings, poems and articles.
Also remembered in this issue are Ling Rinpoche, Tsenshab Serkong Rinopche and Song Rinpoche, who passed away in December 1983, August 1983 and November 1984 respectively.
In addition, Wisdom No. 2 shares a profile of Lama Zopa Rinpoche in his new role as the sole spiritual director of FPMT as well as an interview with Geshe Jampa Gyatso, who served as resident teacher at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy.
Wisdom No. 1, published in May 1983, features story on His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 1983 European tour, organized by FPMT; Lama Yeshe’s visit to Tibet; and news from FPMT centers around the world.
FPMT News Around the World
Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Richard Gere during the filming of When the Iron Bird Flies. Photo © When the Iron Bird Flies.
When the Iron Bird Flies, a new feature-length documentary about Tibetan Buddhism and the West, is having its premiere screening at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City October 19-24. Dr. Nick Ribush, director of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, will be speaking at the Saturday, October 20 evening screening. The Archive contributed materials on FPMT founders Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche to the film.
Victress Hitchcock, a long-time student of Tibetan Buddhism and an experienced filmmaker, directed When the Iron Bird Flies. Her earlier film Blessings: The Tsoknyi Nangchen Nuns of Tibet documents the lives of 3,000 nuns living across the remote mountains of Eastern Tibet. Hitchcock collaborated on the film with Tsoknyi Rinpoche. “In the spring of 2009,” Hitchcock recalls, “just after Blessings was released, Tsoknyi Rinpoche called me from India and said, ‘Let’s make another movie!’ This time, the idea was to look at how these same spiritual practices are penetrating Western culture as Tibetan Buddhism becomes more and more accessible in the West.”
When the Iron Bird Flies features interviews with Tibetan lamas and practitioners as well as Western students, teachers and scholars, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche, Geshe Kelsang Wangmo, B. Alan Wallace, E. Gene Smith, Richard Davidson and many others. You can watch a trailer for the movie online.
With 158 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 being greeted by Lama Zopa Rinpoche as he arrives at Kurukulla Center, Medford, Mass., October 16, 2012. Photo by Devin Jones.
FPMT students in the Boston area of the United States had a busy week with visits by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Kurukulla Center near Boston welcomed His Holiness the Dalai Lama and 1,800 guests for a teaching event on Tuesday afternoon, October 16. The event, which took place at their center in Medford, Massachusetts, required months of planning to accommodate His Holiness and the large audience. Backyard fences were removed, a big tent rented and chairs and bleachers were brought in to seat everyone. The cooperation in the neighborhood drew the attention of the Boston Globe, which published a story reporting on the preparations, and also New England Cable News, which had a live report on the event. [Other media coverage includes a story on the Medford Patch and a Boston Globe follow-up story.]
His Holiness the Dalai Lama arriving at Kurukulla Center, October 16, 2012. Photo by Devin Jones.
Kurukulla Center offered a live video stream of the event, which was seen by over a thousand. (If you missed the live stream, you can watch the recorded video online.) During his address, His Holiness took time to specially address the Tibetan community in attendance. According to DalaiLama.com, His Holiness said to the audience in Tibetan that “that more than 50 years in exile is a long time in an individual’s life, but is not so long in terms of a people’s struggle for freedom. He admired the way Tibetans in exile have preserved their language and culture, informed as it is by Buddhist ideas. Meanwhile, the spirit of Tibetans in Tibet remains strong, all of which gives real grounds for hope.”
At the end of the event, the Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn gave His Holiness a key to the city and made him an honorary citizen. It was His Holiness’ second visit to Medford. You can see more photos from the day on Kurukulla’s Facebook page.
On Wednesday morning, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who also attended His Holiness’ teaching at Kurukulla Center, gave a lam-rim teaching at Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. The teaching is now available on YouTube. Kurukulla Center also welcome Rinpoche on Wednesday evening, hosting an event for him.
UPDATE: His Holiness also visited Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, where members of Milarepa Center were able to met with him.
With 158 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
Steve Nicklas at the end of his coast-to-coast cycle trip in Bridlington, U.K., August 2012
By Steve Nicklas
Steve Nicklas, an FPMT student living in the U.K., decided to turn his cycling hobby into an opportunity to raise funds for Land of Joy, an FPMT-affiliated project which plans to create a retreat community in the U.K. countryside. Steve rode his bicycle across the North of England, from Morecambe to Bridlington, on the Way of the Roses cycle route and shares his story with Mandala.
In August 2012, I had the privilege of doing a sponsored bike ride to raise funds for the retreat center project Land of Joy. To many people the 170-mile distance from coast to coast seems like an epic journey. However, when you break it up into bite-size pieces, it isn’t really. In fact, when you cycle like this, you realize what a small place England is. You begin to wonder why we bother with all the cars, buses, trains and planes. Do we need to get anywhere that quickly? We take it for granted, but there is a certain joy in the natural wonder of cycling. The way the bike balances remaining upright when in motion is itself incredible!
Steve's bicycle wheel with Tara mantra
I was away from all the noise, the distractions and the big machines, out there on the tops of those hills without anyone else in sight apart from the occasional sheep. I had attached a Tara mantra to my front wheel and a Chenrezig to my back wheel to transform my bike into a mobile makeshift prayer wheel. I have calculated that over a distance of 270 km (170 miles) with wheels the circumference of 0.7 m I would have said around 390,000 mantras on each wheel. I am not sure if this works, but nevertheless, seeing the mantra on the front wheel go round kept me mindful and focused on why I was there. It was like a retreat, except I swapped my meditation cushion for a bicycle seat and the gompa for a temple made of hills and valleys.
FPMT News Around the World
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Sangha on the wharf in Aptos, California, September 2012. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
While in California during September, Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessed the sentient beings in the ocean near his house, Kachoe Dechen Ling, in Aptos. Rinpoche stood on the wharf, holding a rope tied to a giant Namgyälma board that was in the ocean. Rinpoche explained to the Sangha accompanying him the visualization for the blessing and then chanted the mantra of Chenrezig.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing sentient beings in the ocean, Aptos, California, September 2012. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
You can see more recent photos and video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche (including video from blessing the sentient beings in the ocean) on Rinpoche’s Facebook page. You can keep up on Ripoche’s schedule by visiting Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Schedule page.
With 158 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 during Vajrasattva initiation, Boulder Creek, California, September 30, 2012. Photo by Dionne Wilson.
By Fabienne Pradelle, Director
It came and went like a dream.
We got “the call.” A date was set the following week. We posted it on the web and registrations started pouring in. Fast. Lama Zopa Rinpoche was going to give a Vajrasattva initiation [on September 30, 2012] at Vajrapani Institute and students were booking flights from all around North America.
Osel Hita and Yangsi Rinpoche at Vajrasattva initiation, Boulder Creek, California, September 2012. Photo by Dionne Wilson.
Then Yangsi Rinpoche got confirmed. And Osel Hita. And of course, Lama Yeshe is always there, present in all our doings. We had a bit of a Big Love Day déjà vu. The kind of déjà vu that is most welcomed.
Within days it became clear we couldn’t hold the event in Vajrapani’s gompa. Registration exceeded our hall capacity. We so wanted the blessings of the land so we let go. In the end, our local village, Boulder Creek, got the blessings.
Those of you who’ve been involved with organizing events with Lama Zopa Rinpoche will know what I’m talking about. There is a magic that happens, a blessing which manifests in a lessening of mental afflictions before and during the event. The mind is joyful and the heart warm. The team work is at its best and volunteers are fabulous.
Rinpoche was “wow wow wow!” We were told the event would end around 11 p.m. or midnight but Rinpoche kept having second, third and fourth winds. He motivated us with singular urgency not to waste our time and slay the demon of self-cherishing. From his lips it is heard and seen, that even “playing drums” can be turned into an activity that leads self and others to enlightenment.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Fabienne Pradelle at Vajrasattva initiation, Boulder Creek, California, September 2012. Photo by Dionne Wilson.
When thanked for manifesting as Vajrasattva for our benefit, Rinpoche laughed and laughed telling us he was only Mickey Mouse. No wonder Lama Yeshe visited Disneyland!
With 158 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
Enlightenment for the Dear Animals' Tania Duratovic and Nyingje, who was rescued from death, at the Animal Liberation Sanctuary, Nepal
October 4 is World Animal Day. Many FPMT students and centers are doing things to benefit animals. If you’d like to do something to help, Enlightenment for the Dear Animals shares the following ideas:
Sangpo, meaning "good hearted," rescued from a pound, and recently re-homed at Kunsang Yeshe Centre, Blue Mountains, Australia
- Go to a local animal shelter and adopt a pet and give it a home and Dharma for the rest of its life;
- If you can’t actually re-home an animal, you can visit a shelter and (perhaps surreptitiously) recite texts and mantras;
- Join your local Dharma center for a pet blessing;
- Recite many mantras, blow on water and then sprinkle or spray the water on insects and animals around your house;
- Sponsor a rescued animal (such as a goat at the Animal Liberation Sanctuary, Nepal, or a dog at MAITRI Charitable Trust, India);
- Change your diet and lifestyle to reduce the market for harming animals — go vegetarian, go vegan, give up fur products, promote non-meat meals for functions at family and work celebrations.
“World Animal Day commemorates St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment. He saw the suffering of animals and did not turn a blind eye to their misery,” EFDA writes. “Our own kind Lama Zopa Rinpoche [spiritual director of FPMT] is a most incredible inspiration in showing us how we can actually benefit these sentient beings caught in the lower realms. For this day, at least, we can do prayers and practices specifically dedicated for them.”
To learn more, visit the World Animal Day webpage.
Vajrayana Institute pet blessing on October 1, 2012, Sydney, Australia
With 158 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
Children visiting the Heart Shrine Relic Tour. Photo courtesy of Heart Shrine Relic Tour Facebook page.
The Maitreya Heart Shrine Relic Tour has a new website, featuring quick links to the tour’s schedule and media coverage.
The Heart Shrine Relic Tour displays dozens of relics from Buddhist masters, from Shakyamuni Buddha and his disciples up to 20th-century accomplished masters familiar to FPMT students. According to the tour’s website, “The purpose of the Relic Tour is to inspire people of all spiritual traditions and paths to come together to experience the blessings of the relics.”
On Friday, October 5, the North American tour visits Plymouth, New Hampshire, for three days while the European Tour is in Manchester, UK, for three days. The relics recently visited Israel for the first time, making stops in three cities. They were also on view earlier this year in Australia and Mexico as well as several other locations in the Western and Midwestern United States.
The relics have been touring the world since 2001 and have been seen by 1.6 million people. You can see photos from recent event’s on the Relic Tour’s Facebook page.
With 158 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, please consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
FPMT News Around the World
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Lama Yeshe, with babies and Italian students, 1976. From the series of group photos taken at the end of a lam-rim course held at Taceno, Italy. Photo courtesy Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
The latest Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archives newsletter reports “editing work continues in earnest” on Lama Yeshe’s biography Big Love. For the past several years, Mandala has published excerpts of Big Love on our website. Now, the Archive has set up a Big Love blog, where they are posting more excerpts from the comprehensive account of Lama Yeshe’s life, compiled and written by Adele Hulse.
In other Lama Yeshe news, the Archive has also just posted Lama’s address to FPMT Center Directors in 1983, where he describes his thoughts about the organizational structure of FPMT centers and the Central Office (now known as International Office).
In the talk, Lama Yeshe sketches out some communications goals for FPMT, which Mandala has taken as inspiration over the last three decades. Both in print and online, we strive to support Lama Yeshe’s vision by sharing stories from different FPMT centers, projects and services.
Here’s what Lama Yeshe had to say:
[The Central Office] facilitates communication both between the centers and me and among the centers themselves. You see, we do have the human tendency to shut off from each other: “I don’t want you looking at me; I can see my own point of view, I don’t want to share it with you.” Each center has its own egocentric orientation: “We’re good enough; we don’t need to take the best of other cultures.” This is wrong. We have reached our present state of existence through a process of evolution. Some older centers have had good experiences and have learned how to do things well. Doing things well is not simply an intellectual exercise but something that comes from acting every day and learning how to do things until you can do them automatically. Thus it is good that the Central Office has a pool of collective experience so that all our centers can share in it and help reinforce each other.
Mandala hopes to continue to support FPMT centers, projects and services through publishing accounts of successes and hard-earned knowledge, offering inspiration as well as concrete information, so that process of evolution can continue.
With 158 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, please consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
FPMT News Around the World
Osel Hita at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, April 2012. Photo by Sirianni.
Osel Hita Torres – the person recognized as the reincarnation of FPMT founder Lama Yeshe and a current member of the FPMT board of directors – was featured in a recent BBC Radio 4 broadcast. Osel and his mother Maria Torres were interview by BBC in Ibiza, Spain, for a half-hour story called “The Reluctant Lama.” Osel, now 27 years old, talks a little about his experiences growing up, whether he thinks of himself as Lama Yeshe’s reincarnation and what he sees himself doing in the future. (You can listen to the story at this link.)
Over the years, Mandala has also featured Osel in interviews and stories. In 2010, he participated in a roundtable discussion on the future of FPMT with other young FPMT notables. In 2000, Mandala interviewed a teenaged Osel, who at the time was living a relatively sheltered life as a monk at Sera Je Monastery in India. When read next to the recent BBC story, the archive articles reveal how far Osel has come in his life and how much he has developed as his own person.
You can learn more about Osel on fpmt.org, including listening to an audio recording of a talk given by Osel at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy in April 2012 as well as reading a 2009 letter from Osel and other articles and information.
With 158 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.
FPMT News Around the World
Members of Choe Khor Sum Ling Study Group and Ven. Tenzin Namdak meet with Geshe Tashi Tsering, abbot of Gyume Tantric Monastic University, India, July 2012
Choe Khor Sum Ling (CKSL), the FPMT study group in Bangalore, India, recently wrote Mandala about some of the highlights of their summer program.
“We had a beautiful and especially blessed Saka Dawa,” CKSL writes. “During the lunch break we got an unexpected phone call: H.E. Ling Choktrul Rinpoche was in Bangalore and wanted to come to one of the local temples or centers to do prayers and offerings. We were very humbled that His Excellency chose to come to CKSL for Saka Dawa.” With three hours’ notice, a Shakyamuni puja to do, members to alert, a center to prepare, and offerings and khatas to gather, students did not waste any time getting things done and were ready to welcome Ling Rinpoche when he arrived.