Lama Yeshe and Geoff Jukes, Kew Gardens, London, 1982. Photo courtesy Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

For more than three decades, the Meridian Trust has been documenting Buddhist teachings and traditions around the world. The UK-based organization has collected an archive of more than 2,500 hours of film and video, including rare footage of the generation of Tibetan lineage holders who first went into exile. Vicki Mackenzie shares the story of the Meridian Trust and its connection to FPMT.

Unbeknown to most Buddhist students, there is a stash of hidden treasure accessible through a mere tap of the fingertip. Faces, voices and words of the most venerable masters who managed to escape from Tibet, video of His Holiness the Dalai Lama receiving the Nobel Peace prize, extraordinary footage from Tibet itself of its culture and historical events, and little gems of meetings between students and gurus. It’s accessible through the Meridian Trust website, an archive of over 2,500 hours of footage that has recorded the vanishing Tibetan traditions. And it is the brain child of Geoff Jukes, a long-term British student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and manager of some of the biggest names in the British music industry. 

“The late 1970s and early 1980s, was an extraordinary time to meet the Dharma,” Geoff said. “There seemed to be an unending supply of these very rare beings, who appeared in our midst, the repositories of the unique Tibetan culture that was rapidly vanishing. It became very clear to me what an extraordinary window of opportunity we had been given, and it wasn’t going to go on forever. I wanted to record and preserve it for future generations. I discussed it with Lama Yeshe, and he was very enthusiastic.”

Geoff pulled together a group of people, friends, and friends of friends, and with his professional access to sound and video equipment started recording. At the beginning they filmed the Tibetan masters who Lama Yeshe boldly persuaded to come to the UK to teach at his newly formed FPMT centers—eminent teachers such as His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, Tsenshab Serkong Rinpoche, Geshe Dargye, Serkong Rinpoche, and of course Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. “We all acted from the heart,” Geoff said. “In the early days it was remarkably easy, because the teachers were so available.”

Screenshot of Meridian Trust Digital Archive Service page

The project took a giant leap forward in 1985 when Geoff and his team approached His Holiness the Dalai Lama to ask if it were appropriate to continue filming the lamas. His Holiness not only approved but instructed that all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism should be included as well as Bon. “His Holiness gave us a list of the teachers and the commentaries that they were known for, to be recorded for posterity. He understood that it was vital that we capture something that was passing.”

In 1985 Meridian Trust was born, the name created by Greta Jensen, a founding trustee and camera person, signifying the global line of longitude where two cultures meet.

Today, more than thirty years later, Meridian Trust are still filming and offer a cornucopia of inspiring, instructive, and valuable footage. Following the Dalai Lama’s advice, they have filmed teachers from all schools, including Kalu Rinpoche, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, Khensur Ngawang Nyima, Lati Rinpoche, Senje Choden Rinpoche, and many others. There are interviews with leading painters, sculptors, and weavers. There is footage following Namkhai Norbu and a group of pilgrims to the holy mountain of Kailash and the hidden kingdom of Shang Shung. You can also find hours of video of the His Holiness the Dalai Lama, including the first Kalachakra initiation in Europe, held in Rikon, Switzerland in 1985; his private audiences; his appearance, arranged by Geoff, at the famous Glastonbury Pop Festival in 2015; and his public talk with the comedian and author Russell Brand in 2012.

Meridian Trust homepage

“For me, however, it’s the early films that are particularly precious because no-one else was doing it then,” said Geoff. “We caught some iconic FPMT moments such as His Holiness’s and Lama Yeshe’s teachings at Institut Vajra Yogini in France and at Istituto Lama Tsong Khapa in Italy in 1981. Many FPMT centers do not realize the special, iconic moments we’ve captured and which are available to them.”

In recent years Meridian Trust has broadened its scope to reflect how Dharma is evolving in the West through a variety of emerging Buddhist teachers like Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Ven. Robina Courtin, Alan B. Wallace, and others, as well as Tenzin Osel Hita (Lama Yeshe’s reincarnation).

Greta Jensen recalls how things have changed for over the years:

“At the beginning the equipment was so large we had to hire big cars to carry it all around. It was like lugging furniture about. I remember setting up in Bodhgaya to film the Kalachakra. The Dalai Lama and a retinue of monks were on the stage going around the mandala staking it out before it began. I was trying to get these huge, thick sound cables in place. One had got stuck behind His Holiness’s throne, and I crawled along to untangle it when I came face to face with the Dalai Lama, who had seen the problem and had freed it. ‘Here you are,’ he said. There were lots of wonderful moments. I remember filming the meeting between His Holiness and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Basil Hume. I locked him out, but managed to get him in finally.”

Today, Meridian Trust has digitized all its work, making it available worldwide for different audiences: Buddhist, scholars, adventurers.

Screenshot of videos in Historical category on Meridian Trust website

“As more Chinese are engaging in their spiritual traditions, there may come a time when they will appreciate more what the Tibetans have to offer,” said Marie Beresford, trustee and long-term member of the Meridian team.

Meridian Trust has recently handed over a copy of the entire archive to the Tibetan Library of Works and Archives in India to be held for posterity. The trust has also over the years trained Tibetan film crews working for the library to document their own history.

“It’s very exciting for the Tibetan people to see not only His Holiness in Western countries but also their own land and culture. I feel as if Meridian Trust is paying homage, giving back something of the enormous treasure the Tibetans have given to us,” said Geoff. 

Meridian is expanding its scope by launching a new, updated website (meridian-trust.org) in January 2021, which will include podcasts and articles covering a wide range of Dharma subjects.

Visit the Meridian Trust online to watch videos and learn more about the video archive.

Vicki Mackenzie is a British journalist who has written for the national and inter national press for over forty years. Her articles have appeared in The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail and many magazines in Britain and Australia. She’s also the international best-selling author of Cave in the Snow; Reincarnation: The Boy Lama; Child of Tibet; Reborn in the West: The Reincarnation Masters; and Why Buddhism? Westerners in Search of Wisdom. Her latest book is The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun, published in March 2017 by Shambhala Publications and available in the Foundation Store. She has been a student of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche since 1976.