FPMT Basic Program Homestudy Teachers

Geshe Losang Jamphel Stages of the Path | Geshe Sonam Ngodrub Stages of the Path and Heart Sutra | Venerable George Churinoff Mahayana Mind Training and Mind and Cognition | Geshe Jamphel Gyaltsen Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds | Geshe Tsulga Tenets | Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi Ornament for Clear Realization, Chapter 4 | Geshe Tenzin Tenphel The Tathagata Essence | Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche Grounds and Paths of Secret Mantra

The FPMT Basic Program curriculum was designed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for students ready to commit to in-depth study and practice. Supplemented by study materials, discussion forums, guided meditations, and retreats, FPMT BP Online consists of  teachings presented by the following outstanding teachers:

Geshe Losang Jamphel, Stages of the Path

Geshe Losang Jamphel left Tibet in 1983, traveling to Dharamsala for an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and from there to Sera Monastery in South India, where he studied and analyzed the texts and commentaries of the monastic curriculum.

In 1995, at the age of 34, Geshe-la sat the written and debate Gelug examinations, and in 1998 he attained the Lharam Geshe degree. In 1999 Geshe-la went to the Upper Tantric College of Gyuto.

After completing his studies at the Upper Tantric College, Geshe-la accepted Nalanda Monastery’s invitation to be their resident teacher, and upon Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s request, became the abbot of Nalanda Monastery.

From 2008 to 2013 he taught the FPMT Basic Program at Nalanda, and currently teaches the FPMT Masters Program. He also teaches introductory and intermediate courses as well as religious seminars and so forth, in Spain and at universities. Geshe-la also gives indispensable advice and financial help to all the monks of Tsethang Khangtsen in Sera Je Monastery.

Geshe Sonam Ngodrub, Stages of the Path and Heart Sutra

Geshe Sonam Ngodrub was born in Kardze, Kham, in 1968. From a young age he learned to read and write by looking at scriptures with his uncle at a monastery near his home.

At the age of 13 he left Tibet and undertook the journey to India to begin his formal monastic education in Sera Je Monastery. Having eventually entered the Lharampa Geshe class, he graduated among the top three of his year, to then complete a year at Gyurme Tantric College. Upon returning to Sera Je, Geshe-la became one of the young teaching geshes in Sera, much loved by his many students.

Invited to become resident teacher at Nalanda Monastery, Geshe Sonam Ngodrub taught a wide variety of topics, including several FPMT Basic Program subjects and a daily class on Stages of the Path (lam-rim) and Bodhisattva Deeds.

Upon leaving Nalanda Geshe Sonam toured in Europe, teaching at various FPMT centers, until in 2012, at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s request, he accepted to become resident teacher at Maitreya Instituut in the Netherlands, where Geshe-la was a much loved and appreciated teacher until completing his tenure at Maitreya Instituut in 2018.

Having had to leave the Netherlands due to health concerns, Geshe-la has recently taken up residence at Lama Yeshe Ling Centre in Ontario, Canada where he had been welcomed by unusually large audiences for his first teachings. While teaching in Tibetan, he is said to convey the meaning of his subject with a sense of great intellectual certainty and impassioned earnestness.

Venerable George Churinoff, Mahayana Mind Training and Mind and Cognition

A physics graduate from MIT, Venerable George earned a Masters degree in Buddhist studies from Delhi University, India. He took ordination in 1975 and studied the Geshe Studies Program at Manjushri Institute, England, where he also served as Spiritual Program Coordinator.

Venerable George was instrumental in founding the Masters Program at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy, where he served as Program Coordinator as well. After studying and teaching there for eight years he spent several years at Tushita Centre in Delhil, followed by three years as Lama Osel Rinpoche’s English curriculum tutor at Sera Je Monastery in South India.

Venerable George has done many retreats in the sutra and tantra traditions and taught extensively in FPMT centers all over the world. He taught the FPMT Basic Program as resident teacher at Dorje Chang Institute, New Zealand and at Land of Medicine Buddha, USA.

After residing for several years at Deer Park Buddhist Center in Madison, Wisconsin, Venerable George currently teaches various subjects as a visiting teacher in FPMT centers. His extensive knowledge and clarity of explanation endears him to many FPMT Basic Program students.

Geshe Jamphel Gyaltsen, Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds

Geshe Jamphel Gyaltsen was born in 1968 in a small village in the Tsawa region of Kham, part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. At sixteen he became a monk in the local monastery but wishing to engage in more extensive Buddhist education, went to Zogong monastery in Chamdo for his studies of Buddhist philosophy.

In 1989 his second attempt to escape to India succeeded and he attended the Kalachakra Initiation in Varanasi; after an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama he went to Sera Monastery in South India, where after twenty-three years of study and debate he obtained the highest degree of Geshe Lharampa in 2008. Upon completing the traditional year at Gyurme Tantric College he returned to Sera, where he taught the youngest monks the basic philosophical subjects and acted as disciplinarian at his house, Tsawa Khamtsen.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche first invited Geshe Gyaltsen to become an FPMT resident teacher in 2009, but he had to decline the invitation at that time. In 2012 he accepted Rinpoche’s request to teach the FPMT Basic Program at Nalanda Monastery. While waiting for his visa for France, Geshe-la had his first experience of teaching Westerners at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, and finally took up his teaching post at Nalanda in early 2014, when he joined the abbot, Geshe Lobsang Jamphel, as resident teacher at Nalanda Monastery. Geshe-la currently teaches has completed the five year residential FPMT Basic Program at Nalanda for a second time, and will be the teacher of Nalanda’s second FPMT Masters Program, to start in 2023.

Geshe Gyaltsen is known both at Sera Je and at Nalanda Monastery as humble and very learned. At Nalanda Geshe-la has become highly appreciated for his clear and fluent teaching style, and the wonderful ability to explain the teachings in a way to which students can easily relate.

Geshe Tsulga, Tenets

Geshe Tsulga was born in Kham province in eastern Tibet to a nomadic family. He became a novice monk at the age of seven, entering a local monastery. When he was 17 he traveled to Lhasa and took ordination at Sera Je Monastery. During the mass exodus in 1959, he fled to India, crisscrossing the landscape over many weeks to avoid the Chinese patrols.

Between 1961 and 1969 Geshe Tsulga lived at the refugee camp at Buxa in northern India, where he continued his studies with the many learned Tibetan refugees living there, among them Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Thubten Yeshe. During the 1970s he participated in the building of Sera Je Monastery in exile in Bylakuppe, in south India, and although his studies were often interrupted he completed his Geshe Lharampa degree there in 1985.

In 1990 Lama Zopa Rinpoche asked Geshe-la if he was interested in giving teachings in the West. At first doubtful about his capacity to benefit western students, Geshe-la asked Rinpoche to do a divination; when the divination came out positive, he finally accepted.

Upon his arrival in the US in 1992, he initially divided his time between three of the FPMT’s east coast centers: Kadampa Center in North Carolina, Milarepa Center in Vermont, and Kurukulla Center in Boston. It took a few months for Geshe-la to develop confidence that the students were understanding his teachings, but he found Westerners to be intelligent and hoped to be “putting some imprints in the minds of Western people from which there will be benefit.”

From 1996 onward, while still leading summer retreats at Milarepa Center, Geshe-la has been the resident teacher at Kurukulla Center, where he taught the FPMT Basic Program from 2002 until his passing away in 2011.

Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi, Ornament for Clear Realization, Fourth Chapter

Geshe Thubten Chonyi was born in the Solu Khombu region of Nepal in 1962. He joined Kopan Monastery when he was 12, and was ordained by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. At the age of 17, he entered Sera Je Monastery in south India, where after 18 years of intensive study, he graduated with honors as Geshe Lharampa, to again excel in his studies at Gyudmed Tantric College a year later.

Geshe Chonyi has been the resident teacher of Amitabha Buddhist Centre (ABC) in Singapore since 1999, and began teaching the FPMT Basic Program from August 2003 onward, attending discussion sessions, debating students’ answers, and providing ample questioning that engages all students and encourages them to take their BP studies seriously. By leading annual group retreats at Kopan Monastery, Geshe Chonyi also offered ABC’s BP students the opportunity to fulfill their completion requirements. In this way, the first group of BP students was guided to their graduation in 2010; a second round of ABC’s BP started in June 2011 and was completed in 2019.

In July 2011, Geshe Chonyi was appointed abbot of Kopan Monastery and Nunnery in Nepal, becoming Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi. He continues to serve as the resident teacher at ABC, where he is greatly loved and appreciated by his students for his depth of analysis of profound philosophical topics, and for his gentle good humor.

Geshe Tenzin Tenphel, The Tathagata Essence

Geshe Tenzin Tenphel was born in Tibet in 1956, but a few years later found himself with thousands of other Tibetans as a refugee India. While still a schoolboy in the south of India he developed a wish to become a monk, although his father only agreed to his ordination on condition that he complete his schooling.

Eventually entering Sera Je Monastery at the age of seventeen, he studied and debated the great texts intensively until he was awarded the Lharam Geshe degree. In 1994 he also studied tantra for nine months at Gyu To College.

Geshe-la arrived at Instituto Lama Tzong Khapa, in Italy, in 1998 and began teaching lamrim. In addition, he assisted with the teaching of supplementary subjects during the 1998-2004 FPMT Masters Program, and also taught at other FPMT centers in Italy. Alongside Geshe Jampa Gyatso he taught the philosophical subjects in the first residential FPMT Basic Program at ILTK.

Geshe Tenphel is particularly appreciated for his clear explanations, his keen interest in debate, and his sense of humor, qualities that have endeared him to many Western disciples. In addition to his general teachings, Geshe-la currently teaches in ILTK’s FPMT Basic and Masters Programs, the subjects of which are a constant source of enthusiasm for his sharp analytical mind.

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, Grounds and Paths of Secret Mantra

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche was born in 1926 in the Amdo region of Eastern Tibet. When he was eight years old, he was recognized as the reincarnation of the former abbot of Kirti Monastery in Amdo, and ordained as a monk at the age of nine. A year later he made the arduous journey to Lhasa to continue his studies at Drepung Monastery in order to avoid the political instability posed by the Chinese in the Amdo area. In Drepung he became tsenshab (debate partner) to Kirti Rinpoche, debating with him and reviewing his daily teachings.

After escaping from Tíbet in 1959, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche began a fifteen-year meditation retreat at the age of forty-five, in a small stone hermitage above Dharamsala, the residence in exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Having concluded his retreat for health reasons, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche has been teaching worldwide. Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who took Kirti Tsenshab as his teacher after being impressed by his expertise in the subtleties of tantra, said of Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, “Rinpoche went all over the world many times and turned the Dharma wheel very extensively. He practiced and preserved Dharma very purely and spread it very purely to sentient beings.”

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche offered his commentary on Grounds and Paths of Secret Mantra in Vajrapani Institute in 2003 and 2004, based on the standard FPMT Basic Program text for the subject. After falling seriously ill in 2006, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche passed away in December 2006.

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