FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training

Introduction

The FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training (IDMT) is a four-year course offering meditators long-term support for their meditative practice. It aims at providing the opportunity to experience a genuine taste of the nature of reality and bodhicitta.

In developing IDMT, Venerable Losang Gendun was inspired by Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teaching that the true fulfilment of our precious human life is to generate the awakened mind, bodhicitta, and that a practitioner needs deep meditative practice to accomplish this. Based in the Lamrim and in the Gelug tenets, the training progresses from foundational shamatha and insight to mahamudra and kriya tantra.

Over four years the full range of traditional Buddhist methods is gradually introduced in ways suitable for a modern Western audience. While grounded in the theory and practice of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, aspects of the living tradition of Theravada practices form an integral part of the training. These traditional expositions are supplemented by modern explorations of topics such as the psychology of spiritual development, the arhat and bodhisattva ideals, the role of ritual, identity formation, metaphor in Yogacara, Buddhist epistemology, theory of narrative, and so on.

Implementation

Weekly guided meditations are combined with in-depth lectures and meditation training, prioritizing the needs and levels of practice of the participants.
Sessions consist of an hour of meditation, an hour of lecture, and half an hour for Q&A.
Four to six annual retreats are offered at the participating FPMT centers (with online options).

Participating students additionally have the opportunity to deepen their practice through week and weekend retreats offered by the hosting centers.

Objectives

Direct, personal experience through meditation.
Guiding students along their meditative journey, both on and off the cushion.
Engendering meditation practice and lifestyle to become mutually complementary.

Prerequisites

IDMT is aimed at practitioners who have a firm foundation in Buddhist thought, and a profound wish to further their meditative practice. Having completed Discovering Buddhsm or the FPMT Basic Pogram would be ideal, while the FPMT Ngöndro Lamrim Training (NLRT) is an exellent preparation for IDMT.

IDMT is suitable for participants from all walks of life: grounded in the Gelug system of tenets and its vision of the Dharma, the course takes a non-sectarian stance. It contextualizes Buddhist ideas in Western philosophy, psychology, and science.

IDMT will be most rewarding for practitioners who wish to make Buddhist values and goals an integral part of their lives; while experiencing the benefit of a supportive community, time on and off the cushion will be transformed into a path to enlightenment.

How to participate

Students enroll via an FPMT partner center. Host centers are provided with the necessary information and materials for their publicity and websites and to share with students. Student donations are made to the centers; a percentage is offered by the centers to The Buddha Project (TBP). After registration with one of the partner centers, students get access to TBP learning platform for the recordings, meditations, and reading materials. The materials from the previous years are available here as well.

Are you interested in becoming an IDMT Partner Center and hosting IDMT? Please contact the FPMT In-Depth Program coordinator .

Hosting centers

Students are encouraged to join for the first term of the fourth year, starting in September 2026. Course materials and recordings of the previous years and term will be made available. While all sessions and materials can be accessed online, in order to benefit from on-site events it is recommended to choose a center nearby.

The trainings are offered in patnership with the following FPMT centers:

NB: These links will gradually be renewed; centers are updating their web presentations for year 4.

Maitreya Institute, Amsterdam, NL
Shantideva Center , New York, USA
Jamyang Buddhist Centre Leeds, UK
Institut Vajra Yogini, Lavaur, France
Yeshin Norbu Center , Stockholm, Sweden
Tara Liberation, Helsinki, Finland
Vajrapani Institute, Boulder Creek, CA, USA
Land of Medicine Buddha, Soquel, CA, USA
Tse Chen Ling, San Francisco, CA, USA
Ocean of Compassion Buddhist Center, Campbell, CA, USA
Thubten Norbu Ling, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Hayagriva Buddhist Centre, Perth, W Australia
Kunsang Yeshe Retreat Centre, Katoomba, NSW Australia
Chenrezig Institute, Eudlo, QLD Australia
Mahamudra Center, Colville, New Zealand

IDMT Year 4 – Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra (2026-2027)

In this culminating fourth year the path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening.

The following topics are explored: meditating on the empty nature of the mind; the preliminary practices and relating to a teacher; transforming ordinary perception into pure view, and ethical identity and the state of Vajradhara

This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, the practise is to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. The aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

Term 1: September-November 2026 Term 2: February-April 2027 Term 3: May-June 2027

FPMT Ngöndro Lamrim Training (NLRT): a preparation for IDMT

The newly developed FPMT Ngöndro Lamrim Training (NLRT) offers a two-year journey in the common and uncommon preliminary practices. It forms an excellent preparation for the FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training.

Over a period of two years, NLRT offers 16 months of training, deepening the experience of the lamrim—the common preliminaries—and learning the uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro), the powerful methods that purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

This training aims at generating the motivation that supports the development of calm abiding, special insight, and tantra. By cultivating the inner qualities needed to ease unskillful patterns of mind that are the cause of hindrances on the path, it facilitates deep transformation.

The training is designed for students with a solid grounding in the lamrim or an equivalent Dharma background.

The NLRT teaching sessions are prerecorded. Every week, a 90-minute teaching together with a guided meditation are uploaded. On four other days, senior students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

There are three terms per year. The first term consists of 13 classes, from September 14–November 28. Registration is per term through the nearest FPMT partner center.

Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition