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The lamas arriving at Maroochydore Airport at the beginning of their Australian tour, September 1974. Others in the photo include Paul Bourke, Ven. Yeshe Khadro, Ven. Ann McNeil, Pete Northend, Lindsay & Elli Pratt, & Tom & Kathy Vichta. Photo retouched and courtesy of LYWA.
What begins as a box of old photographs can quietly become something much more — a living record of how the Dharma took root, spread, and touched countless lives.
When Chenrezig Institute began preparing for its 50th Anniversary celebrations in September 2024, Ven. Pende Hawter saw an opportunity. Tucked away in boxes and shelves in the library were decades of photographs — some more than 50 years old — documenting the full sweep of the Institute’s history. He began the patient work of scanning, editing, and cataloguing them, with the simple wish to make them accessible and easy to share.
Four years on, he is still at it — and the project has grown far beyond what he first imagined. What he originally expected would amount to around 2,000 photos has become a collection of more than 15,000, and the number keeps growing. Each image requires careful attention: checking for spots, blemishes, stains, and color, and a single photo can take 30 minutes or more to edit. Ven. Pende describes himself as very much still in the learning phase — though the fruits of that learning are already beautiful to see. You can glimpse a sample of the collection here.
After some research, he settled on Adobe Lightroom Creative Cloud as his tool of choice — a cloud-based platform that makes cataloguing and editing manageable even for a collection of this scale.
In his own words:
“Now that most of the photos are catalogued, I am slowly increasing my skills on the editing side, and it is enjoyable seeing old photos in not-so-good condition being freshened up and brought back to life.”
This work matters deeply — not just as an archiving project, but as an act of gratitude and responsibility toward those who came before us. From the very beginning, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche carried an extraordinary vision: to bring the Dharma to the West and make it accessible to generations of students who had never encountered it before. The early years of FPMT centers around the world were filled with remarkable effort, creativity, and devotion — students giving their time, energy, and heart to build something that had never existed before in their countries. Much of that history lives in photographs, quietly sitting in boxes, waiting to be found.
To let those images fade or be lost would be to lose something precious — not just images, but living proof of what is possible when people come together in the spirit of the Dharma. It is now to the present generation of students and practitioners to honor that inheritance and carry it forward. Preserving these records is itself an act of gratitude — a way to rejoice in the merit of those who built what we now enjoy and to ensure that future students will know where they come from.
Ven. Pende hopes that this project at Chenrezig Institute might encourage other FPMT centers to review what they have stored away and begin their own preservation journey. “This is such a valuable asset to the center, which can be accessed and built on long into the future. If any of the centers need advice about how to go about this, I am happy to help!”
If your FPMT center has a library of old photos waiting to be brought back to life, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Ven. Pende directly — he is genuinely happy to share what he has learned and support you in getting started.
A precious photo resource is also available to all: The LYWA Image Gallery offers an extensive collection of archival images of Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and their students, organized by year beginning in 1967 through 2014. Browse through the albums or search for particular content then watch a slideshow or download the image for your personal use. You might like to start with browsing the Hidden Gems gallery or portraits of Lama and Rinpoche.
Please explore all of the resources we have compiled related to FPMT history. We are currently collecting stories from students and centers that help document the incredibly rich history of the FPMT organization.
Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), is a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.