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Education: The Heart of FPMT
FPMT’s French-language translation office, Service de traduction de la FPMT, is happy to share their enthusiasm for a new promising project: creating French versions of the Masters Program (MP) study texts. Inspired by the unique vision of Lama Yeshe, the Masters Program (MP) is the organization’s most rigorous and advanced education program.
The MP scheduled to start this year at Nalanda Monastery in France isn’t able to provide a French graduation option due to a lack of translations of the necessary standard texts. With this project, Service de traduction de la FPMT’s goal is to see to it that French-speaking students in the future can fully benefit from the program. The translation of these essential texts will contribute to the emergence of a new generation of qualified French-speaking graduates, while at the same time serving all French speakers interested in Buddhism.
The principal texts that comprise the MP curriculum represent around 3,500 pages. Costs of this translation work is estimated to be around EUR€ 3,500 (US$4,500) each year for ten years. Motivated and experienced translators have already accepted the challenge to help realize this ambitious project.
www.traductionfpmt.info
The Italian Basic Program Online offered by Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK) had its first ever final exam this March. All 10 participating students passed – a huge achievement for all involved! Kind thanks Basic Program Online tutor Vania Tesser, who provided students with the care, support and inspiration needed to get this far, and many other staff at ILTK who contributed over the course of five years! It is an FPMT exclusive: Previously we had no Homestudy students completing a Basic Program and final exam in any language other than English. Congratulations to all!
Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la) with Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Washington State, 2012.FPMT Education Services has made freely available a variety of commonly used prayers and practices which you can download or reference online.
Recent live webcasts of Rinpoche teaching in Asia are available to watch anytime on Livestream.
Ven.Tsering’s writing of the Prajnaparamita at Kachoe Dechen Ling, USAAs records of teachings given by Buddha, sutras are an important part of Buddhist study and practice. As such, we have created a page dedicated to the exploration of many of these valuable texts.
On February 15 Nalanda Monastery, France, officially completed its first five year residential Basic Program (BP) with a graduation ceremony. Geshe Jamphel, BP teacher and abbot, handed out BP completion certificates to the graduates (two of them were not there), and BP completion cards to students who did not yet graduate. The ceremony was an inspiration for the 36 brand new students of Nalanda’s second Basic Program, who attended as part of their introduction day. A special presentation was made to Ven. Tharchin, the program’s interpreter and Ven. Yonten, the program’s coordinator, reflecting appreciation for their contributions that made this excellent BP, with its three month review and three month retreat, such a success! Geshe-la then gave a talk to the 36 new students and all Nalanda residents, emphasizing the work that the BP students had done over the five years. The ceremony was followed by a big celebratory lunch. Two of these graduates are now FPMT registered teachers!
We are pleased to present those students with the highest yoga tantra empowerment of Gyalwa Gyatso this wonderful revised 52-page long sadhana for daily practice and retreat by Kalsang Gyatso, the Seventh Dalai Lama.
Available through the FPMT Foundation Store, this sadhana is available as an eBook (non-reflowable PDF) for use on your Kindle, iPad, or other digital device.
With the wishes, guidance, and advice of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, FPMT Education has designed study programs suitable for every level of student: from beginning to advanced and everything in between. Engaging with FPMT Education not only benefits your own study and practice- your support enables the publication of practice materials, the development of training programs, the resources to produce important translations and the funds to offer scholarships to sincere students.
An easy and beneficial way to support FPMT Education is by becoming a Friend of FPMT. Every level of this program gains you access to FPMT Education and supports our work in the process! In addition to other benefits, at the Free Membership and Foundation Friends levels you will receive access to all free FPMT Online Learning Center modules—currently thirteen free modules; and at the Dharma Supporter and Patron levels you receive complete access to all Online Learning Center program modules available which currently number fifty-one!
Please consider benefiting from and supporting FPMT Education today by becoming a Friend of FPMT!
Photo by Bob Cayton
“It is extremely important to know how to live our daily life. We need to know what is spiritual practice and what is not spiritual, or what is Dharma and what is not Dharma. The benefit of understanding this, of having this wisdom, is unbelievable, is infinite.
“What we have to realize is that all of our activities throughout twenty-four hours – walking, sitting, sleeping, talking, doing our job – can become a cause for enlightenment, for liberation, for happiness in future lives; or for the lower realms. It all depends on our motivation.”
Read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s complete teaching …
From Mandala March 2001
Monk creating sand mandala, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, 2009. Photo by gwashley, Flickr Creative Commons.
Many Buddhist practitioners have encountered feelings of loneliness. According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book, Rinpoche once heard a monk comment that he felt people didn’t want to be with him and were avoiding him. Rinpoche offered this advice:
That is no problem at all. It is good, because you waste so much of your time if people are interested in meeting you. Then, no meditation, no study, nothing, just blah, blah, blah, blah. That is why Milarepa achieved enlightenment in a brief lifetime during degenerate times. Why did he go to meditate in very high mountains? That is the whole point. He did it in order not to waste his life. … Buddha said that as long as one follows desire, one will never get satisfaction. Satisfaction, here, means peace of mind, but in a broader way it also means to understand that as long as one follows desire, there is no liberation and no enlightenment.
You can read the complete advice Rinpoche offered this monk at “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.
Written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for use by beginning students, this new eBook, A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha, is a clearly outlined practice complete with guided meditations for developing one’s motivation, the mind of refuge, and the thought of bodhichitta.
In addition the practice contains mantra recitation and visualization based on Shakyamuni Buddha and a Lam-rim prayer in the form of a request for blessings to develop all the realizations on the path to full awakening.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
After the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001 and the beginning of war in the Middle East, Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote an open letter to former U.S. President George W. Bush about the effectiveness of spiritual solutions for the crisis the world was facing.
“War is what ordinary people in the world regard as the solution,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote. “The problem is that war, even if it is won, is like a medicine that has side effects. It may temporarily help the situation but afterwards there will be continual complications. Why? Because the people you defeat generate hatred towards you and in future generations they harm you back. In the natural law of actions, called karma in Sanskrit, the action of harming leaves an imprint on the mental continuum and that imprint is like a seed. When it ripens later, the person experiences the result of receiving harm from others.”
From Mandala March-May 2002.
