receive our newsletters
join Friends of FPMT
Study & Practice News
The altar at Vulture’s Peak, Rajgir, India, October 2015. Photo courtesy of Ven. Sarah Thresher.
FPMT registered teacher Ven. Sarah Thresher shares the recent story of reciting the Sutra of Golden Light with friends at Vulture’s Peak in India, where the sutra is said to originate:
The first time we recited the Sutra of Golden Light at Vulture’s Peak it was almost by accident. Ven Dekyong from Root Institute suggested reading a few chapters after we finished the Heart Sutra, so we started and just kept on going. Despite the heat and exhaustion, it was mesmerizing to follow the narrative as chapter after chapter a succession of divine and holy beings – bodhisattvas, goddesses, the Four Great Kings, the Yaksha general and so on – rose up, paid homage to the Buddha and then pledged to protect, support and honor those who upheld the Sutra of Golden Light.
In mid-October we returned again – Ven. Dekyong, Ven. Katy Cole, Maura Harvey and myself – to recite the sutra for a third time in celebration of Maura’s 50th birthday. We dedicated everything for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, for Lama Zopa Rinpoche and, of course, for world peace. When we told Rinpoche, he replied, “Thank you very much. Tell everyone.”
Ven. Katy Cole, Maura Harvey, Ven. Sarah Thresher, and Ven. Dekyong after reciting the Sutra of Golden Light at Vulture’s Peak, Rajgir, India, October 2015. Photo courtesy of Ven. Sarah Thresher.
The regular recitation of the Sutra of Golden Light for world peace is part of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for FPMT. FPMT Education Services has created a resource page to help you learn more about and start reciting the Sutra of Golden Light. You can receive the oral transmission of the sutra, download the sutra in 12 languages, report completed recitations, share your experiences, and ask questions about the text itself.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s newest book from Wisdom Publications, How to Enjoy Death: Preparing to Meet Life’s Final Challenge Without Fear, has been compiled from years of Rinpoche’s teachings and has been lovingly edited by Venerable Robina Courtin. Here Lama Zopa Rinpoche provides detailed advice on how best to prepare ourselves to face the inevitable end of our own and our loved one’s lives with courage, grace, and a mind free of fear. With great care, Rinpoche explains what to do in the months, weeks, and days that precede death, as well as how to handle the moment itself and the mantras, prayers, and meditations that must follow the death of a loved one. All of the practices needed to preparedly face death are included in this book, making this an essential reference for Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, caregivers, hospice workers, or chaplains.
As Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains in the prologue:
“When suddenly one day one of your loved ones dies and you don’t know what to do to help, you’ll feel so confused, so lost. This made me think that knowing how to help others at the time of death is such important education to have. By providing the right support, the right environment, you can help your loved one die peacefully, with virtuous thoughts, and thus have a good rebirth.”
How to Enjoy Death will be printed and shipped in February 2016, but by pre-ordering from Wisdom now, you save $10 off the price and receive a PDF preview of the book. Additionally, a $5 donation for every order will be made to the Nepal Earthquake Support Fund which was established by FPMT International Office immediately following the devastating first earthquake to hit Nepal in April 2015, as a way for FPMT to help with immediate and long-term aid to affected regions.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given extensive advice on preparing for death and caring for others at the time of death. You can access this advice and practices on fpmt.org/death.
Living in the Path is unique among FPMT education programs in that it is taught exclusively by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The online version of this program is currently undergoing extensive revision to divide it into “digestible bite-sized chunks” and make it easier to access the materials. New modules are also being developed based on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s more recent teachings.
Currently, Living in the Path features standalone modules organized within the following topics:
- Heart Advice: Essential advice for practicing Dharma in daily life
- Practice Instructions: Why and how to do certain prayers and practices
- Realizing the Lam-Rim: Teachings on the lam-rim topics and explanations of lam-rim texts
All modules consist of video excerpts and lightly edited transcripts of teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche together with many additional resources.
Modules included in “Realizing the Lam-rim” also provide guidelines for study and meditation, as well as for mindfulness and service practices, all of which are based on quotations drawn from Rinpoche’s teachings.
New modules include:
Advice for Realizing the Lam-rim
In this set of short videos drawn from teachings given in Bendigo, Australia in 2014, Lama Zopa Rinpoche provides step-by-step instructions on how to gain the realizations of the lam-rim: 1) study a lam-rim text thoroughly, 2) meditate to get the effortful experience, 3) meditate to get the effortless experience, 4) meditate until the realization is stable. A short guide provides a clear summary of Rinpoche’s teaching.
Offering Food and Drink
At a picnic in Denmark in July 2015, Lama Zopa Rinpoche led one of his trademark extensive food offering practices with a motivation based on the three principal aspects of the path and offerings to the buddhas visualized in the four directions. Learn how to transform the actions of eating and drinking into an opportunity to create the causes for enlightenment.
This is Going to Happen to You
This teaching is based on Pabongka Rinpoche’s Heart Spoon: Encouragement Through Recollecting Impermanence, perhaps one of the most graphic and heart-wrenching poems on death ever written. Guidelines for meditation and mindfulness practices encourage you to keep these teachings present throughout the day so as to continually remember: “This is going to happen to me.”
These three modules of Living in the Path and many others are offered free of charge.
We invite you to visit Living in the Path on the FPMT Online Learning Center and do what you always intended to do: study, reflect, and meditate on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s unique way of presenting the Buddhadharma.
Foundation Service Seminar Facilitator Namdrol Miranda Adams, Maitripa College Dean of Education and Assistant to Yangsi Rinpoche.
For the first time ever, the Foundation Service Seminar (FSS) will be offered at Maitripa College in Portland, OR, USA. This two-part training will be offered over the course of two semesters in the format of one non-residential weekend intensive in the Fall and one in the Spring. The Fall weekend will take place October 30-November 1, 2015. The second part of the training will be held at Maitripa Spring 2016 (dates to be determined). To earn an FSS Certificate of Completion from FPMT, students must complete all of the hours of both weekend training sessions.*
The Foundation Service Seminar is a training created by FPMT specifically for those who are currently (or plan to) offer service in an FPMT center, project, or other environment. The Foundation Service Seminar explores how to best offer service utilizing the skills and resources available to us. The course is an opportunity to investigate a model of developing our own skills, and the skills of others, in relation to the purpose and mission of FPMT.
Foundation Service Seminar Facilitator Tom Truty, FPMT Director of Education Services.
Facilitators for this seminar are Namdrol Miranda Adams, Maitripa College Dean of Education and Assistant to Yangsi Rinpoche, and Tom Truty, FPMT Director of Education Services.
The topics that will be covered include:
- our relationship to resources – both material and human
- communication skills and conflict resolution
- teaching according to the level of the student
- ways to maintain and develop our personal practice in the midst of service, and methods to prevent and cure burnout.
Discussions include “service” in terms of guru devotion, karma, compassion, and emptiness. Students will have the opportunity to use the Inner Job Description, a tool for developing what Lama Zopa Rinpoche calls the “inner professional,” and integrate the Dharma into our daily lives. The course includes group discussion and sharing of experiences, particularly of community service or other volunteer/service work, and introduces daily meditations as well as group practice as advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
You can learn more about this training or register today! For more information about the Foundation Service Seminar and other training available, please visit the FPMT Service Seminars webpage.
*One credit hour may be awarded per semester by Maitripa College for each completed weekend in addition to community service hours and student work completed outside the classroom instructional hours.
Portrait of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, New York, USA, August 2015. Photo by Edward Sczudlo.
FPMT Education Services is happy to make available two new translations from Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
“Song of the Four Mindfulnesses: Instructions for Meditation on the View of Emptiness, Causing a Rain of Siddhis to Fall” by the Seventh Dalai Lama is a beautiful hymn on the four mindfulnesses: mindfulness of the guru, mindfulness of bodhichitta, mindfulness of your body as divine, and mindfulness of the view of emptiness. The verse on bodhichitta reads:
In the prison of suffering of beginningless circling,
The six types of sentient beings, bereft of happiness, wander.
There are the fathers and mothers who have been kind to me.
Abandoning attachment and hatred, meditate on cherishing others and compassion.
Not letting your mind stray, place your mind being in the nature of compassion.
With unforgetting remembrance, hold your mind being in compassion.
“Requesting Prayer to Padmasambhava” by Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa is a prayer included in the Tibetan text tshes bcu’i phan yon gsol ‘debs, found in volume 12 of Jigme Lingpa’s Collected Works. This prayer begins:
E MA HO! You are the treasure of all the buddhas’ compassion: past, present, and future;
You are our supreme guide, liberating all three realms;
You are the one and only guide of every living being in Tibet;
Your kindness is incomparable, Great Ögyen.
You are welcome to download both of these new translations for your personal use and also peruse other prayers, practices and translations available to you.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Mahamudra Centre, New Zealand. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang, May 2015.
December 2015: Please note that this practice has now been revised and renamed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche as The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment).
September 2015 Update Now Available: In this essential practice, Daily Meditation, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has carefully and kindly compiled, and in many cases provided translation for, the prayers, practices, and meditations needed to start one’s day, or activities, with a perfect Dharma intention and bodhichitta motivation. While mornings are an ideal time to set up one’s aspirations for the day, students are encouraged to engage in this practice at any time, whenever they are able.
The new Daily Meditation is a revision of the “Morning Prayers” included in Essential Buddhist Prayers Vol.1. This meditation includes a new version of the prayer “A Direct Meditation on the Graduated Path, Containing all the Important Meanings” translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, as well as a new translation of selected verses from Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Other additions and new arrangements have been made to this meditation – it is a unique new practice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche updated September 2015.
FPMT Education Services is pleased to offer this updated essential practice as a free download. A Vietnamese translation is now also available.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche writing mantras to go above a rabbit house located at Sera Je Monastery, India. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang, December, 2013.
FPMT Education Services makes available many commonly used mantras which students can download freely for their personal use. Recently added are His Holiness the Dalai Lama Name Mantras (there are two available), Lama Tsongkhapa Name Mantra, and Lama Zopa Rinpoche Name Mantra.
For extensive advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche about the benefits of reading, writing or reciting particular mantras, or how to engage with mantras to eliminate or reduce potential or ongoing obstacles, please visit the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book and fpmt.org for Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
If you are in need of mantras not listed on this page, feel free to contact FPMT Education Services at education@fpmt.org and we will do our best to get you what you need.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Education Services now has a variety of resources for those wishing to learn the FPMT preferred tunes and pronunciations for standard prayers, practices and mantras.
Students can take advantage of these downloads and other available resources:
- Essential Buddhist Prayers Volume 1 Tunes
- Lama Zopa Rinpoche Mantra Recitations Volume 1
- Lama Zopa Rinpoche Mantra Recitations Volume 2
- Lama Zopa Rinpoche Chanting Lama Chöpa Tunes
- Calling the Guru from Afar
- Lama Chöpa Tunes with Audio Guide
- Yangsi Rinpoche Chanting the Heart Sutra with Students
- Praises to the Twenty-One Taras
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
The FPMT Online Learning Center (OLC) is providing access to FPMT Education programs for an incredible amount of people. The OLC recently passed 20,000 total registered users and gets over 4,000 visitors per month! Discovering Buddhism Module 2: How to Meditate alone has 4,400 students enrolled.
The OLC hosts most of the learning programs developed by FPMT Education Services. OLC’s programs encompass the study of Buddhist fundamentals through more advanced philosophical topics in a very interactive learning format.
The OLC has been especially valuable for those who are not close to an FPMT center or for those who are connected to a center but can’t make their schedule fit with their center’s programs. It also gives the opportunity to take courses that local FPMT centers don’t regularly offer.
Jason, an OLC student in the United States comments, “I feel so fortunate to have found FPMT – this forum allows me to feel part of a spiritual community in a way I have not experienced before. It is tremendously comforting and reassuring to read the correspondence, and be able to dialogue with kind and wise people. For nearly a year I have been concerned with how to make my quest for personal growth a less solitary one. This works well for me.”
Online learning can be a refuge for students who feel that just reading on their own isn’t enough for them and want the extra structure, motivation and support that comes with being in a class. It’s also attractive for those having a hard time knowing where to start within Buddhism’s vast amount of teachings.
“When I first started trying to get a sense of Buddhism I read widely and in a way that, looking back, was really very scattered. After a time, and even studying with Tibetan teachers in India, I longed for a systematic approach that would begin at the beginning and fill in the foundational details that I knew I was missing. Discovering Buddhism is where I found them,” shares Tim, an OLC user in Japan.
There is a selection of free courses offered through the Friends of FPMT program and complete access to all courses is given to Dharma Supporters and Patron Friends of FPMT. The Friends program serves as a key source of funding for the Foundation while providing supporters with lots of education materials and connection to the global FPMT family. You can learn more about the Friends of FPMT program here.
Individual courses in the OLC can also be purchased through the Foundation Store. IMI Sangha are provided free access to all courses and scholarships are available to students who need financial assistance.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages.
Photo of Medicine Buddhas thangka by Bob Cayton.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches that every activity can be transformed into an opportunity to benefit ourselves and others. FPMT Education Services is pleased to release, as a free PDF, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s translation of Pänchen Losang Chögyen’s Blessing Medicine practice. This practice can be done when taking medicine.
Through comprehensive study programs, practice materials, training seminars, and scholarships, FPMT Education nourishes the development of compassion, wisdom, kindness, and true happiness in individuals of all ages
The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive brings great news that Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s How Things Exist and How to Practice Dharma are now available as audio books through Audible.com. Please also enjoy the audio versions of Lama Yeshe’s Becoming Your Own Therapist / Make Your Mind An Ocean and Illuminating the Path by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LYWA) is the collected works of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
You can find more teachings and advice by, as well as news and updates about Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
How Things Exist: http://bit.ly/AudioBook-How-Things-Exist
How to Practice Dharma: http://bit.ly/Audible-How-To-Practice-Dharma
Becoming Your Own Therapist: http://bit.ly/AudioBook-Illuminating-The-Path
Illuminating the Path: http://bit.ly/AudioBook-Illuminating-The-Path
https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa
Geshe Ngwang Tenley teaching at Shantideva Meditation Center, New York. Photo courtesy of SMC’s Facebook page.
Shantideva Meditation Center in New York has recently started to offer short online videos to bring the wisdom of its visiting teachers to people outside of its geographic area. Unlike recorded teachings, which could be a few hours long and more likely appeal to seasoned students, these concise clips are designed to engage newcomers who are curious about the fundamentals of Buddhism and how it might benefit their lives.
Following the FPMT’s practical and integrative approach to education, subjects include: How Can We Stay Patient When Dealing With Difficult People? by Geshe Ngawang Tenley and How Does One Begin a Meditation Practice? by Ven. Amy Miller.
Special attention has also been made to create aesthetically pleasing videos to mirror the philosophical beauty of the teachings, invoking the help of students who wish to channel their professional skills as an offering to the Dharma.
Shantideva Meditation Center explains this new series, “In a rapidly developing world where attention spans are short and there is saturation of media fueled by consumerism, the hope is to offer to people all over the world concise teachings packed with wisdom and compassion, so that they may be inspired to discover their inner potential for happiness and cultivate all the positive qualities of an awakened being.”
You can watch more videos, learn about Shantideva Meditation Center or explore other opportunities for Dharma teachings and study from FPMT Education Services.