To establishing good quality monasteries and nunneries, with good quality Sangha to preserve the Dharma by having people practicing vinaya. To provide support to the FPMT Sangha and the monasteries and nunneries.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the organization to continue establishing good quality monasteries and nunneries, with good quality Sangha in order to preserve the Dharma by having people practicing vinaya.
• For the organization to provide support to the FPMT Sangha and the monasteries and nunneries.

Supporting Sangha is a high priority for FPMT and for over 40 years the organization has been offering support to monasteries in Nepal, India, Mongolia and the West.

Fourteen of FPMT’s centers have established monastic communities, nine of these are outside of Nepal and India.

FPMT has been able to establish long term support for Sera Je Monastery with US$5.2 million endowment and a US$2.1 million endowment for Gyudmed Monastery, the interest from these endowments covers all the food for the Sangha.

The Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and Lama Yeshe Sangha Fund offers grants support Sangha, helping to fulfill this vision.  

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, USA, September 2008.

We need to have more retreat places to study the path, we should have many around the world, so it is easy for people, and they don’t have to travel very far, and have full knowledge of how to build them, how to make them as perfect as possible for meditation.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• Have more retreat places in different parts of the world.
• Organize retreat places for people who want to completely sacrifice their lives to actualize the lam-rim realizations and also shiné.
• Have a group of people there to meditate and gain realizations by actualizing the lam-rim in retreat. This is what is needed for the
• FPMT organization to develop for the benefit of sentient beings.
• To have some discussion with people who have done retreat, to see what is needed for a retreat place. Then to make a general outline.
• The kind of retreats to do are the nyundros, lam-rim and actualizing the Three Principals of the Path, these are the main ones, then secondary is the tantra two stages.

Rinpoche also gave specific advice about his plans for this vision:

“For there to be a group of people to meditate and gain realizations and this is what is needed for the FPMT organization to develop for the benefit of sentient beings. It is a very, very, very important project because the extensive study of philosophy is something that is already being done in the FPMT, however, meditating and actualizing the lam-rim in retreat, that is something else. We really need the lam-rim realizations in the heart. It’s not easy to attain shiné, even for those who completely dedicate their lives to this.

“It would be good to have a retreat place for people who want to completely sacrifice their lives to actualize the lam-rim realizations and also shiné. Khadro-la [Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Tseringma Rinpoche] suggested that Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in Washington State, US, could be one such place.”

FPMT has many facilities conducive to long-term retreat such as Land of Calm Abiding in California, United States. 

The Practice and Retreat Fund provides grants and sponsorships toward students engaged in long-term retreat and to develop retreat centers.

Anybody who dedicates their life to achieving lam-rim realizations with the goal to liberate numberless beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and to bring to enlightenment, this is what I regard as the most important thing in the world.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the organization to support the older students who have worked so hard for the organization, who sacrificed their lives for the organization for 25 years or more, or also for people who have offered 20 or 15 years. To help those who need help for treatment or means for living. Need to think about how to help them, so they get something back from the organization. 
• The plan would be to help them for the rest of their life. If there is a lot of funds, then we can give some money like a retirement pension. Maybe we could offer the coffin for free (joke).
• To sponsor a retreat place where people can retire with many holy objects. If they want to do retreat (or not) at the end of their lives. They can retire to a place with many holy objects that will purify their minds and so they can collect extensive merit the easiest way.
• Some place very serene, very peaceful for the mind. So, it is easy to collect merit and practice dharma, develop devotion, compassion and have contentment and therefore quick enlightenment.
• First start with the Sangha then the lay people, it also depends on how much funds we have.

The Lama Yeshe Sangha Fund, was established to take care of the International Mahayana Institute, FPMT’s monastic community, by ensuring that the Sangha have appropriate accommodation; have proper food and nourishment; have access to proper medical care; have a supportive environment and conditions for retreat; and are cared for when sick and elderly.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 100 Million Mani Mantra retreat, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, November 2017.

This is one of my dreams, to have 100 Million Mani Retreats each year and for it to continue forever, even after I die, even after the people living now die. Those who are working, offering service now—to continue even after they die; to continue for as long as the country exists.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the organization to establish 100,000 recitations of 100
  million Om Mani Padme Hum mantras. This can be retreats of
  100 million recitations, in different parts of the world and for
  the retreats to happen regularly, each year.
• For the retreats to be sponsored by the organization.
• If an individual person is doing 100 million manis, then for the
  organization to sponsor the person.
• Create a plan on how to lead the retreat of 100 million mani
  recitations: what practices to do, how to schedule the retreat,
  the whole structure. Once you have a structure then it is easy
  for people to lead the retreat.
• Also, you can make mani pills in the retreats.

Chenrezig Institute, Australia, FPMT Mongolia, Mongolia, Rinchen Jangsem Ling, Malaysia and Tashi Chime Gatsal Nunnery in Nepal are offering 100 million Mani retreats annually.

As of 2025 there have been 42 x 100 million Mani retreats offered, 99,999,958 Mani retreats to go.

The Practice and Retreat Fund provides grants and sponsorships to students engaged in retreats such as 108 Nyung Nä retreats, 100 million mani retreats, recitations of sutras, and long-term retreat and to develop retreat centers.

Ven. Charles, Valentino Giacomin and participants of 108 Nyung Nas at Institut Vajra Yogini, France, 2018.

Nyung Na does not just purify many eons of negative karma, especially developing compassion, which means bodhicitta, it makes us so much closer to enlightenment, so close to being able to enlighten all sentient beings, which is our ultimate goal in life. It also brings you closer to the Guru-Compassion Buddha.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For FPMT to sponsor the retreats of people who make a serious commitment in this life to practice such as doing 1,000 nyung näs.
• People who have completed 1,000 Nyung Näs in their life should have a special title, something to do with Chenrezig.
• Main thing is for the Nyung Nä retreats be sponsored by the organization. The idea is to start as a project and then for the whole organization to sponsor, or to sponsor the food or lodging.

Institut Vajra Yogini offers 108 Nyung Nä group retreats each year, and in 2025 has completed an amazing fourteen 108 Nyung Nä retreats!

The Practice and Retreat Fund provides grants and sponsorships to students engaged in retreats such as 108 Nyung Nä retreats, 100 million mani retreats, recitations of sutras, and long-term retreat and to develop retreat centers.

Rinpoche offering a puja in Kopan Monastery, Nepal, March 2020.

The merit that is created from all these pujas is also your merit. So, you can dedicate all these merits to having realizations and to achieve enlightenment.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the pujas go on forever, or for as long as these monasteries last. Even if one is in the hell realm, but the pujas are still going on, even when one is born as ant, crawling on the ground or on the trees, but the pujas are still going on in the human world, in the monasteries.
• I would like this to continue, after I am dead, making the offerings to the stupas, Boudha stupa and Swayambunath, the statue in Tibet, Jowo and the Buddha statue in Bodhgaya, offering robes, offering gold, every month. So, for these to continue, even I’m dead, for these to be continued by the organization.
• All the pujas arranged by the Puja Fund have been all chosen by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, to benefit the organization and help to overcome obstacles, and collect merit.
• The pujas are offered on each Buddha Day when the merit is multiplied 100 million times and on other special days.
• The pujas are offered in Monasteries and Nunneries where the Sangha are disciplines of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (pores of the same guru).
• The offering to the Sangha made in the pujas, helps to support them.

The Puja Fund sponsors ongoing pujas by thousands of Sangha, these powerful prayers are dedicated for the benefit of all beings – particularly all of those within the FPMT organization, and every donor who contributes to this fund. 

Rinpoche offering the oral transmission of the Sutra of Golden Light. Tushita Meditation Centre, Delhi, India, March 2018.

Reciting the Sutra of Golden Light is the most beneficial thing to bring peace, everyone should try to do this, no matter how busy they are, even to recite one or two pages, even a few lines.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For FPMT to sponsor people to go to countries experiencing war or disasters, to read the Sutra of Golden Light.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche made a personal vow to preserve and propagate the Sutra of Golden Light and gave the oral transmission over 20 times.

It was Rinpoche’s wish to translate all three versions of the Sutra of Golden Light from Tibetan, making them available in as many languages as possible, these translations are well underway. 

To date there have been 58,887 recitations of the Sutra of Golden Light in more than 90 countries.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised “Anybody who wants peace in the world should read the Sutra of Golden Light. This is a very important practice to stop violence and wars in the world. The Sutra of Golden Light is one of the most beneficial ways to bring peace. This is something that everyone can do, no matter how busy you are, even if you can read one page a day, or a few lines and in this way you are continually reading the Sutra of Golden Light. 

“When you read the Sutra of Golden Light you also read the “mantra without attachment.” This practice is within the text. The benefits of reciting just this mantra: Even all the material possessions, all the human wealth, especially all the wealth of the deva realms (asuras and suras) cannot compare to the value of this mantra. It is nothing compared to this mantra. You collect limitless skies of benefit and merit by even just reciting one word of this mantra. So by reciting the whole text is unbelievably beneficial, one collects extensive merit, liberates numberless sentient beings from the oceans of suffering and brings them to enlightenment.” To read all the benefits that Rinpoche explained on that day regarding this sutra.

FPMT has created a resource page to help you learn more about and start reciting the Sutra of Golden Light (21-Chapter edition). You can download the sutra in 12 languages, report completed recitations, share your experiences, and ask questions about the text itself.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche writing the Prajnaparamita Sutra, 2021.

Even writing one letter or syllable from the Prajnaparamita, the benefits you receive are unbelievable, unbelievable, more than making skies of extensive offerings to all the Buddhas for so many eons. The merits are far more greater than that.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• I want the writing of the Prajnaparamita Sutra to continue for as long as FPMT exists. Even when completing the twelve volumes of the sutra currently in process, then to start writing the sutra again, and for it to be continually written.
• For it to be written in the best handwriting, with gold ink, on rainbow archival paper and to have several monks [and nuns] at Kopan writing it out.
• My idea is even when I’m dead, for the work to be continued, the writing of the Prajnaparamita Sutra.
• The writing of the Prajnaparamita Sutra is being done to create cause to build the Maitreya Statue, but also for other projects in FPMT, to do that you need to create the cause, to create merit.
• When you build statues or stupas, even you are dead, you may be in hell, somewhere far away from this universe, but then the stupa or statue you build, it still benefits sentient beings, for as long as it exists, continuously life to life, anybody who sees, it brings them to enlightenment, from life to life wherever you are born it benefits sentient beings all the time, as long as it can last, however many years it lasts, hundred years. So, like that I thought to continue the gold writing.

Ven. Tsering, a Kopan monk, has been writing the Prajnaparamita Sutra continually since 2002.

The Prajnaparamita Project provides the material resources needed to support the efforts to write out the Prajnaparamita Sutra.

The whole point of our FPMT education programs is not to produce ‘sharp minds’ but to ‘subdue the mind.’ Between an intelligent, sharp mind and a good heart, a good heart is the most important. Without a good heart it is only possible to become an arhat. Good heart means subduing the mind.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• We should increase the number of centers offering Master Program and Basic Program.
• We should have more Buddhist Universities, like Maitripa College, and have in different parts of the world. Graduates from Maitripa can then teach in those different Universities.
• For the organization to provide scholarships for students to study Buddhist philosophy based on the lam-rim and lojong: academic studies with practice experience.
• We need teachers who are not just teaching from texts, but teaching from some experience, then there is so much more benefit. By teaching from one’s experience it brings deeper benefit. Then there is change and transformation of the mind.
• Scholarship – can also mean providing rooms for the students. But this depends on the center, as some centers have many rooms where they can stay and study.
• Also means sponsoring the students’ expenses. This one is happening but to continue and develop more.

The Education and Preservation Fund supports Dharma study and contributes to the development of Buddhist education programs and the preservation of the Dharma through the publication of Dharma practice materials and translations.

The Chair of FDCW’s Board of Trustees, Oi Loon Lee, at Akshay School, Bodhgaya, India, December 2023.

With an attitude of universal responsibility, from morning to night our actions become Dharma. They are virtuous, or positive, the unmistaken causes of happiness. Since everything—happiness and suffering—comes from our own mind, we have great freedom to stop suffering and to find happiness.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the organization to develop Universal Education more and similar programs in order to develop better human beings, to have more beneficial lives, to bring peace and happiness in the world, to not become harmful to oneself and others.

The Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom offers a wide range of training, courses and resources to support you on every step of this journey towards a happier life.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Tibet, blessing a sick person, June 2002.

Helping one patient by giving medicine or whatever comfort, physical or mental, that you can give; this becomes the best offering to all the numberless bodhisattvas and buddhas.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the organization to develop different techniques rooted in Dharma for healing, to help others, in this way, we are making others lives much easier and happier.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche created many resources to help people, such as books on death and dying, on healing, Liberation cloth, Liberation box, mantras to listen to, practice advice for various illnesses, protections to sit under and Rinpoche had the plan to create a healing hut, that has protections all over the roof and then people can sit inside for healing.

A number of FPMT centers offer healing programs for terminally ill people and eight FPMT centers are now offering hospice programs to those in their final days of life including Karuna Hospice.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the children and parents of Kadampa Center’s Family Camp, North Carolina, USA, September 2017.

I started thinking of ways in which compassion could be regularly encouraged in young people, and it was then that I visualized Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth—an organization that focuses on educating both the heart and the mind with peaceful ideals. I pictured this organization in many countries, especially those countries with a lot of violence, and understood that with a focus on compassion, we could help young people’s lives grow happier and more peaceful and assist them in finding true fulfillment through the education of a good heart.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the organization to help young people through meditation and consultation, and also helping, like with volunteer service, and for that to be part of the practice. This brings immediate benefit, so we don’t have to wait for many years, something immediate that you can offer to others.

There have been many initiatives aimed at benefiting young people including Tara Redwood School, Creating Compassionate Cultures, and other children programs and family camps at FPMT centers.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave a talk to the children and their parents in Munich, Germany, November 2018.

When you do Lama Chöpa and the lam-rim prayer, visualize your child next to you and request blessings of all the realizations, not only for yourself but also for your child, as well as for all the sentient beings.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For parents to have a good plan on how to bring up children.
• If it’s a Buddhist family, then of course Buddhism is very clear, it has the most profound depth and methods and guidelines from Buddha’s teachings. But if the family is not Buddhist, then how to bring up in universal way.
• Most important is how to educate children in compassion and kindness – and for the parents themselves to become models.
• We can makea a guidebook for parents and organize and give lectures for parents.
• As His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, the future world depends on the young children now – so if you have children with good qualities, with basic education in being a good human being, if parents bring up children with these qualities, then the future world would have more peace.
• The parents themselves have to be educated before they try with their children. They need a clear plan.

“So the parents themselves have to be educated before they try with their children. So they need a clear plan. Not just to make children out of attachment, for their own comfort, for their own needs and desire. Like keeping a pet. If it is like this then later they will suffer so much, especially the children will disappoint them, like when they try alcohol or engage in killing, stealing, etc. Then the parents will suffer. It becomes like hell and then so many years that they sacrificed their life for their children, it will become a disappointment and meaningless, and also because all of it was done with attachment and non-virtuous thought – so it becomes negative karma. Because it was not done with a sincere heart, the pure mind, loving-kindness.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given extensive advice about children and parenting.

• For FPMT to start a drug rehabilitation project, particularly a Buddhist drug rehabilitation project similar to the Christian programs that already exist.
• Another one can be a universal (non-Buddhist) drug rehabilitation project.

Residents of Lugsam Tibetan Settlement Old Age Home Bylakuppe, India, 2024.

Buddhists shouldn’t just give the charity of food and shelter to the elderly. We have to offer Dharma to them as well. If you don’t do these things to help the elderly practice Dharma, it is no different than giving an animal food and shelter. You are giving material support, but for the mind—nothing.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For FPMT to offer social services to help the elderly.

Many FPMT centers host programs for elderly members including Amitabha Buddhist Center in Singapore and Kurukulla Center in Boston, USA.

Through the Social Services Fund substantial support is been given to many elderly homes for Tibetan refugees in India.

The Social Services Fund focuses in offering support primarily in India, Nepal, Tibet and Mongolia. Funds help children, the elderly, sick, and very poor through grants for schools, hospices, health clinics, soup kitchens, elderly homes, orphanages and more.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the unveiling of the St. Francis of Assisi statue in the Peace Park at the Great Stupa, Bendigo, Australia, May 2018.

There are many religions in the world, such as Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and so forth. These different religions are needed. It’s like having different clothes or different kinds of food in a restaurant; we need variety for different people. Christianity is needed for people who have the karma to devote themselves to Christianity and Hinduism is needed for those who have the karma to devote themselves to Hinduism and so forth. We must respect other religions … because many people in the world need Christianity and the other religions for their happiness. Therefore, we must respect that.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• For the organization to arrange talks with many religious leaders in the world. To have this as a reoccurring event. So, this is the big way.
• Then to do this in a small way for the centers to do this with religious leaders in their local community.
• To arrange interfaith events with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The more that other religious people come to know about His Holiness and understand more and more, it is so effective and can help for world peace. In this way the organization becomes a tool for world peace.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing six goats that were purchased and saved from the butcher, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, May 2021.

If fewer people eat meat, it means that fewer animals will suffer and have to be killed. Fewer people eating meat means less animal meat being sold in the shops. For everyone in the world to completely stop eating meat, hasn’t happened yet, because of the karma of sentient beings, but we can try, to have less consumption, we can try and that can happen.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• When I was in the hospital, I saw a program about animals that were sold to be killed in other countries. I thought I don’t have power to stop all this killing, but what I can do is to try to inspire people to become vegetarian and since then whatever teaching I am giving, even if it is Tantra, I am trying to talk to people about becoming vegetarian, to avoid eating meat or to eat less meat so that there is less animals getting killed.
• I’m not saying that every person can’t eat meat, but I want encourage this.
• The reason is that the less people eat meat, the fewer animals will be killed and will have to suffer.

“If fewer people eat meat, it means that fewer animals will suffer and have to be killed. Fewer people eating meat means less animal meat being sold in the shops. For everyone in the world to completely stop eating meat, hasn’t happened yet, because of the karma of sentient beings, but we can try, to have less consumption, we can try and that can happen.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche spent many years creating a vegetarian cookbook to inspire more people to enjoy and eat vegetarian food – soon to be published! 

Animal Blessing event that over 700 people attended in Moscow, Russia, September 2019.

The best way to benefit animals is to take them around holy objects: statues, stupas and scriptures. In your garden or your house, the sitting room, wherever there is space, you should set up a nice table with another smaller table on top. Put many holy objects (statues, stupas, scriptures) on the tables. It’s good to fill up the table with manytsa-tsas, nicely arranged, not like putting garbage in a garbage can. This helps to purify the negative karma collected from beginningless rebirths and collects extensive merit. It plants the seed of enlightenment.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche

• Many people don’t come to centers to attend teachings but have pets and would go to an event for their animals.
• The animal blessing can be in a park where mantras are recited, and the animals are circumambulated around holy objects on a table. The animals and the people hear the mantras, circumambulate the holy objects, also water can be blessed and given to the animals. The pets and the people get so much benefit from these events.
• The animal blessings can be in public places and children can come and people who are interested, who don’t come to the center much, can come.
• There needs to be one table that is piled high with holy objects, specifically stupas with the Four Dharmakaya relic mantras, mantras can be chanted then blown on water, in this way blessing it and then sprinkled over the animals.
• There needs good advertising, so more people come.

Taking care of all sentient beings, including insects and animals, is a high priority for Lama Zopa Rinpoche and FPMT has a number of animal projects including the Animal Liberation Fund, Animal Liberation Sanctuary and MAITRI Charitable Trust. Many centers host regular animal blessings in parks and public places.

In addition to the weekly animal liberations offered by the Sangha at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, Sangha also make regular trips to different lakes in order to bless all the beings living in the water, by using large Namgyälma mantra boards. Rinpoche also designed animal liberation tools that can be used to catch and benefit small creatures.

As an incredible example of the work being done for animals around the world, Amitabha Buddhist Centre and Ven. Tenzin Drachom have liberated over 200 million animals to date!