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His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Bodhgaya, 1974. Image courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
“In January 1974 His Holiness the Dalai Lama bestowed the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) initiation for the fifth time in his life, and the third since leaving Tibet,” writes Adele Hulse, author of Big Love, the forthcoming biography of FPMT founder Lama Thubten Yeshe. Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive will publish Big Love later this year and has been sharing excerpts from the book on their Big Love blog. The following is from a recent post:
The profound Kalachakra Tantra, a pathway to full enlightenment, contains elements of astrology, medicine, and mathematics. Over 100,000 Tibetans descended on Bodhgaya. They came by train, bus, rickshaw, and on foot from many places inside and outside India: Dharamsala, Darjeeling, Dalhousie, Mysore, and Bangalore; from Ladakh, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and Tibet, many of them wearing local costumes and jewelry. Tent cities sprang up with bustling restaurants serving all types of Tibetan and Indian food — momos (Tibetan meat dumplings), thukpa (Tibetan meat stew), samosas, chai, and the like — alongside market stalls selling clothes, religious objects, and antiques. It was a scene out of National Geographic magazine.
Several hundred Westerners also poured into Bodhgaya for the initiation. Many of them stayed in the Tibetan tent-restaurants, which allowed people to sleep on the wide benches at night. The hippies in their motley garb mixed easily with the wild folk from the mountains, the men in sheepskin trousers, their long plaits woven with red ribbon. For many Tibetans it was their first sight of the Dalai Lama. They prostrated and cried loudly. All day and all night pilgrims circumambulated the Mahabodhi stupa on its three different walkways, many prostrating all the way around.
Everybody at Kopan who could get to Bodhgaya went there. When asked to explain the Kalachakra initiation, Lama Yeshe became very serious, telling the students this was not something they should take lightly. …
Read the entire post by Adele Hulse — which includes Lama Yeshe’s teaching to Westerners in preparation for the initiation — on the Big Love blog.
We are happy to announce the publication of a new eBook, The Wish-fulfilling Gem Enhancing the Buddha’s Doctrine, a Method for Making Offerings and Prayers to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the Sixteen Arhats by Yeshe Gyaltsen which includes a purification practice and is suitable to be performed by anyone.
This practice is also available in A4 and letter booklet formats.
“It has greater blessings to pray to the kind compassionate Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the Founder, who is caring with a loving mind for us migratory beings who are in the end of the five-hundred age time. He left the Sixteen Arhats as a regent of himself not to pass away and to be the Savior for us sentient beings.
The benefits of making offerings and prayers to the Sixteen Arhats are:
1. All the Victorious Ones (Buddhas) are pleased.
2. Anyone who correctly practices it will have no obstacles.
3. One will be able to abide in pure morality.
4. It increases one’s scriptural understanding and realization.
5. One will have perfect inner and outer conditions to practice Dharma.
6. One will not be overwhelmed by untimely death and will have a long life.
7. The community of Sangha will be increased.
8. The study and practice of the Tripitaka (Three Baskets) will increase.
And so forth, there are infinite benefits one will enjoy until enlightenment is achieved.”
Translated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Caloundra, Australia, on August 10, 1996.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.