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Screenshot of the Meridian Trust website homepage.
For more than three decades, the Meridian Trust has been using film and video to document Buddhist teachings and traditions around the world. The UK-based organization has collected an archive of more than 3,500 hours of footage, including rare recordings of the generation of Tibetan lineage holders who first went into exile. Meridian Trust was founded by Geoff Jukes, a long-time British student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and manager of some of the biggest names in the British music industry.
Screenshot of the Meridian Trust’s “category” section of their new website.
Now, Meridian’s precious and inspiring content is reaching an even wider audience with their new website. Director of Projects Kaska Phuntsok and Administrative Director Emma Lewis have been working with Copenhagen-based web developers We Add Motion to transform Meridian’s film streaming site.
The new site hosts Meridian’s historic film and video archive as well as new content. The team has spent the last two years editing almost forty years’ worth of Dharma materials—eighty-nine collections—jointly with the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. This content is now presented in a simple and clear way through easy-to-navigate categories, such as for culture and teachers, enabling visitors of the site to find what they are looking for (or perhaps didn’t realize they were looking for!) with ease.
Screenshot of the Meridian Trust’s website.
One video FPMT students might particularly appreciate is “Extracting the Essence,” which is two interviews with Lama Yeshe, recorded in 1982 and 1983. In the video Lama Yeshe tells his personal life story and how his involvement with Western Buddhist students evolved, including the development of the FMPT organization. Lama Yeshe also responds to questions about his personal vision for the future development and consolidation of Dharma centers in the West and gives detailed practical advice on how to extract the essence of Buddha’s teachings as they become integrated into our Western way of life.
About the new website, Meridian Trust writes, “The responses we have received so far have been heart-warming. We hope the result will delight Dharma students. We are looking forward to bringing more content into our translations area, continuing our filming work, and promoting the site, to bring the message of Tibetan Buddhism compassion and wisdom to a new audience.”
You can read more about the history of the Meridian Trust and its connection to FPMT in Vickie Mackenzie’s in-depth story, “Preserving the Past for Future Generations: The Meridian Trust Documents the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition as It Grows in the West.”
Visit the Meridian Trust online to watch videos and learn more about the video archive.
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