Participants and facilitators of the recent Foundation Service Seminar hosted by Institut Vajra Yogini, France, August 2016

Registration is now open for a five-day Foundation Service Seminar (FSS) at Land of Medicine Buddha in California, February 3–7, 2017. The seminar will be led by FPMT’s service seminar coordinator Amy Cayton and senior registered facilitators. Immediately after the seminar, there will be a special opportunity to take the FSS Facilitator Training February 7–10, which allows one to apply to become a registered FSS facilitator later.

The Foundation Service Seminar explores how to best offer one’s skills and qualities in service, specifically in an FPMT context. Students investigate the purpose and mission of FPMT, what it means to be an FPMT center, and how that vision translates into action for centers, projects, services, and individuals.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Land of Medicine Buddha, Soquel, California, US, October 2015. Photo by Bob Cayton.

Students explore their relationship to resources—both material and human; communication skills and conflict resolution; teaching according to the level of the audience; ways to maintain and develop personal practice in the midst of service, and methods to prevent and cure burnout. Students discuss service in terms of guru devotion, karma, compassion, and emptiness, and how to draw strength, inspiration, wisdom, and guidance from these practices.

“We need training in our outward dealings with people to be more kind and compassionate,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently advised. “For example, people receive a lot of training in customer care. FPMT students need that too.”

“So inspiring!” one past seminar participant said. “It gives meaning to our service in the center, the feeling of being an integral part of the family, to participate at our level in the vast projects of Rinpoche. This seminar gives energy, the wish to go on and continue.”

“I learned so much,” said another, “and reconnected with the amazing FPMT family. It was one-thousand times worth traveling halfway across the world for!”

Hanging prayer flags at Land of Medicine Buddha, August 21, 2013. Photo courtesy of LMB’s Facebook page.

For more information and to register:
http://landofmedicinebuddha.org/events/foundation-service-seminar/

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