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Mandala
FPMT Around the World
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso by Kenneth Gingerich, pencil on paper, Centennial Correctional Facility, Colorado, U.S., 2007
In coordination with the Liberation Prison Project (LPP), Mandala magazine is mailed to about 500 prisoners every issue. For the January-March 2013 issue, 533 LPP students in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, Thailand and the United States have been sent a print copy. Without access to computers and the internet, prisoners rely on the mail to receive Dharma instruction and to keep up-to-date with the activities of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the FPMT. From LPP student letters, we know that each issue of Mandala is closely read and shared.
We are able to send Mandala magazine to prisoners due to the support of the Liberation Prison Project, Merit Box grants and contributions to our Mandala Magazine for Prisoners Fund and the more than 70 Friends of FPMT who donate their print subscriptions to prisoners. We deeply appreciate the generosity of all who have offered donations to these different funds and projects.
If you would like to help ensure the future funding of Mandala magazine for prisoners, please consider making a donation to the Mandala Magazine for Prisoner Fund today. These funds go directly toward covering the costs of printing and shipping magazines to LPP students. To learn more about how you can help prisoners receive Mandala – including how to donate your Friends of FPMT print subscription – and to read about the history of Mandala‘s 16 years of offering support to prisoners, please visit our “Supporting Prisoners” page.
Vens. Jangchub Gyalmo and Namdrol Phuntsok, October 2012.
Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery (Kopan Nunnery) in Kathmandu, Nepal, offers nuns a high quality education in both traditional and modern topics. But perhaps most noteworthy, the nunnery has a geshe program. The Geshe degree is an approximate equivalent to a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies and until recently has only been awarded to monks. In 2011, the first nun to be awarded the Geshe degree was Geshe Kelsang Wangmo, a German woman who had been studying at the Institute for Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India, since the 1990s. In May 2012, the Department of Religion and Culture announced that nuns who have completed their geshe studies programs would be eligible to take the exams and be award the degree.
Khachoe Ghakyil nuns Vens. Jangchub Gyalmo and Namdrol Phuntsok are close to completing their studies and taking the geshe exams. They spoke with Ayra Cayton, spiritual program coordinator at Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Centre in Kathmandu, in October 2012. Vens. Gyalmo and Phuntsok arrived at Kopan Monastery in the early 1990s and shared with Arya memories of their early days there. The nuns also discussed the challenges and possibilities related to receiving a Geshe degree.
You can read the complete interview as part of Mandala‘s exclusive online content.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche looks out over Lake Begnas, Pokhara, Nepal, February 2012. A 33-meter (108-foot) high Guru Rinpoche statue is planned to be built on the lake, which is about 3/4 hours by car from the Pokhara Centre. Photo courtesy of Gaden Yiga Chozin.
The new issue of Mandala puts the spotlight on FPMT’s activities in Nepal, a country integral to the development of FPMT and one which continues to be a source of inspiration and instruction for FPMT students worldwide. For our online edition of Mandala, we have collected pictures from FPMT’s centers and projects in Nepal as well as projects supported by the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund. Visit this new photo gallery and take a virtual tour of FPMT activities in Nepal.
It’s not too late to receive the new print edition of Mandala in the mail. Become a Friend of FPMT
at the basic level or higher by December 31, 2012, and we will mail you the magazine, featuring pieces from Lama Yeshe, Geshe Sopa and Osel Hita not available online. In addition, we will send you a link to an electronic version of the print magazine for your tablet or ereader.
FPMT Around the World
From left, front: Dagri Rinpoche, Khadro-la, Lama Zopa Ripoche and Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche visit Ling Rinpoche in hospital, Goa, India, December 6, 2012. Photo courtesy of Ven. Roger Kunsang.
FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited H.E. Ling Rinpoche, who is recovering well from an automobile collision. Ling Rinpoche is the main organizer of the Jangchup Lamrim teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama that are concluding in Mundgod, Karnataka, South India. Ling Rinpoche and two other monks were injured and another was killed in the accident, which happened on November 29. They were driving to meet His Holiness in Goa, India.
“They were hit head on by a truck at high speed. The front of the car was demolished,” TibetSun.com reports, adding that Ling Rinpoche was in the front passenger seat and the seat belt he was wearing “protected Rinpoche from being killed like the driver.”
Ven. Roger Kunsang, CEO of FPMT and assistant to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, writes, “We visited Ling Rinpoche; he was well. There was Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Dagri Rinpoche, Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche and Khadro-la [Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme]. It was a short visit, but very nice. Ling Rinpoche will leave the hospital soon and stay at a private home in Goa for some time recovering.”
FPMT’s Preserving the Lineage Fund helped sponsor the Jangchup Lamrin teaching event. Video recordings of the first five days of teachings are available for streaming and download. More recordings are being added. The teachings will continue in 2013 at Sera Monastery in Bylakuppe, Karnataka, South India. For more, visit the Jangchup Lamrim teachings website.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Land of Medicine Buddha, California, U.S., September 2012. Photo by Dionne Wilson.
New online at MandalaMagazine.org, Lama Zopa Rinpoche discusses “Seeing Problems as Positive,” an excerpt from Rinpoche’s new book How to Practice Dharma: Teachings on the Eight Worldly Dharmas:
There are many different ways of using the objects of the eight worldly dharmas, depending on the practitioner. Tantric practitioners use them in tantric practice, those following the bodhisattva path use them to generate bodhichitta and those trying to achieve the cessation of samsara use them to destroy their delusions.
For worldly people the confusion caused by suffering only brings more suffering and confusion, but as Dharma practitioners we have the opportunity of making suffering extremely beneficial by using it to cut confusion rather than to create it. In order to achieve enlightenment we have to experience both physical and mental difficulties, but bearing such difficulties is incredibly worthwhile because by doing so we reach a state where all suffering ceases forever. As we progress along the path to enlightenment, problems become fewer and fewer and therefore whatever we experience at this time only helps to bring about the end of the suffering that has no beginning.
You can read this entire excerpt as part of the Mandala January-March 2013 online edition.
It’s not too late to receive the new print edition of Mandala in the mail. Become a Friend of FPMT at the basic level or higher by December 31, 2012, and we will mail you the magazine, featuring pieces from Lama Yeshe, Geshe Sopa and Osel Hita not available online. In addition, we will send you a link to an electronic version of the print magazine for your tablet or ereader.
Thank you for reading Mandala online!
It’s official. I am now old, an old fogey. I have passed the 70th-birthday benchmark. And I feel myself changing.
It is a bit like being an adolescent all over again, except that the unstoppable bodily changes herald old fruit rather than fresh flowers. I can now talk about “young people” as anyone under the age of 50. When I fumble with my credit card in the supermarket, I sense the irritation of these speedy youngsters. They are totally unaware of the fact that they, too, will become an old fogey, unless they die before then. We are mostly unseen. A recent magazine supposedly reporting “what women want” did not have one picture in its several articles of anyone over the age of 40, let alone 70. There is no celebration of old age as there is of attaining adulthood. No one, it seems, wants to be reminded of imminent and inevitable death. Perhaps celebration is the wrong approach to aging.
We celebrate spring rather than autumn. Autumn is “the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” said Keats in “To Autumn.” I can feel myself wanting to be “earthed.” Somehow, digging in the garden, putting new plants in the soil fills this need. The theologian, Paul Tillich called God the “Ground of our Being.” I have always liked Tillich’s phrase. I can easily adapt it to my Buddhist understandings. The ground of my being is my “Buddha Potential.” But it is deeper than just potential. The ground of my being is my absorption in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We Buddhists talk about grounds: the grounds and paths to enlightenment. (more…)
FPMT News Around the World
Mantras written on stones. Image: Dreamstime.
Mantras, meaning “mind protection” are Sanskrit syllables that bring benefit to all who see, touch, hear or speak them. As a resource for FPMT students, FPMT Education Services has created a new “Mantras” webpage where they have collected PDFs of many popular mantras and practices. You can also find on the page links to advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about the practice and benefits of reading, writing and reciting mantras.
In addition, Education Services offers resources pages for many prayers and practices as well as a page devoted specifically to sutra practice. These pages are regularly being updated and expanded, so check back regularly to find out what’s new.
FPMT Education Services is the education department of FPMT International Office and develops study programs, practice materials, translations and trainings designed to foster an integration of four broad education areas: study, practice, service and behavior. These programs and materials are available through Education Services webpages, the FPMT Foundation Store, the FPMT Online Learning Center and FPMT centers worldwide.
With 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.
FPMT News Around the World
Photo of local paper reporting on November 29, 2012, accident involving Ling Rinpoche
Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, the main organizer of the Jangchup Lamrim teachings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama currently taking place in Mundgod Tibetan Settlement in India, was injured in a deadly automobile collision the day before the teachings began. According to Phayul.com, Ling Rinpoche was traveling to Goa to receive His Holiness on November 29 when there was an accident, which left the driver of Rinpoche’s car dead. Ling Rinpoche is in a hospital in Goa and reported to be “out of danger.”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s attendant Ven. Roger Kunsang, who is currently at the teachings in Mundgod with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, shared in an email that Ling Rinpoche received the full impact of the collision and should be dead. He also wrote that Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la) miraculously arrived at the scene of the accident five minutes after it happened, just after Ling Rinpoche, who was in a great deal of pain, had been freed from the car.
“Khadro-la had just arrived in Goa (about two or three hours away) and said to her two attendants they needed to do puja as it was a bad day, and then suddenly she said they should leave Goa straight away and drive quickly ‒ that was all!” Ven. Roger wrote. “Then they came on the accident scene. There was no one else there. The accident had just happened and one man had dragged Ling Rinpoche free. It was a strange scene they said. The driver was already dead. Also in the car was TT-la (a 79-year-old monk who had been the previous Ling Rinpoche’s secretary), who was in a bad way, as well as another young monk. It took a long time to get help.
“Khadro-la took control of the whole scene and started checking everyone and doing her thing,” Ven. Roger wrote. “They got everyone to a small hospital and after some quick patching and more transport, took them to the main hospital in Goa ‒ in all more than eight hours. It was 11 hours before they got Ling Rinpoche in on the operating table and then it was a seven-hour operation. The young monk is OK. TT-la has had several operations and seems stable.”
With 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.
The July-September 2009 issue of Mandala. Adele Hulse (in pink pants holding gold book) attended a puja lead by Lama Yeshe at Chenrezig Institute, Euldo, Australia, 1976. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Big Love, the long-anticipated authorized biography of Lama Yeshe written by Adele Hulse, provides an intimate portrait of FPMT’s founder. This excerpt is a snapshot from the author’s own life and relationship with Lama Yeshe and is another example of how amazing transformation is possible when a strong student meets a loving teacher.
“It was in early March 1974 that the lamas returned to Nepal and met the Australian journalist Adele Hulse who, years later, was to author this biography of Lama Yeshe. She had been in Boudha, the area around the monumental stupa located a 40-minute walk from Kopan hill, since before Christmas. ‘Having spent 11 years in Catholic boarding schools in Australia,’ Adele explained, ‘religion was the last thing on my mind. I wasn’t keen on Californian ‘Boodhists’ jangling their beads and mumbling about their ‘gooroo.’ Then a telegram arrived with the news of my father’s death. Standing outside the Kathmandu post office, I suddenly realized that I too was going to die one day. The words exploded in my brain: ‘He’s dead. You’re next.’ I looked around me at the people in the street and saw that they too would die…”
From Mandala July-September 2012
FPMT News Around the World
North American Regional Group meeting, including Yangsi Rinpoche (center), Thubten Norbu Ling, Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S., November 2012. Photo by David Kittelstrom.
In early November, a group of 35 directors, spiritual program coordinators and teachers from FPMT centers in North America traveled to Thubten Norbu Ling Tibetan Buddhist Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to discuss the priorities and development of the North American region. The group focused on improving regional communications, developing internal structures and identifying working groups. Maitripa College president Yangsi Rinpoche attended the meeting and offered to host the region’s next meeting, planned for May 2013 in Portland, Oregon.
Regionalization is part of a “strategy we are in the process of developing in order to fulfill Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s wishes for the FPMT,” Claire Isitt, FPMT center services director, explained in a September 2012 email to the leadership of FPMT centers, projects and services. “Our aim is to create a local tier of management at a national/regional level in order to support the current and ongoing growth of the organization as we work to fulfill Rinpoche’s vast visions now and in many future lifetimes.”
There are eleven regional/national offices in FPMT, which are meeting regularly.
With 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
LRZTP6 Students reading Golden Light Sutra, November 2012. Photo courtesy of LRZRP6.
“On behalf of all the students of the sixth Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Programme (LRZTP6), I would like to offer to Lama Zopa Rinpoche our reading of the Golden Light Sutra in Tibetan that we did on Lhabab Duchen,” LRZTP coordinator Claire Yeshe Barde wrote. “As most of the students are still learning how to read, they have proved to be very brave and diligently read the whole sutra altogether and finished in two hours. Everyone was very joyful and happy to be able to read the sutra in Tibetan. Sally, the assistant director who doesn’t read Tibetan, joined in and read the Vajra Cutter Sutra in English. It was really wonderful and I told the students I shall offer this meritorious endeavor to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.”
The translator program, which is located in Dharmasala, India, began in early October 2012. Lhabab Duchen (Buddha’s actual descent from God Realm of Thirty-three) was celebrated on November 6.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche sent an immediate response to the students:
LRZTP6 Students reading Golden Light Sutra, November 2012. Photo courtesy of LRZRP6.
My Most dear most kind most precious wish fulfilling students of LRZTP 6
Zillions and billions of thanks for reading the Golden Light Sutra in Tibetan … especially to those who only started Tibetan one month ago … you people must be like Manjushri! And also I appreciate Alison’s recitation of the Diamond Cutter Sutra in English.
Since many of you received teachings from His Holiness … think you are fulfilling His Holiness’ wishes learning Tibetan for the purpose of preserving the Dharma. That means following the wishes of numberless buddhas and bodhisattvas!
It becomes the most powerful purification and the most extensive way to create merit … this means quick enlightenment .. . and also benefiting sentient beings, to bring them to quick enlightenment. With each Tibetan word you translate think this.
As much as possible each day with each action have compassion for all sentient beings, or at least many times in the day … this is the way to make the life most meaningful and to become the most happiest life!
And you have a very qualified teacher … a very good teacher, please recognize this, thank you very much and see you very soon.
With much love and prayer,
Lama Zopa
To learn more about sutras, recitation and to find sutra texts, visit FPMT Education Services’ Sutras page.
With 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.