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Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition
The FPMT is an organization devoted to preserving and spreading Mahayana Buddhism worldwide by creating opportunities to listen, reflect, meditate, practice and actualize the unmistaken teachings of the Buddha and based on that experience spreading the Dharma to sentient beings. We provide integrated education through which people’s minds and hearts can be transformed into their highest potential for the benefit of others, inspired by an attitude of universal responsibility and service. We are committed to creating harmonious environments and helping all beings develop their full potential of infinite wisdom and compassion. Our organization is based on the Buddhist tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa of Tibet as taught to us by our founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.
- Willkommen
Die Stiftung zur Erhaltung der Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) ist eine Organisation, die sich weltweit für die Erhaltung und Verbreitung des Mahayana-Buddhismus einsetzt, indem sie Möglichkeiten schafft, den makellosen Lehren des Buddha zuzuhören, über sie zur reflektieren und zu meditieren und auf der Grundlage dieser Erfahrung das Dharma unter den Lebewesen zu verbreiten.
Wir bieten integrierte Schulungswege an, durch denen der Geist und das Herz der Menschen in ihr höchstes Potential verwandelt werden zum Wohl der anderen – inspiriert durch eine Haltung der universellen Verantwortung und dem Wunsch zu dienen. Wir haben uns verpflichtet, harmonische Umgebungen zu schaffen und allen Wesen zu helfen, ihr volles Potenzial unendlicher Weisheit und grenzenlosen Mitgefühls zu verwirklichen.
Unsere Organisation basiert auf der buddhistischen Tradition von Lama Tsongkhapa von Tibet, so wie sie uns von unseren Gründern Lama Thubten Yeshe und Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche gelehrt wird.
- Bienvenidos
La Fundación para la preservación de la tradición Mahayana (FPMT) es una organización que se dedica a preservar y difundir el budismo Mahayana en todo el mundo, creando oportunidades para escuchar, reflexionar, meditar, practicar y actualizar las enseñanzas inconfundibles de Buda y en base a esa experiencia difundir el Dharma a los seres.
Proporcionamos una educación integrada a través de la cual las mentes y los corazones de las personas se pueden transformar en su mayor potencial para el beneficio de los demás, inspirados por una actitud de responsabilidad y servicio universales. Estamos comprometidos a crear ambientes armoniosos y ayudar a todos los seres a desarrollar todo su potencial de infinita sabiduría y compasión.
Nuestra organización se basa en la tradición budista de Lama Tsongkhapa del Tíbet como nos lo enseñaron nuestros fundadores Lama Thubten Yeshe y Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
A continuación puede ver una lista de los centros y sus páginas web en su lengua preferida.
- Bienvenue
L’organisation de la FPMT a pour vocation la préservation et la diffusion du bouddhisme du mahayana dans le monde entier. Elle offre l’opportunité d’écouter, de réfléchir, de méditer, de pratiquer et de réaliser les enseignements excellents du Bouddha, pour ensuite transmettre le Dharma à tous les êtres. Nous proposons une formation intégrée grâce à laquelle le cœur et l’esprit de chacun peuvent accomplir leur potentiel le plus élevé pour le bien d’autrui, inspirés par le sens du service et une responsabilité universelle. Nous nous engageons à créer un environnement harmonieux et à aider tous les êtres à épanouir leur potentiel illimité de compassion et de sagesse. Notre organisation s’appuie sur la tradition guéloukpa de Lama Tsongkhapa du Tibet, telle qu’elle a été enseignée par nos fondateurs Lama Thoubtèn Yéshé et Lama Zopa Rinpoché.
Visitez le site de notre Editions Mahayana pour les traductions, conseils et nouvelles du Bureau international en français.
Voici une liste de centres et de leurs sites dans votre langue préférée
- Benvenuto
L’FPMT è un organizzazione il cui scopo è preservare e diffondere il Buddhismo Mahayana nel mondo, creando occasioni di ascolto, riflessione, meditazione e pratica dei perfetti insegnamenti del Buddha, al fine di attualizzare e diffondere il Dharma fra tutti gli esseri senzienti.
Offriamo un’educazione integrata, che può trasformare la mente e i cuori delle persone nel loro massimo potenziale, per il beneficio di tutti gli esseri, ispirati da un’attitudine di responsabilità universale e di servizio.
Il nostro obiettivo è quello di creare contesti armoniosi e aiutare tutti gli esseri a sviluppare in modo completo le proprie potenzialità di infinita saggezza e compassione.
La nostra organizzazione si basa sulla tradizione buddhista di Lama Tsongkhapa del Tibet, così come ci è stata insegnata dai nostri fondatori Lama Thubten Yeshe e Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Di seguito potete trovare un elenco dei centri e dei loro siti nella lingua da voi prescelta.
- 欢迎 / 歡迎
简体中文
“护持大乘法脉基金会”( 英文简称:FPMT。全名:Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition) 是一个致力于护持和弘扬大乘佛法的国际佛教组织。我们提供听闻,思维,禅修,修行和实证佛陀无误教法的机会,以便让一切众生都能够享受佛法的指引和滋润。
我们全力创造和谐融洽的环境, 为人们提供解行并重的完整佛法教育,以便启发内在的环宇悲心及责任心,并开发内心所蕴藏的巨大潜能 — 无限的智慧与悲心 — 以便利益和服务一切有情。
FPMT的创办人是图腾耶喜喇嘛和喇嘛梭巴仁波切。我们所修习的是由两位上师所教导的,西藏喀巴大师的佛法传承。
繁體中文
護持大乘法脈基金會”( 英文簡稱:FPMT。全名:Found
ation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition ) 是一個致力於護持和弘揚大乘佛法的國際佛教組織。我們提供聽聞, 思維,禪修,修行和實證佛陀無誤教法的機會,以便讓一切眾生都能 夠享受佛法的指引和滋潤。 我們全力創造和諧融洽的環境,
為人們提供解行並重的完整佛法教育,以便啟發內在的環宇悲心及責 任心,並開發內心所蘊藏的巨大潛能 — 無限的智慧與悲心 – – 以便利益和服務一切有情。 FPMT的創辦人是圖騰耶喜喇嘛和喇嘛梭巴仁波切。
我們所修習的是由兩位上師所教導的,西藏喀巴大師的佛法傳承。 察看道场信息:
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Buddhism is not at all a tactful religion, always trying to avoid giving offense. Buddhism addresses precisely what you are and what your mind is doing in the here and now. That’s what makes it so interesting.
Lama Thubten Yeshe
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The Foundation Store is FPMT’s online shop and features a vast selection of Buddhist study and practice materials written or recommended by our lineage gurus. These items include homestudy programs, prayers and practices in PDF or eBook format, materials for children, and other resources to support practitioners.
Items displayed in the shop are made available for Dharma practice and educational purposes, and never for the purpose of profiting from their sale. Please read FPMT Foundation Store Policy Regarding Dharma Items for more information.
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Unashamedly Beautiful Housing for Melbourne’s Elderly Homeless
In August, Wintringham, a not-for-profit welfare company in Melbourne, Australia, celebrated its tenth year of providing the elderly homeless with affordable housing and high quality care services. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Bryan Lipmann was awarded the Order of Australia this year for his work.
“We were appalled that the elderly homeless didn’t have access to mainstream aged-care service; we felt they should be entitled to the same services the rest of Australians take for granted,” said Bryan.
In 1997 Wintringham won a United Nations World Habitat Award for their “excellent innovative housing”: the Port Melbourne hostel, and the other seven Wintringham facilities, were designed by Melbourne architect Allen Kong, who uses feng-shui in his.
“We’ve got eight facilities, about 300 beds, and a staff of 120,” says Bryan. “The environments we build are beautiful, unashamedly beautiful. People respond to their environments in ways we’re only beginning to understand – they respond to a calm and dignified environment.”
After years of living in the bush, Bryan began working with the homeless in 1989, at a night shelter in Melbourne called Gordon House.
He talked to Mandala in August.
How many homeless people are there in Australia? How many in Melbourne?
It is always very difficult to estimate the number of homeless in any city or country. It so much depends on how you define a homeless person (are they roofless or is it just that they are living in appalling circumstances without the supports that we would ordinarily associate with home?). The Council to Homeless Persons in Victoria estimated in 1997/98 that there were 166,000 homeless persons in Australia (population 18.7 million), and in Melbourne (population 3.2 million) there are said to be some 30,000 homeless. But these figures only count those people using homeless persons services and not those who are outside the system. You could probably add a third or a half again to get total figures.
How many actually live on the street?
Same problem in answering this question. The real question is not how many there are on the streets but how many are living terrible lives in frightening circumstances unable to access the kinds of aged-care support that the rest of the community takes for granted. Almost everyone living in marginal conditions such as poor housing, lack of income, disabilities, lack of social supports, etc. are vulnerable to becoming homeless. The unfortunate fact is that for many aged people who become homeless, the journey is often a permanent one. Very few elderly homeless people can escape the cycle of poverty and desperation that is associated with life on the streets.
How did you get involved with homeless people?
During my last few years in the bush, we owned a small farm. We had to do outside work to make it pay. This was in Queensland, in the northeast of the country. While some of that work was working on other farms, I also got a job working with unemployed youth in the local township. Increasingly I found more interest in that than the farm work. I would get up in the morning, do some farming, go home and change, go into the town to work with the kids for a while, then go back home and start farming.
I found that while I was alone I started thinking about these kids more than the farming, and in the end we dedicated to give up farming to go back to the city. The bloke who employed me told me I should try to get some training. It’s obviously difficult to go back to the city in your mid-30s when you’ve only got farming skills – not much demand for economists who’ve never practiced. I actually did re-train for two years, and we had to live off the money my wife and I’d accumulated working in the bush. It wasn’t much to go on. My wife had returned to painting; she’s an artist. That’s another reason we returned to the city – so she could re-establish her painting career.
One of the placements I had while I was re-training was at Gordon House, and I loved it – I just loved it. I was offered work there straight away.
What is Gordon House?
Gordon House is gone now, but it was a night shelter. It’s where homeless people come to sleep for the night. This was a little different than most of them. It was one of the largest ones in Melbourne at the time. I just loved working there and felt for the first time that I’d found something I liked so much I would try and stick with it.
There were three large night shelters in Melbourne up until a few years ago. They have largely been redeveloped or pulled down and replaced with more targeted services that address the individual needs of people on a “case management system” rather than just give someone a roof over their heads for a few days. In most other cities in Australia and overseas (particularly the US) the large night shelters still exist – some of which temporarily house many hundreds every night.
Did you find this more inspiring than working with young people?
There were young people there too – all ages, really. Gordon House was all ages and all sexes, which is quite unusual for night shelters. Usually night shelters are single-sex. There were couple-month old babies there all the way to people in their 90s. Like all night shelters it was very violent – people were being raped and murdered.
There were also terrific acts of kindness there, and a real feeling of community. It was a tough community, and in a lot of ways, a degrading community, but there was a real sense of vitality and life there, which I thrived on. I also had some really good colleagues, whom I enjoyed working with, some of whom I’ve remained in touch with for 20 years now.
Where did the vitality and life come from?
People living on the edge. Somebody once told me that life in a night shelter alternates between numbing boredom and white terror. There will be absolutely nothing happening, you’re just sitting around. You won’t even be reading, just sitting there and staring into space, then all of a sudden this dramatic incident will happen – a fight or an eviction or a screaming match where a person has been de-institutionalized from a psychiatric ward and is going on a rampage and being caught up in a maelstrom.
I think the people involved in this work are all pretty passionate about social justice issues, about working long hours and being stressed. I suppose the types of people who were there impacted on it. They were very on the edge – some of the people were very scared, very angry, some of them had psychiatric disabilities, physical disabilities, and all of them were in grinding poverty. As much as some of them wished they were living in a middle-class environment, they weren’t, and I suppose the types of experiences they were facing were totally different than the rest of the community can even understand.
How were you inspired to start Wintringham?
It’s a good story, really. When I got to Gordon House it was a ten-story night shelter, a concrete building with 300 people living in it. There were two other night shelters, one run by St. Vincent de Paul and one run by the Salvation Army. The government at the time decided that these were inhumane ways of treating and looking after homeless people, that there’s got to be a better way.
They encouraged the agencies who were running these night shelters to close them down and open smaller and targeted services. They put a lot of money into doing this, and there was a lot of resistance to it at the time.
I was made the redevelopment manager of Gordon House after only being there six months or a year. My job was to develop new services that would meet the needs of the residents.
What we did was we tried to look at who made up the population of Gordon House: the vast majority of them were semi-permanent, which was not the intention of the night shelter. There was a huge turnover with the beds that were vacant during the night.
We tried to get groupings of people together, sit with them and see what would be good services to provide. We had a women’s service, a youth service, a crisis service, a family service. We were receiving a huge number of families who were arriving after going through some bout of domestic violence; women would arrive with their faces punched in and children screaming, and then they would be stored in a place where the population was about 80% male – not the perfect environment for women.
We could set up family homes where they wouldn’t even have to come to Gordon House, but they could go straight to these family centers, which were run by social workers. The kids would get back to school and the mothers would get their lives back together. This was happening in the other shelters as well.
The one thing that was causing the most amount of grief and was the biggest problem to solve was the elderly and frail living at Gordon House. We reckon there were a hundred people living in these shelters who were elderly and frail. We weren’t able to get them into the mainstream aged-care services, which were all Christian-run. This is exactly what happens in the States and England, and other places. It’s almost impossible to get homeless people into mainstream aged-care services.
It used to really get my goat to see these church-based agencies talking about social justice, and the same organizations would run night shelters, but they wouldn’t let their guys into them. If they did build places for the elderly homeless they were really shocking places.
This was the real challenge: how to get the elderly homeless into the shelters and off the streets. There was nowhere to put them because if you closed down Gordon House there was nowhere to go. We tried to get them into mainstream services, but we didn’t make one successful placement in years.
The idea came about to build one of our own. The company I was working for at the time was not receptive to that idea, but funnily enough, the federal government, the aged-care minister at the time, was very supportive. He said we should try and get ourselves a partner of some sort because they didn’t believe the night shelter I worked for had the experience to run an aged-person service.
We went around to a few other services and eventually found an Anglican service called the Brotherhood of St. Lawrence. They had a director there who loved the idea, and we formed a small joint party to get this company off the ground, and I was made the worker for that company. It didn’t really work, mainly because the dynamics of two welfare agencies working together just didn’t work smoothly. We eventually decided that we would just form a brand new company. We just had to get a name for it.
The name I picked was Wintringham, after a guy called Tiny Wintringham. There was a large building in the heart of the city called Gordon Place – not Gordon House but Gordon Place – and it was run for profit by some entrepreneurs. Eventually the fire brigade said they needed to get the building up to fire standards, and the owners decided that it wasn’t economic to do that, so they decided to close it.
Tiny Wintringham was a resident there, and he tried to get the residents to rally together and buy the building, which, of course, was totally impossible. He went to the local builders [and] laborers union and they were appalled. They put a black ban on the building so no one would pull it down. While that was going on Tiny went to the government and went to the media to try to organize people to solve the problem in one way or another. A welfare organization heard about it and went to the government and said, “If you build us a new place, we’ll run it.”
The government, believe it or not, in those days, 1978, agreed. They built Gordon House on the banks of the Yarra River, which runs right through the heart of Melbourne, right on the edge of the city, where I subsequently worked. Tiny died. When it came around to getting a name for this new company, the idea of this one homeless guy standing up to these incredible powers – state government, media, unions, owners of the building. The image of powerlessness and someone saying, “I’m not powerless, I’m going to do something to change it,” I found absolutely inspirational. In a way I’m glad I never met him and don’t know how much of the story is true, and it doesn’t really matter. I used to have pictures of him in my office even though I didn’t know much about it; I learned more later on.
When they asked about forming a new name, I gave a short version of what I just mentioned and said, “Let’s call it Wintringham.” It wasn’t planned – it just came out, and everyone grinned and said it sounds great. I think Tiny would be well-pleased to look back on it because we’ve tried to do exactly what he said, which is to provide non-judgmental, non-church-based services that allow people to live in dignity. Of course, it’s now very different from those early days, but the values and the principles that motivated us in those very first days are unchanged.
What year was this?
I started working at Gordon House in 1985, and we began the re-development work in 1986. I really started working on the aged-care service in ’87, and it became a legal, public company in 1989. In literally a few days’ time we’re going to have our ten-year anniversary. It’s nice symmetry that we’re talking about it almost 10 years to the day.
When we started, I was the only employee for about two years and it’s rapidly grown to 120 staff and $20 million (US$13.2 million) worth of assets.
Where does the funding come from?
It comes from a wide variety of sources, but we still have in this country a pretty good social infrastructure. We’re having tough times at the moment, but the welfare state largely originated in Australia. A lot of those issues like payment of the politicians and issues like that – the secret ballot – originated here. The idea of a welfare state, however you define it, started here in Australia. We have a long history of almost bipartisan agreement that there needs to be some infrastructure, that it’s a necessary part of a civilized society. It’s similar to the Swedish model. It’s not trouble-free because there’s always right-wing or supply-driven economists who argue fiercely against it, but there always seems to be a core value.
We have here a public health system, public housing system and a minimum income through pensions and unemployment benefits, as well as an aged-care system. While I loved traveling through the US and England, the similarities between their systems were marked. We wouldn’t be able to build a Wintringham in the States, not without enormous philanthropic support. Because we have a public housing and an aged-care system, we can really start to address the needs of homeless people rather than just looking at the most basic ones or just trying to get the guys off the streets and a place to sleep for the night. That’s the thing that struck me most about the States and England – the people in my position were looking just at crisis work all the time, trying to get people out of the projects, off the streets, out of the shelters.
Some of the people were the most creative, exciting and stimulating people I’d ever met, and yet they weren’t able to access the types of resources that we were. I remember spending some time with a wonderfully impressive woman in Washington, and her company was the same age as ours. She said she spent about 75% of her time trying to get enough money to keep going one more year, whereas with us, each year we grow, and our growth is exponential. I no longer worry about trying to keep the company running – it’s how to create new services. I think this is symptomatic of the environments within her company and my company work within, which is the national, funding environment.
It’s very difficult to make comparisons from country to country because I simply don’t understand the US Medicare system, and even the political system is so different that it’s hard to compare. All I can say is that the infrastructure support is, at this stage, good enough in Australia (although it’s getting whittled down) to build a company like Wintringham.
Has the government responded to your company?
Yes, we get a lot of support from the government, both the state and federal governments. Increasingly we do their work. One of the interesting things is that the government is now getting out of service delivery and they’re actually asking, or tendering out, or contracting to welfare (or not-for-profit) companies, or for-profit companies – they’re moving into the market at a tremendous rate – to actually do the services of the government. They still provide the infrastructure support, but they don’t want to be involved in the management of it. There are opportunities to continue with that.
The main reason I like it here is because of the staff and their attitude.
They put the same value on everybody but they don’t treat us all
the same because each one needs something different from the other.
Mary Campbell
Wintringham has taken the stress out of everything
in the search for somewhere to live.
Doug McPetrie
When we saw the blueprint it seemed such a dream I never
thought would happen. Here you’ve got peace and tranquility.
You’re your own boss. And they look after you.
I’ve had a wonderful five years here.
Eric Monaghan
How has this changed the lives of the residents?
Dramatically. I think it’s probably the most marked development of what we do. You see the guys come in powerless, bedraggled – we get referrals from urinals, from the streets, from the most appalling conditions. You can’t believe it’s possible in a civilized society. The environments we build are beautiful, unashamedly beautiful. People respond to environments in ways we’re only beginning to understand how –they respond to a calm and dignified environment.
They start to change in their appearance. We’re not into rehabilitation in any way, but if people want it, we’ll access it for them. So if people want to stop drinking we’ll help them, but if they don’t then they still drink. If they’re too frail to go down the stairs then we’ll go and buy the groceries for them. We’ll go to the pub and buy the booze for them. We do not judge them – they’re free to exercise their freedom to the extent that it doesn’t impact on the freedoms of others.
They start to put on weight, they start to complain – I think that’s the biggest sign that we’re starting to get somewhere. They feel strong and confident enough to complain. If guys feel so terrified and intimidated by the night shelter where they’re working and living that if they complain they’ll get evicted, then for them to turn around and complain to us that whatever isn’t right, that’s great. On one hand you need to be careful that they haven’t got a justified reason to complain and that we’ve got to fix it. There’s also the element of great pride you take when a guy you’ve known for years feels strong enough and articulate enough, feels safe enough, to complain for himself and for others. It takes a lot of courage to look up at a Salvation Army officer and say, “I don’t like dormitories,” because he might say to you, “Well then get out.”
I’ll give you an example. At our first hostel, McLean Lodge, we employed a lady to set it up, and this was probably the hardest job I had to designate because it means I had to let it go. She started work about a year before we opened our first hostel because she had to win the guys’ faith. This is a tough job. The guys trusted me implicitly, but I was becoming increasingly involved in setting up new services and wasn’t going to actually run the hostel. They had to give up the night shelter and come live at our place. As appalling as the night shelters are it’s still their home and people are very frightened of change. People have no idea what they’re getting themselves into, and while they trusted me they had to learn to trust her. She spent hours and hours in the night shelter, taking men coffees and winning them over slowly.
One of the reasons that major aged-care providers said they wouldn’t take our guys is because the aged-care residential system that operates in Australia is in part based on a contribution system. This means that for some types of care, the resident is expected to pay an “ingoing contribution” that is means-tested on the resident’s current income and asset level. The owners of the facilities frequently used the loan of the contributions to fund the building of the homes for the aged. When the person eventually leaves the residential care facility, they (or their estate) are repaid this entry contribution minus some administration charges.
Obviously, for those people who have no assets (such as the homeless) it is impossible for them to pay this contribution. This was one of the major hurdles getting the homeless into the aged-care system.
The church-based owners would say that the reason they can’t take homeless people is because they can’t make the service pay if they don’t get paid. It wouldn’t be financially viable.
What I wanted to do with Wintringham is to run a one-hundred percent homeless aged-person hostel with residential care, without anyone paying any in-going fees. The government and everyone said it would never pay. Twenty percent, thirty percent, forty percent is unlikely, but one hundred percent – certainly it would never work.
Obviously it was of great concern whether it would work or not, but having done the budgets I felt it would, having seen a lot of inefficiencies in the major aged-care services. I suppose this is where my economics came into it, but I honestly felt this would work.
One of the reasons I felt it would work was the level of frailty of the guys coming in. The condition of the residents moving in was so frail that you would actually attract a government subsidy for the care you provide, which is dependent on the frailty of the people. One of the things we knew with McLean Lodge is that Diane had picked people who were largely incontinent – a sign of their frailty. On that basis we did our budgets, and on that basis I said it was going to work.
Now listen to this amazing story. Two weeks later all the residents moved in, and it was a very emotional day. There were tears everywhere. The buses came in and the guys, welcomed by me and a couple other people, would shuffle away to their place. That whole smell of night shelters would permeate them and their clothing. I don’t know if you’ve ever been into a night shelter, but they’re horrendous places. In 1993, after all those years, we opened our first hostel, and the guys came across from the night shelters into all these beautiful little houses we’d built for them.
After about two weeks Diane came to me and said, “We’ve got some problems. The guys we’ve got aren’t incontinent.” I said, “What are you talking about. We know they’re incontinent!” She said again that they’re not. Well, what that means is that our whole funding model, based on the frailty of the people, was totally buggered, and how were we going to make that work?
Anyway, we were able to solve that and make it work. In the meantime I went to find out why the guys weren’t incontinent, because we knew that they were. What we realized was that the guys were incontinent at the night shelter, where there was just a central shelter, because they were too frightened to go to the toilet because they’d get bashed.
If they hadn’t been bashed, some of their friends had got bashed, so they didn’t go because of that. They would piss into buckets and we’d empty their buckets for them, or they’d just wet the bed. And because they were isolated and too terrified to go out, of course they would drink more.
At Wintringham they all had a private bathroom, so they just went to the toilet. If you’ve got a grandfather or father who’s very frail, or a grandmother, or just a good friend who’s very, very frail and can’t live on their own, can you imagine them living in a building where they’re too frightened to go to the toilet? At Wintringham, at the first hostel, and the others, they’re not as frightened. They drink more socially now rather than just to forget. Their whole demeanor changes.
They support each other and create their own rules. I remember going through one of the buildings with this old fellow I’d known for years, and a new guy came in and spat in the corner on this beautiful thick carpet we’d laid. I didn’t say anything, but the older guy I was with said to him, “You’re not at Gordon House anymore, pal.”
We’ve just opened a brand-new twenty-room complex where everyone has a bedroom, an en-suite, and a lounge with living room and dining room that’s fully equipped with stove, fridges (which are full of food for the first day), sheets, mattresses, flowers – the whole lot, plus a community room. On the first day when all the residents were sort of shuffling around getting used to each other, they had an impromptu meeting.
These meetings are the type of thing that those of us who’ve had reasonable educations would be comfortable with, but a lot of our guys are not comfortable with meetings at all. But they decided to have a meeting and decided they would ban smoking in the community room. The place is only three weeks old at this point, but they don’t smoke in the common room, which has a pool table, a telly, and comfortable seats. I don’t care whether they do or not, but some of them don’t smoke, so they made this common agreement. They’re going to smoke in their houses or in the beautiful gardens. We have a lot of water features with fish, and that’s very soothing and calming.
These are little stories, but what it means is that people are taking control of their lives and control of their environment.
Your architect Allen Kong has incorporated the Chinese system of feng shui into his architecture. Do you think this plays a part in the residents’ positive response to their environment?
I can’t say. Allen’s our only architect, and he started his company round the same time we started Wintringham. He was the only person at his company and I was the only person at mine, and both companies have grown. He still only does Wintringham stuff. We’ve become close personal friends, too.
But, look, I don’t understand feng-shui, and I don’t want to pretend I do, but it guides Allen’s life. You’ll have to ask him. He would say yes, it works, and I would say whatever. I have no idea. I mean, the buildings are beautiful and soft. We use soft materials. A lot of materials in public housing projects are all brick and steel. We use soft cedars, weather boards, and verandahs and gardens. We use some brick, but it’s a combination of materials. Cedar windows and cedar doors – the guys don’t trash them. They go from homeless to house-proud. They see where they live, they know how beautiful it is, and they look after it. They take a great deal of pride in it, showing people where they live.
How are people chosen to come there?
We have street workers, and they go out and find these people. We’re pretty well known now, so if someone comes across an aged-homeless person, they ring up Wintringham and we assess them. We assess them in accordance with the Commonwealth aged-care system, but that’s just to get funding, to make sure they’re eligible. We have a huge waiting list now, and it’s a very difficult and agonizing decision of who goes in and who doesn’t. There’s an enormous difference between living in a dormitory when you’re old and frail with a bunch of young toughs, and moving into one of the beautiful things we’ve built. It’s a hard decision but essentially it has to be made.
We’re opening 20 units in the city now and we’ve had over a hundred applications. We closed those applications about eight months ago because we didn’t think it was fair to let people keep applying. The demand far outstrips the supply.
Just to go back, when we started working at Gordon House, one of the things we’ve tried to keep in our minds is a social justice principle. I think one of the things that came to us was that the night shelters and the people who ran them saw these people as homeless and aged. But I saw them as aged and homeless. That’s not just semantics, but it’s a whole new paradigm of thinking. If you say that the person is homeless and aged, then it’s okay that they’re in a homeless service. But if you say that they’re aged and homeless, it’s like saying they’re aged and American or aged and Greek, or aged and one-legged – they’re aged, fundamentally, so they should be part of the aged-care system.
We didn’t try to go into the homeless person system – we actually left. I went to see the aged-care government minister, and told him about it. That’s how it started, and that’s how it’s continued. It’s actually been a highly specialized company accessing generic funds, the generic funds of the aged-care system. We’re saying that the fact they’re homeless is irrelevant – what’s important is that they’re aged. The prime area of the person is Australia, therefore the person should be part of the Australian system, and not be isolated and marginalized. These guys have fought wars, raised families, paid taxes, drank their beer, whatever. They’ve been good citizens, bad citizens, they’ve played footy for the local club. They’re ordinary people and should be entitled to the same services the rest of the Australians take for granted.
That’s the guiding philosophy we have. We don’t want people to have anything special, anything better. We want them to have access to mainstream services. We build them far more beautiful things, and I take a great deal of perverted pride in knowing the aged-care system wouldn’t take our guys and yet we build things far nicer than the aged-care system. That’s why we won that international stuff, like the United Nations World Habitat Award. They’re beautiful places – far nicer than the places where we live privately!
For you personally, has any part of your belief in social justice been motivated by something spiritual?
Well, I’m sorry there hasn’t been. I actually am not a believer. I have a huge distrust of organized religion. I think the Buddhist tradition is the closest thing to what I’d believe in, because from what I understand it’s something I’d have more affinity towards. I’m really an atheist, and what I’ve based this on is a sense of social justice.
Now, that is a philosophical position, you’re quite right. But it’s a philosophical position that emanates from me and from values I hold dear. They’re not based on a divine authority or presence that instructs me to treat people a certain way – it’s a thing in itself. I think to that extent it would probably resonate, because Buddhists also believe it’s a thing in itself. I don’t believe in a higher authority, I guess, because I’ve seen too many instances of injustice perpetrated by religious organizations. My father suffered through the Second World War because of that, and I’m watching the church leaders stand back and watch it happen. I’ve seen instances here in Australia, and around the world too, where religions have stood back and watched the homeless suffer. Or if they have helped, they’ve helped from a patronizing or condescending, deserving-and-undeserving poor mentality.
For me I see that those justices have got to be sprung from within, not from a world view – to me it’s simply a social justice issue that’s very easy to explain, and it aligns with my politics. I guess I’m a socialist. One of my favorite quotes, and I don’t know who said it, is, “Atheism is a non-profit organization.” I love that. We’re a non-profit organization in the sense that we don’t generate a profit, but also in the sense that our views are based on social justice.
That’s not to say we don’t employ people who are very passionate in their religion – we do, of a wide variety of religions. But they’re asked to keep that in their pocket, they’re not allowed to proselytize. We have clients who are very religious and who want to see a priest, so we organize it. We don’t let people come in and peddle their wares. It’s a sanctuary from all that. I think you do have to have something that guides you, whatever it is. I personally think that if it’s something like social justice that doesn’t relate to a higher authority, it’s more liable that you’ll be consistent to it, because you’ll be more consistent with it based on your own convictions.
I know a lot of religious people hold these views, too, so I’m not saying they’re incompatible, but I’ve seen a lot of people who are so riddled with inconsistencies that it’s more than just the peculiarities of that individual. You’re actually having people who, part of the week, are being very holy and the rest of the week are screwing their neighbors within an inch of their lives; part of the week feeling a sense of social justice, but only within what they can afford. I think social justice is the reason all of our guys and all of our staff have rights. I’ve lived and worked in non-unionized situations, so I know the benefits of unionism, and I’m strongly supportive of it. We all have rights and they should all be protected.
I’ve had a lot of support and help to do this, so I wouldn’t want someone to think I’ve done this on my own – a lot of support and help. I think people have a lot of goodness in them if you give them a chance to express it. Very rarely are there people who don’t want to help us once they understand. I think a lot of people get caught up in their own worlds and don’t have a chance to help. I can’t really comment on other people – it’s too hard. It’s hard enough trying to understand your own little brain!
Has your work inspired other people in Australia to do the same thing?
I would like to think so, but sometimes I’m not too sure if much has changed. The large church-based, welfare, not-for-profit, aged-care providers are still not really interested in providing high quality non-judgmental services to the very poor and homeless. It’s the same story all over the world – you need to have a dollar to get good services.
I’ve lived in boarding houses and pubs all over the place, but things
weren’t working out. I only weighed 60 kilos when I came here and now I’m 80 kilos — I’m going to send you blokes broke!
Peter Stevens
A man’s got to settle down sooner or later. This came up and I’ve got
a place of my own for the first time ever. I’ve never known a home
as I have now.
Barry Searle
Here, the people are not scared. They’re cleaner and more happy, more
positive. It’s all people, you see. You treat people nice, they’re nice.
Housekeeper Angela Colina
Where would you like Wintringham to go in the future?
We decided from day one we’d only do one thing: we’d only work with elderly homeless. We wouldn’t do anything else. We only have one core value and that’s social justice. These two things are very explain to politicians, to staff, international journalists – whoever!
It’s a very simple thing to say we only work with elderly homeless, and we work solely from a principle of social justice. That means we’re trying to provide one-stop shopping for elderly homeless. We’re essentially trying to provide them with an environment that gives them dignity for their final years.
One of the things I’ve noticed since coming into welfare, and what I’ve noticed in the States, is that the companies are increasingly generic. They’re like the Salvation Army or something. They are all things to all people: youth training program, unemployment, domestic care, non-violence services, night shelters – they’re doing all these different things, and I think that’s impossible. It’s like having a complete understanding of all religions, and I just don’t think it’s possible.
We used to find at Gordon House that the skill level that we had was a function of whom we employed at the time, that there wasn’t any residual information within the company – it was the product of the particular worker. A worker with great interest in domestic violence might come to us and all of a sudden we’d have a reputation for being good in domestic violence. She’d leave and we would be back to square one. So I think it’s partly driven by the whole notion of empires, and the astringency of funding –opportunistic funding where you’ll hear there’s two million dollars going for youth support services, then you win it and you never provide a youth support service.
We initially started with McLean Lodge as a medium-care, residential aged-care service, but what we’re doing now is going in either direction. We’re going into high-care and we’re going into simple housing with no care; we’re doing street work, community care, and we do a lot of advocacy work. Anywhere along the continuum of aged-care service is fair game with us – that’s what we’ll go for. We’ll never move into areas that don’t affect elderly homeless as long as I’m running Wintringham. We’ll never do youth services – not because it’s not needed, but we think it’s best for someone else to do it. Our focus should never be anything other than aged-care service. There’s not much interest in the aged-homeless work.
We have a saying here in Australia that says “kiss” – “Keep it simple, stupid.” Keep it simple, stupid. It’s a lot wiser than the joking sound of it. If you keep it simple and don’t confuse it with too much jargon and political rhetoric, it’s something workers can identify and seize upon and stick out their chest with pride that they’re actually doing this. They can easily explain it to everybody, and more importantly they can explain it to themselves. They have a coat hanger on which they can hang their views. When they get stressed or confused they can talk to people or talk to themselves – they can take it back to their core values. They have a reference point that’s very simple. I have a lot of friends who run big organizations, and they say they were started in the same way Wintringham was: to work with the elderly poor. A lot of them have changed and integrated programs for elderly rich and middle class, and they say it will be a great challenge for Wintringham not to go that way.
But I think it’s simple: we just won’t start down that path. We won’t try to subsidize and start hostels in rich areas so we can earn money. You start to do that, and before you know it, your values have changed and you start to attract different people to the board and to the staff. They start to say, “Well, we’ve got to earn a little bit more money to do that thing,” and they want more and more, and soon enough the whole values have changed. We’re getting so much work we can’t handle it, so there’s no need to start down any other road.
Archive
- Mandala for 2021
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- January-June
- Changing the Mind, Changing the World: The Mind, Karma, and Global Change
- Karma: Is the World Ready to Understand?
- Helping Young People Develop a Good Heart
- Compassion in Action: Maitreya School
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- Advice that Fulfills Wishes
- Isabelle Johnston Remembers Ven. Thubten Labdron (Trisha Donnelly)
- Nicholas Ribush Remembers Ven. Thubten Labdron (Trisha Donnelly)
- Remembrances from the Sisters of Ven. Thubten Labdron (Trisha Donnelly)
- The Foundation for the Development of Compassion and Wisdom Carries Lama Yeshe’s Vision into the Future
- January-June
- ‘If I Created This, Could I Also Fix It?’
- A New Era for Gelug Nuns: Geshema Degree Bring Opportunity and Responsibility
- Benedict and the Buddha: Monasticism in the West
- Distilling Shantideva’s ‘Bodhicharyavatara’
- Helping Buddhism Strengthen and Grow in Russia: An Interview with Telo Rinpoche
- Kopan Helping Hands
- Mia’s Miles of Merit
- The Nuns of Kopan
- The Union of Study and Practice
- Training the Mind in Calm-Abiding
- July-December
- Mandala for 2015
- January
- A Feast for Mind and Heart
- Portrait of a Buddhist Chaplain: Holly Hisamoto Leans Into Practice
- Advice for a Depressed and Suicidal Mother
- Making Juniper Powder Incense for Filling Statues and Stupas
- Parenting Unplugged: Self-Care
- Praise to Kyabje Thubten Zopa Rinpoche on the Occasion of the Long Life Puja at the CPMT Meeting
- The “Monk with a Camera”: An Interview with Khen Rinpoche Nicholas Vreeland
- July-December
- A Many-Splendored Thing: Anne Carolyn Klein on the Transmission of Tibetan Buddhism
- An Editor’s Approach to the Words of Her Perfect Teacher
- One Letter at a Time
- Practicing Like Your Hair Is on Fire
- Spain’s Tushita Retreat Center Celebrates 20 Years
- Standing Together: Tong-nyi Nying-je Ling’s Interfaith Work in Copenhagen
- The Life of a Bodhisattva: The Great Kindness of Khunu Lama Rinpoche
- The Life of Khensur Jampa Tegchok
- The Most Important Practice of Patience
- The Nature of Biography: An Excerpt from Elijah Ary’s ‘Authorized Lives’
- January
- Mandala for 2014
- January
- An Interview with Buddhist Scholar John Dunne on Mindfulness
- FPMT Mongolia: Fulfilling the Common Desire for Buddhism’s Resurgence
- Kadampa Center’s Past, Present and Future Times
- Rejoicing in the 100 Million Mani Retreat in Mongolia
- The Four Harmonious Friends
- The Benefits of the Mani Retreat
- A Day in the Life in Mongolia
- The 100 Million Mani Retreat in Mongolia Photo Gallery
- FPMT in Mongolia 1999-2012
- FPMT Mongolia in Action [Video]
- Burnout: Is It Really a Problem?
- Considerations for Animal Blessings and Animal Liberations
- Rejoice! Prayer Flags for Rinpoche’s Long Life
- Meet Geshe Gelek Chodha
- Letters to the Editor
- April
- An Update from Kushinagar
- Establishing a Daily Practice
- Giant Steps Forward for the Maitreya Projects
- Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa Restores ‘Kundun’ Chenrezig
- Jade Buddha Continues World Tour in North America
- La Gran Estupa de la Compasión Universal Toma Forma
- Living the Gift
- Pamtingpa Center Builds a High Desert Stupa
- Photo Gallery: Pamtingpa Center Builds a High Desert Stupa
- Progreso Gigantesco Para Los Proyectos Maitreya
- The Mind is the Measure of All Things
- The Potential Project and Corporate-Based Mindfulness Training
- The Precious and Wish-fulfilling Holy Objects of FPMT
- Visit Chandrakirti Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Centre in New Zealand
- July
- Challenging Orthodoxy in Tibetan Buddhism
- Confessions of a Mahamudra Junkie
- Find Out What Five-year-old Dechen Bloom Asked Ven. Robina Courtin about the Heart Sutra
- Geshe Lamsang’s Heart Advice
- Growing Up within the FPMT Mandala
- Holding Up a Mirror to Our Children’s Behavior
- Not Just For Kids: Vajrayana Institute’s Child-Focused Activities
- Renewed Faith, Inspiration, Devotion and Understanding: Khadro-la Visits New Zealand
- Sobering Up from Samsara
- Tara Redwood School: Sprouting the Seeds of Compassion
- The Eight Auspicious Signs
- What Buddha Cherishes Most: The Story of the Goats at Root Institute
- October
- ‘He Was for Me the Perfection of Patience and Generosity’
- ‘I Have Never Known a More Generous Person in My Life’
- A Compassionate Insurrection
- Buddhism’s Common Ground: An Interview with Ven. Thubten Chodron
- Liberation through Education
- Lost in Translation: A Reflection on the Sacred
- Origin and Spread of the Buddha’s Doctrine
- Recognizing Alison Murdoch’s 10-Year Contribution to Universal Education and FDCW
- The Benefits of the ‘Golden Light Sutra’
- The Murky Reward of Nakedness
- What About Me?
- You Are Not Alone
- January
- Mandala for 2013
- January
- Nepal: ‘The Most Holy Place in the World’
- The Dalai Lama Completes His Studies
- Like a Waking Dream: Geshe Sopa’s Students Share Their Stories
- More than Auspicious
- Pure Gold on the Ground Below
- The Bodhisattva on Bascom Hill
- Fulfilling a Long-held Promise
- Reminiscences of Geshe Sopa
- Profound Equanimity that Constantly Perserveres
- A Shining Presence: Geshe Sopa in Photos
- The Most Important Influence on My Life
- The Simplicity of Great Authority
- Ven. Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche, My Teacher
- Both Father and Son: Geshe Sopa Rinpoche’s Omnipresent Blessing
- A Privilege and an Immeasurable Gift
- Patience in Ascertaining the Truth
- Praises for Our Perfect Teacher Geshe Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche
- From the Vault: “An Extraordinary Modern-day Milarepa”
- FPMT Activities in Nepal Photo Gallery
- Seeing Problems as Positive
- A Straight and Steady Motivation
- A Letter from Animal Liberation Sanctuary
- Ancient Philosophy in Everyday Life at the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Centre
- Himalayan Yogic Institute: The Birth of the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Centre
- His Holiness at Kurukulla Center Photo Gallery
- The Mummification of His Holiness the 9th Bogd Jetsün Dampa Rinpoche
- Paul Donnelly on the Creation of “Like a Waking Dream”
- The Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity
- A New Generation of Ladakhi Nuns
- Tibetan Buddhist Nuns in Ladakh and Zanskar Photo Gallery
- Finding Inspiration in FPMT Centers: An Interview with Geshe Sherab
- Meet Geshe Jampa Gelek: Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa’s Resident Teacher
- An Irresistible Pull
- The “Bollywood” Nun: An Indian Actress Takes Ordination Vows
- Book Review: The Black Hat Eccentric
- Editor’s Choice – Media Reviews
- The Second Round of 108 Nyung Näs at Institut Vajra Yogini
- April
- The Need for Qualified Teachers
- Don’t Just Sit There … Circumambulate!
- How to Understand Our Reality from the Universal Point of View
- The Purpose of Study
- Treading Fertile Spiritual Soil
- Going Home to Buddhism: An Interview with Pilgrimage Organizer Effie Fletcher
- Pilgrimage to Tibet
- Songs and Mental States
- Where Dharma Meets Technology Meets Art
- The Path to Changing One’s Mind
- Meet Geshe Thubten Soepa
- Editor’s Choice – Media Reviews
- July
- Understanding Lam-rim: An Interview with Ven. Sangye Khadro on the Masters Program
- ‘I Will Be Paralyzed and Happy’ and Other Writings by Bob Brintz
- Behaving in a Greener Way: Panchen Losang Chogyen Gelugzentrum Acts Ecologically
- Blessing the Waters of New Zealand’s North Island
- Buddhist Business Lessons to Share: Creating Right Livelihood
- Cherishing Life and a Recipe for Mushroom and Kale Pâté
- Four Countries, Countless Benefits: Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s East Asia Tour Photo Gallery
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama at FPMT Center Events March-May 2013 Photo Gallery
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Mind
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama Speaks on Aging and Death in Switzerland
- I Will Be Paralyzed and Happy
- In Praise of the Universal Mother
- Meet Geshe Deyang
- On Becoming a Vegan: When Vegetarian is Not Enough
- Our Fundamental Needs: An Interview with David Suzuki
- Overcoming Alcoholism and Introducing a Healthy Lifestyle in Mongolia
- Planting Seeds of Peace in Mexico City: Universal Education for Compassion and Wisdom in Action
- Shopping Buddha
- The Purpose of Study (continued): Ven. George Churinoff Finishes His Story with Lama Yeshe and Tenzin Ösel Hita
- We Cannot Live without Harming Others
- October
- Mayra Rocha Sandoval Completes Three-Year Lam-rim Retreat in Mexico City
- Achieving Realizations of the Path
- Advice on Caring for Mother
- His Holiness Completes Ninth Australian Tour
- ‘One Day in Service to His Holiness Is a Life Well Spent’: His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Melbourne 2013
- Identifying the Object of Negation
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Zealand
- The Exemplary Life and Death of Geshe Yeshe Tobden
- The Sera Connection: An Interview with José Cabezón
- The Greatest Honor: Becoming a Rik Chung
- A Spiritual Journey to Tsum
- Sera Je Food Fund’s Dramatic Impact on the Monks of Sera Je Monastery
- Cat Rescue as a Means to Make Merit
- Alison Kaye Harr
- The Sera Je Food Fund
- Land of Joy: An Interview with Andy Wistreich
- ‘A Transforming Experience in a Completely Unexpected Way’: Masters Program Students Near End of Studies at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa
- ‘Only Birds and Crickets to Distract the Mind’: First Retreat in the New Gompa at De-Tong Ling
- Ideas on Self-Acceptance and Bringing Dharma to the Community: An Interview with Alan Carter
- ‘I Realized That My Life Couldn’t Be the Same Again’
- Meet Geshe Lobsang Kunchen
- Complexities of Tibetan Culture Past and Present: Five Book Reviews
- January
- Mandala for 2012
- January
- El fallecimiento de Khensur Rimpoche Lama Lhundrup Rigsel
- Le décès de Khensour Rinpoché Lama Lhoundroup Rigsel
- The Passing of Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup Rigsel
- UWE Gathering in France: Inspiration, Information, Transformation!
- Preserving the Foundations: Merry Colony and FPMT Education
- Compassion in Education: An Interview with Pam Cayton
- Benefits of Generating a Good Heart
- Collaborators in Preservation: Key Education Services Contributors Reflect on the Future of FPMT Education and Their Work with Merry Colony
- What Differentiates Buddhism from Christianity
- On Receiving Generosity
- Of Yaks and Dogs
- Feeding Fish at Nalanda Monastery
- The Karma of Success
- Occupy Samsara
- Lama Says You Should Go to Kopan and He Will Take Care of You
- Big Love Excerpt
- FPMT News Around the World Photo Gallery
- Nalanda Monastery’s 15-Year Master Plan
- Rinchen Jangsem Ling Consecrates Towering Kuan Yin and White Dzambhala Statues
- Editor’s Choice – Media Reviews
- The Passing of Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup Photo Gallery
- April
- ‘Subduing the Mind, Actualizing the Path’ Resource Area
- Big Ears, Small Mouths: The Life of a Retreat Caretaker
- Random Reflections on Retreating
- Realizing the Dharmakaya
- Report from Bodhgaya: On the Ground at Kalachackra 2012
- Subduing the Mind, Actualizing the Path
- You Can, You Must
- Big Ears, Small Mouths
- Don’t Wake Up with a Mind Like That
- Random Reflections on Retreating
- Retreat in Everyday Life
- Universal Mandala School
- Animal Liberation Sanctuary Update
- The Misleading Mind – Searching for Happily Ever After
- Sitting Easy
- An Interview with Åge Delbanco
- Tulku Gyatso Remembered
- Thangka Exhibition at Maitreya Instituut Amsterdam
- The Beginning of Tushita
- FPMT News Around the World Photo Gallery
- News from Kopan Monstery and Its Projects
- Editor’s Choice – Media Reviews
- July
- Comienzo con duda
- Exploring the Practice of Writing: The Mindful Writer
- P513 and the Golden Light Sutra
- Teaching a Good Heart: FPMT Registered Teachers
- Like Nectar on Flowers: The Selfless Service of FPMT-Registered Teachers
- The Simile of a Cloud
- Mandala Talk: Ven. Thubten Chodron on “Insight into Emptiness”
- Begin with Doubt
- The Seventeen Pandits of Nalanda Monastery
- ‘Everybody Needs Universal Compassion and Wisdom Education’: An Interview with Lama Zopa Rinpoche on UECW
- ‘Everybody Needs Universal Compassion and Wisdom Education’: An Interview with Lama Zopa Rinpoche on UECW [Unedited Transcript]
- Contest Winners: Deciphering the Guru’s Grocery List!
- Illuminating the Darkness: Helping Kathmandu’s Street Kids
- FPMT Around the World Photo Gallery
- ‘She Is Not Looking for Another Man’
- Ever Shining Consummate Sun
- My November Course
- ‘You Are His Daughter and You Want to Help’
- Your Prayers and Dedications ‘Have Power’
- Editor’s Choice – Media Reviews
- Half the Woman: Losing Weight for Rinpoche
- Taking Online Dating as the Path
- Waidangong: Shaking One’s Way to Health
- October
- La joie de l’étude : une interview de Guéshé Kelsang Wangmo
- Khadro-la on Using Stupas to Minimize Harm from the Elements
- 16 Actitudes at Centro Yamantaka in Colombia
- Children and Teens Programs Take Root and Grow at Losang Dragpa Centre in Malaysia
- The Joy of Study: An Interview with Geshe Kelsang Wangmo
- Publishing the FPMT Lineage: An Interview with Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Director Nicholas Ribush
- Key to the Cave
- The Practice of Writing: An Interview with Dinty W. Moore
- Craig Preston on Teaching and Translating Classical Tibetan
- Loneliness
- The Qualities of Good Food
- Where I Needed to Be
- Meet Geshe Ngawang Sonam: Hayagriva Buddhist Centre’s New Resident Teacher
- Stay Low and Go, Go, Go: Fire Safety Training at Kopan Monastery and Nunnery
- Rinpoche’s Decision
- Insight into Emptiness
- Editor’s Choice – Media Reviews
- January
- Mandala for 2011
- January
- The Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition: Looking to Mongolia
- Tibet, Tibet, I Have to Go to Tibet!
- Youth in Refuge
- Lama Yeshe in London, 1975 (Video Recording)
- Hippie Era: Looking for Meaning in Our Lives
- Tsog Adventure
- Transformative Mindfulness and the 16 Guidelines in Canada and North America
- 16 Guidelines at Akshay Charitable School, Bodhgaya, India
- Taking the 16 Guidelines into South African Schools
- 16 To Live By Update
- Educación Universal Update
- Outings and Expeditions with Ready Set Happy
- Three Ways to Help Animals
- Meet Sera Je, the Dog!
- NHS Videos for Carers
- Cittamani Hospice Service’s Annual Memorial
- Mercy Relief to Thai Flood Victims
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama in San Jose, California
- Making Business Work for FPMT
- Bhutan’s Prime Minister is Serious about Happiness
- Resources for “Peaceful Jihad”
- Yoga for Health
- Addiction Workshops at Mahamudra Centre
- Nine Questions About Vegetarianism
- An Interview with Jetsünma Tenzin Palmo
- A Visit for My Mother, A Crash Course for Me
- Lights and Rainbows: My Struggle
- A Love Letter to My Valentine: Let Me Tell You Who Our Cupid Is
- A Young Lass, A Manangi
- An Open Letter To B. Alan Wallace
- Editor’s Choice
- April
- E. Gene Smith Obituaries
- Engaged Buddhism: Compassion in Action
- Lama Zopa Rinpoche in London, 1975 (Video Recording)
- Photo Gallery
- Engaged Buddhism Resource Guide
- Trailers for “Meditations from the Multiplex”
- Raw Food Resource Guide
- The Healing Power of Juice Fasting
- An Interview with Anila Ann McNeil
- Dagri Rinpoche at the FPMTA National Meeting
- An Old Story of Faith and Doubt: Reminiscences of Alan Wallace and Stephen Batchelor
- Editor’s Choice
- July
- Practices for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Long Life
- The Dissatisfied Mind of Desire
- Don't Stop! Go Now!
- ¡No pares! ¡Ve ahora!
- Leading with the Mind of a Servant
- Practices to Control Earthquakes and the Four Elements
- El retiro de la vida
- Protection from Radiation
- Morning Intention and Breath Counting with Children
- Interview with the Authors of the Recently Published Winning Ways
- Buddhism in the Trenches
- Cuando el gurú manifiesta un ataque
- The Hidden Toll of Australia’s 2011 Floods
- His Holiness Spreads Wisdom of Universal Human Values and Religious Harmony
- “Peace Through Inner Peace,” His Holiness Visits Minneapolis
- Hurray!
- Anger Always Hurts Me
- La rabia siempre me hiere
- Move, Breathe and Be Kind
- Working with Addiction
- Гнев всегда причиняет вред Мне
- הכעס תמיד פוגע בי
- Ian Green: Buddha’s Builder
- Big Love Excerpt
- Thinking Like a Thief
- Robert Page’s Art for Liberation Prison Project
- Ethics on My Mind
- Surrendering to Monkeys: Letting Go of the Self
- The Kindness of Lama Yeshe and My Mother
- What Goes Around, Comes Around
- Editor’s Choice
- October
- An Idea to Begin to Repay the Kindness
- Remembering the Kindness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Courageous People of Tibet
- Remembering the Kindness
- Dalai Lama on The Spirit of Things
- Harry O’Brien Introduces His Holiness to Australian Football
- His Holiness in Melbourne, Australia 2011
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama 2011 Chenrezig Gompa Talk
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Vajrayana Institute’s Happiness & Its Causes Conference
- Luka Bloom Shares “As I Waved Goodbye” with His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- REJOICE! FPMT Offerings to His Holiness in Australia
- Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup
- A Message from Kopan Monastery
- A note on Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup’s passing
- Discovering Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup’s Relics
- Madre, padre, maestro, amigo: La bondad incomparable del querido Khensur Rimpoché Lama Lhundrup Rigsel de Kopan
- Người Mẹ, người Cha, người Thầy, người Bạn: Lòng Nhân Từ Vô Song của Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup Rigsel Cao Quý
- Interview with Lama Lhundrup
- Lama Lhundrup Videos
- A Thank You Puja at Kopan Monastery
- Caring For Lama Lhundrup
- Un père, une mère, un enseignant, un ami : L’incomparable bonté du vénéré Khènsour Rinpoché Lama Lhoundroup Rigsèl de Kopan
- Lama Lhundrup: An Old, Dear Friend
- Memories of Lama Lhundrup
- My Love Affair With Kopan Monastery
- An Aspect of Lama Lhunrup Seen at Kopan
- The Qualities of Lama Lhundrup
- The Kindness of Lama Lhundrup
- Thus I Have Heard: An Offering to the Participants of the First FPMT Translation Conference
- Creating Compassionate Cultures
- Ants Spread Dharma
- New Goats for Animal Liberation Sanctuary
- It Doesn’t Need to Be Either/Or
- Vegan Pumpkin “Cheesecake”
- Teachers Discuss the Future of Buddhism in the West: The 2011 Garrison Institute Conference
- The European Buddhist Union and Engaged Buddhism
- Socially Responsible Investing
- Panchen Losang Chogyen Gelegzentrum Makes a Plan for World Environment Day
- Meher Baba Clearly Told Me in a Dream
- Gelek Sherpa Photo Gallery
- Sarah’s Journey
- A Pilgrim’s progress
- Big Love Excerpt
- FPMT News Around the World Photo Gallery
- Editor’s Choice
- January
- Mandala for 2010
- January
- Back Over the Mountains
- Compassionate Action for Dogs and Donkeys in Dharamsala
- Confidence to Change the World
- Dharma at the Dollar Store
- Editor’s Choice
- ever mind
- FPMT News Around the World
- How to Meditate
- Snapshots of Buddhism in the West
- The Practice of Motherhood
- The Unspeakable – Spiritual Dryness
- April
- FPMT’s First Holy Object Project
- Holy Objects Are Rare in Prison
- Notable FPMT Holy Objects from Around the World
- The Maitreya Project: Big Love, Universal Love
- Types of Holy Objects
- Why Holy Objects Are Precious and Wish-fulfilling
- Editor’s Thanks
- Nothing to Trust in Appearances
- Who is Maitreya Buddha?
- Story of the Bouddhanath Stupa
- Sacred Sites Around the World
- Holy Objects Resource Guide
- David Zinn’s FPMT Photo Montage
- FPMT News Around the World
- Animal Liberation in Mexico
- Wrestling a Whale with Bodhichitta
- Shamatha in the Indian Buddhist Tradition
- It Really is all About Me (and My Ego)
- Obituaries
- Write for Your Lives
- Power to Hope, Power to Heal
- Editors Choice
- July
- Dying is Better than This Flower
- Like Nectar on Flowers: The Selfless Service of FPMT-Registered Teachers (Geshe Section)
- Like Nectar on Flowers: The Selfless Service of FPMT-Registered Teachers (History Section)
- The Ever-Changing Forms of Buddhism
- An Interview with Khensur Jampa Tegchok
- Meeting Ven. Amy Miller
- FPMT News Around the World
- Still Cooking
- The ‘Roo from Black Saturday
- MAITRI – Where Every Individual Matters
- Welcome to Root Institute!
- Tara Children’s Project
- Editor’s Choice
- FPMT TEACHER TRIVIA ANSWER KEY
- October
- January
- Mandala for 2009
- January
- April
- July
- “The Sink”
- CPMT 2009 Representatives Meet for Six Days at Institut Vajra Yogini, France
- Don’t Just Sit There … Circumambulate!
- FPMT News Around the World
- Geshe Potowa of the 21st Century
- Inner Peace and Happiness during Three-Year Retreat
- No Desire but Plenty of Bliss and Void
- The Passing of the Holy Master Venerable Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen: Sadness, Joy, Inspiration and Blessings.
- October
- A Taste of Liberation
- Building Community: Priorities for FPMT Sangha
- Center History Amendments
- Commentary on the Epithets of the Buddha
- FEATURED MEDIA: Editor’s Choice
- FPMT News Around the World
- Integrating Lam-Rim into Daily Life
- Liberating Horses on Saka Dawa
- Spoggy the Sparrow: A Real Dharma Bird
- The Dharma School Comes Home
- Training for Community Life: An Interview with Sister Jotika
- Uncounted Cost of Samaya
- Mandala for 2008
- February
- Advice from Lama Zopa: A Thousand Benefits
- Aspiration
- Begin Again
- Everything’s Local in the Global Community
- Further Explorations
- Giving Negativity a Body Blow
- Langri Tangpa’s Eight Verses for Training the Mind
- Life in a plaster cast
- Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour
- Maitreya Project: Setting the Record Straight
- Making Merit
- Mind Training, The Tibetan Tradition of Mental and Emotional Cultivation: Part II
- Monsoon Meditation
- Society or the Individual
- Tantra Comes from Buddha
- Thanksgiving Report from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- The Tenth Course
- The Works of Geshe Jampa Gyatso at Pomaia
- April
- A Letter from a Student to Lama Zopa
- A Truthful Heart
- A Year in the Life of FPMT
- Art as Dharma
- Berni Kohnen
- Dealing with Feelings
- Emergency Buddhism: Part II
- Essential Life Practices
- Flexible Retreats: How to Retreat from our own Delusions
- Graduation Time!
- Henry Lau
- Lama the Businessman
- Manis by the Millions
- On the Environment and Meditation
- Ready, Set, Go!
- Shifting the Attitude: Embracing Community
- The Evolution of the Virtual Thangka
- The Importance of Lam-rim and the War Against Delusions
- The Tara Institute Healing Meditation Program
- What Is a Root Guru?
- June
- A Nation in the Spotlight
- An Appeal to the World from His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Beatrice Ribush: Special Tribute from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- Choden Rinpoche Touches Hearts of Prisoners, Officers and Staff in Australia
- Compassion for a Killer
- Conversation without End
- Establishing a Firm Foundation: International Mahayana Institute (IMI)
- Lama Yeshe’s American College “Experewence”
- Leading Chinese Intellectuals Speak Out
- Letter from the Publisher
- Life at Sera Je
- Maitri’s Microcosm
- Obituaries
- Prayers from Kopan
- Robert Thurman on the Situation Inside Tibet
- Summer Days at a Kids’ Camp
- Support His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibet
- The Caves of Maratika
- The Dharamsala Experience
- The Perfect Altar
- Where Waves and Water Are One
- Who Am I, Really?
- Why We Love War
- Yangsi Rinpoche on the Need for a Plan
- An Interview with Ven. Professor Samdhong Rinpoche
- August
- 2008 International Sangha Prayers for World Peace
- A Blessing for Marine Life
- About Prayer: A Retreat
- Accentuating the Positive
- And My First Question Is …
- Becoming Maitreya
- Cleaning the Whole Mirror
- FPMT Puja Fund
- Geshe Lobsang Jamyang Reborn
- Long Life Puja for the Dalai Lama: A Student’s Experience
- Mexican Dharma Celebration
- Mouse in the House!
- New Abbot at Nalanda Monasteiy
- Obituaries
- On the Importance of Meditation
- Ordination: Caught Between Two Cultures
- Powerful Ceremonies
- Pujas by the People
- The Abbot: When East Meets West
- The Benefits of Namgyälma Mantra
- The Dharma of Politics: Adventures in Interdependence
- The Monks at Nalanda Monastery in France
- October
- ‘Why Does the Buddha Wear Lipstick?’
- 16 Guidelines for Happy Families
- A Great Adventure for Teens
- A Volunteer’s Experience in Bodhgaya
- Buddha’s Café
- California Mud
- Camp for Teens
- Compassion through Art
- Dharma in My Life
- Dog-tired at a Nyung-nä
- First Encounters
- Glorious Italian Days and Nights
- I’m Really Not There
- It’s Cool to Be Kind
- Kadampa Center’s New Building is Consecrated
- My Root Guru: Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment
- Obituaries
- Peace Begins with You and Me: LKPY Turns One
- Rare and Important Manuscripts Found in Tibet
- Reaching Out to the Young
- Relying on the Guru
- Sitting at School: The Case for Contemplative Education
- The Last Hurrah
- The Reasons for Studying the Four Noble Truths
- Three Turnings of the Wheel of the Dharma
- To Be Truly Free
- Wheel-Turning Day World-Wide Recitation of the King of Glorious Sutras Sublime Golden Light
- Winning Gold
- February
- Mandala for 2007
- February
- A Dharma King Takes Shape: The origins of Buddhist Art
- Contemptible Dreams, Remarkable Rinpoches
- Fur and Feathers and Other Sentient Beings
- How Khedrup Je Became Entrusted with the Tooth-relic
- Lama, the ad-man
- Liberation for our Brother and Sister Animals
- Loving Kindness Photo Contest: First Winner
- More River than Rinpoche
- The case for not eating our friends
- When Tibetans Found Their Voice: Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy from 1200-1600
- April
- “Ask a Lama” Revisited
- 12 Ways to Create Good Karma
- A Last Letter from Lama Yeshe
- A Remarkable Feat by Extraordinary Men: The Western Geshe in Two Acts
- A Room Full of Role Models: The Geshe Conference in Sarnath
- A Young Monk Runs Away: The Humble Beginnings of a Legendary Geshe
- Be Careful What You Wish For …
- Building the Land of Kalachakra
- Ideas to Make Life Better
- Lama the Environmentalist and Art Teacher
- Loving Kindness Photo Contest: Second Winner
- Masters in Our Midst
- Mystic Tibet: An Outer, Inner and Secret Pilgrimage
- Other Titles in Tibetan Buddhism
- Radical Solutions for Transforming Problems into Happiness.
- The Four Subscripts, Continued
- The Master from the New Generation – Geshe Thubten Sherab
- The Rise of the Geshe-ma
- To help oneself – or others? That is the question
- Transforming Desire into Wisdom with Vajrayogini
- Vajrayogini Retreat Explained
- What Does a Geshe Do for a Center?
- What is a Geshe?
- June
- ‘Anyone Can Be a Buddha’
- A Breath of Fresh Air
- A Clear and Knowing Mind
- A Stone Made of Heart
- About Doubt
- Architecture of the Mind
- Clarifying the Status of the “Geshema” Degree
- Garden of Enlightenment
- How to Establish a Daily Meditation Routine
- In Another Person’s Shoes
- Lama Learns to Drive
- Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth: The Beginning
- Loving Kindness Photo Contest: Third Winner
- Molting
- Motherhood as a Path to Realization
- Obituaries
- Subscripts Concluded and Word Order
- The Dharamsala Experience
- The Real Chöd Practice
- The Value of Study
- Vegetarianism: A Healthy Debate
- Venture into the Interior
- Young Tulkus Give Contemporary Advice
- August
- What Exactly Is Merit?
- A Journalist Undone
- A Venture in Real Estate
- An Introduction to Tibetan Prefixes
- Buddhist Monastics Get Together
- Developing Wisdom
- Economics and the Dharma: Coming to Realize That All Profit Is Loss
- Green Tara Rising
- How to Be a Happy Meditator
- Integrating Ngondro into your Daily Meditation
- Kurukulla: A Work in Progress
- Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth
- Obituaries
- Please Recite the Golden Light Sutra for World Peace
- The Baby Minder’s Preliminary and Purification Practice
- The Benefits of Wearing Robes
- The Compassion and Wisdom Knowledge Base
- The Foundation of All Good Qualities
- The Soothing of Madness and Sorrow
- The Way to Meditate: The Importance of Mindfulness
- Tibetan Cooking
- October
- A Water Bowl Marathon
- About Connecting with a Teacher
- Achieving Inner Happiness Through Meditation
- Bhutan’s Velvet Revolution in Reverse
- Dalai Lama Urges Introduction of Bhikshuni Vows into Tibetan Tradition
- Eight Hundred Words on Education
- Getting to Know the Four Schools of Tibetan Buddhism
- Heart Advice of Achos Rinpoche
- Heart to Heart
- How to Garden Without Killing
- How to Let Go
- In Praise of Silence
- Kim’s Lama: Spiritual Quest in Kipling’s Novel
- Lama Yeshe and the Sand Tray
- Nepal Sanctuary for Animals Underway
- Obituaries
- Suffixes and Finding the Root Letter of a Syllable
- Teaching the Language of an Ancient Culture in a Modern World
- The Importance of Human Affection and Love
- The Iron-Bridge Man
- What is Anger?
- Will All the Volunteers Please Stand Up?
- December
- Dalai Lama receives highest honor from the US
- Disappointment and Delight: The eight worldly concerns
- Each Faith Enhances the Other
- Lo-jong Mind training, the Tibetan tradition of mental and emotional cultivation: Part I
- Making friends with money
- Meanings and Meditation
- Nurturing baby bodhisattvas to stop the rot
- Our Relationship to Resources
- Recognizing and supporting the Sangha community
- Thank You and Rejoice!
- February
- Mandala for 2006
- February
- Advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- Getting to the Cushion: Temporary Ordination at Gampo Abbey
- Keeping It in the Family
- Kindle Now the Dharma’s Light
- Letting Go of Fear and Trembling Takes Courage
- Maitreya Project on track
- Monsters (Un)incorporated
- Obituaries
- On a Wing and a Prayer
- The Dream: One Thousand Maitreya Statues
- Universal Compassion and Wisdom for Peace
- April
- June
- August
- Altruism versus Co-dependency
- Buddhism in Latin America
- Following the Eightfold Path in the exercise yard
- Found in translation: A compassionate heart
- Journey to Sikkim
- Letter from Bodhgaya: Monastic Economics
- Milarepa: The Movie
- MILAREPA: TIBET’S GREAT MYSTIC
- SERVICE BY ANOTHER NAME …
- Stepping into the Abyss: Experiences on Retreat
- October
- Ask a Lama: Celebrating all the traditions
- Confessions of a Buddhist Environmental Activist
- Dealing with Grief
- Eco-Ethics: Engaging in the Practice of Compassion
- ENGAGED REALISM
- How Prayer Can Help: Reciting the Sutra of Golden Light
- Letter from Bodhgaya: Arboreal antidote to an inconvenient truth
- Peace promoter honored
- Reducing your Ecological Footprint
- The Giving Tree: A voice for the singing river
- THE PRACTICE OF GURU PADMASAMBHAVA THAT SAVES FROM EARTH DANGER
- Vipassana: The Mindfulness-Awareness Meditation
- What Does Al Gore Know that Everyone Should Know?
- Whirlwind Down Under: Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Australia and New Zealand
- Blessing the World’s Waterways
- December
- A Summer in Kenya
- An intensive meditation experience for teenagers Five-day retreat at Land of Medicine Buddha, California, December 27 to January 1
- Building a monastery
- Calling all young photographers. Win prizes!
- Materialism of the Gaps
- Mongolia: Dalai Lama urges shared responsibility
- Of Siberian Cranes and Broken Worlds
- Preliminary Practices by the Zillion
- The Spirit of Christmas: SILENT MIND, HOLY MIND
- Using Meditation to Gain Knowledge of Mental Reality
- Where Are All the Western Geshes?
- February
- Mandala for 2005
- February
- “Universal Education” Dharma for the 21st Century
- According to Je Tsongkhapa
- FPMT Masters Program: The Graduates
- Letter from Bodhgaya: Travels with my father
- Life as a Monk
- New FPMT College Planned
- Rock climbing without arms:
- Study Versus Meditation: Do they complement or compete with your practice?
- Tibetan art unfurled
- Tushita: The Place of Joy
- April
- Buddhism in the Family: Dealing with the “Terrible Twos”
- Letter from Bodhgaya How wonderful it would be if…
- Nam-tok: The hallucinatory bubble
- Science and Buddhism: Measuring Success in Meditation
- Science and Buddhism: Studying Compassion
- The Dharma of Sitting
- Tsunami disaster: Children helping children
- Tsunami disaster: Potowa Center helps the victims
- June
- Albert Einstein and the Dalai Lama
- From News Roundup: Making a difference in the courts of law
- Integrating Tibetan and Western Medicine in the Treatment of Anxiety
- Is Nothing Sacred? The Truth about Emptiness
- Personal experiences in healing rLung
- Spirituality and Work: Antonyms or Synonyms?
- The Mathematical Proof of Emptiness
- The Point Is to Practice
- August
- October
- December
- February
- Mandala for 2004
- Mandala for 2003
- March
- A Celebration of the Feminine
- Celebrating the Feminine in Buddhism
- Creating the Work You Love
- Finding Larger Truths for Peace
- Giving Birth to Healthy Life
- Possibilities for Contemporary Buddhist Living
- Romancing a River
- Speaking to Create Harmony
- Taming Your Wild Elephant-like Mind
- The Attendant Who Pledged Her Life
- The Dharmic Politician
- The Face of Buddha in Mongolia
- The Girlfriend with a Lama
- The Inner Activist
- The Working Woman
- Turning Rage to Love
- When Clothes Make the Nun
- When Does a Stem Cell Become a Human Being?
- When Loneliness Is Your Closest Friend
- You Are Not a Buddhist Missionary!
- June
- September
- Advice for Western Practitioners
- Beginnings: History in the making
- Buddhist Psychology? Buddhism is Psychology
- Conversations with a Nun: Opening the Prison Door
- Reflections on the importance of arousing Bodhicitta
- The challenge: Kids and their ‘stuff’
- The living likeness of Lama Thubten Yeshe
- The more things change …
- The Secret of Happiness
- To debate or not to debate: That is the question
- December
- A Cheerful Face on Death
- A grief observed
- Advice on Long Retreats
- An interview with Yangsi Rinpoche
- History in the Making
- How to Prepare for and Not Be Afraid of Death
- Parenting as a Path
- Science and Buddhism Meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Trust and Mistrust
- Who are we really, and to whom do we pray?
- March
- Mandala for 2002
- March
- An Engaged Military
- An Extraordinary Modern-Day Milarepa: The Life and Death of Geshe Lama Konchog
- Coming to Terms with “God”
- Dealing with Depression
- Embracing Anger
- Good Life, Good Death
- Ground Zero
- Heaven, Earth, and Mankind Luck
- Holy Wars in Buddhism and Islam: The Myth of Shambhala
- Letting Go of Codependency
- Life Among the Ruins
- Mandala for Universal Peace
- Natural Born Buddhist
- Open Letter to a President
- Revenge is Far From Sweet
- Shalom! A Letter from Jerusalem
- Stanger, Enemy, Friend
- The Case of the Dirty Debutante
- Transforming Problems into Happiness
- Unbearable Compassion
- War and Peace in Tibetan Buddhism
- Why Worry?
- June
- A Healthy Relationship
- A Korean Holiday
- A Teacher’s Responsibility
- A Word from Lama
- Art Sets Kids Free
- Capturing a Living Likeness
- Counsels from My Heart
- First Assemble the Ingredients
- First, assemble the ingredients
- Garuda Rising
- Grappling with the Guru Principle
- Hi-Tech Volunteers
- Just Get On With It!
- Mos and Other Conundrums
- Out of the Mouths of Young Monks
- Relationship with the teacher
- Spiritual Authority, Genuine and Counterfeit
- Students Speak
- The guru as Buddha —or like Buddha?
- The Harmony of Retreat
- The Sounds of Silence
- Thinking Like a Thief
- Trials and Joys of a Disciple
- Wake Up Call
- Working with the Western Mind
- Zen Moments of Truth
- September
- A Garden’s Teaching
- A Jewish-Buddhist Encounter
- A Liberating Corner of a Prison
- Advice for Retreat Practice
- An Ecological Challenge
- Bearing Witness
- Bön and Benedictine
- Dharma in the Workplace
- Do Good Bosses Lead – Or Just Manage?
- Eva’s Good Heart Pillows
- Gethsemani: The Conversation Continues
- Inner City Haven
- Love and Freedom
- Making Peace with Our Inner Family
- Meditation in the Workplace
- Misunderstandings
- Non-Gardening in a Rainforest
- Science to Prove Benefits of Compassion
- Spirit in business
- Spirit in Business: an Oxymoron?
- Start the Day Right
- Stupa: The Mind of a Buddha
- Symbols of the Enlightened Mind
- The Beauty and Benefits of Offering Flowers
- The Calvert Community
- The Simple Art of Meditation
- The Twins: Faith and Doubt
- The Way of the Ani Yunwiwa
- Tibetan Must Preserve Their Culture
- Very Young Practitioners
- Why am I doing this?
- Why Am I Doing This?
- Wise Women Healing
- December
- A Light-filled Day for Lama Tsongkhapa
- A Month in Shangri-la
- Bad Boy Miller
- Comfortable with Uncertainty
- Flexibility
- From Lama Zopa’s Letter to His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Inner and Outer Disarmament
- Pilgrimage to Tibet
- Please, Ma’am!
- Relics Explained by Lamas
- Relics on Tour
- Safe Sex and Healthy Babies
- Stitching a Culture Back Together
- The Bliss of Practice
- The Case of the Talkative Traveler
- The Future of Tibet
- The Habit of War and Suffering
- The Secret Life of Power Places
- Unlearning Hate
- March
- Mandala for 2001
- March
- June
- A sacred trek round Mount Kailash
- Cutting to the Chase
- Dharma teachers: seven years in the making
- Emptiness on My Mind
- Keanu Reeves on the small screen
- Maha Dalai Lama (Great Dalai Lama)
- Mastering the art of ‘masterful coaching’
- The Fourteen Dalai Lamas: A Sacred Legacy of Reincarnation
- The Inner Realizations of the Dalai Lama
- The power in the stories we tell ourselves
- What is Dharma?
- Who are you and where can you be found?
- Who is making this decision anyway?
- September
- A Vehicle for Realization
- Band-aids, baby-sitting or real Buddhadharma?
- Dakinis: healers of our gender scars
- Freedom from the ego mind
- Monasticism in the 21st Century
- Monasticism in the 21st Century
- The 12 Deeds of Shakyamuni Buddha
- The benefits of cherishing others
- The Lies Our Minds Tell Us
- The Master’s Voice
- The puzzle of relationship
- Those who teach, learn
- Training the mind while training the body
- December
- Addicted? Who, Me?
- Behave yourself. You are being watched
- Buddhism in Action
- A Fortunate Life
- A Heart for Dying Children
- A Nurse Finds Right Livelihood
- A Teacher Helps Kids ‘Reach for Peace’
- A Thousand Letters
- Aid for AIDS Victims
- Altruism in a Maid’s Uniform
- An Italian in Wonderland
- Behave Yourself. You are Being Watched.
- Bodhisattva in Training
- Care for the Dying in Singapore
- Computers in the Slums
- Freedom Inside Prison
- From Mozart to Mongolia
- Healing the Scars of Sexual Abuse
- I Would Ride 500 Miles – Or More
- Keeping the Balance
- Looking into the Mirror of Death
- Nun Helps Air Force Cadets to Stay Grounded
- Roshi on the Frontlines
- Senior Wisdom
- Soup Kitchens and Ban the Bomb
- The Bean Counter Who Works for Free
- The Freelance Lama: Thubten Dorje Lakha Lama
- The Healing Power of Meditation
- The Intimacy of Dying
- The Toe Tag of Tenderness
- Walk a Mile in My Shoes
- Word Power: A Journo’s Story
- Computers in the Slums
- Dharma for Modern Life
- Interview – Why Buddhism?
- News Roundup
- Nun helps Air Force cadets to stay grounded
- Sharing the benefits of a Christmas feast
- The Attitude Behind Social Service
- The Dharma of Dancing
- The freelance lama
- The Warm Heart
- Trading the Good Life for a Better One
- Vikramashila, Ancient Seat of Tantric Buddhism
- World Peace
- Mandala for 2000
- January
- How a Person Enters into the Mother’s Womb
- Cecilia Berranger, France
- Colin Crosbie, Australia
- Death of a Son
- Ecie Hursthouse, New Zealand
- Geshe Gelek Chodak
- In Mongolia, “It is now physically very hard but easier mentally.”
- Jacie Keeley, United States
- Janet Brooke, United States
- Journey to Realms Beyond Death
- Lama Ösel’s News
- Letter from Ulaanbaatar
- Maria Torres, Spain
- Mary Grace Lentz, United States
- Monks and Nuns of the FPMT: Ven. Yeshe Gyatso
- Naresh and Antonella Mathur, India
- Panchen Otrul Rinpoche’s Fourth Visit to Mongolia
- Peter Kedge, Canada
- Rocio Arreola, Mexico
- Salim Lee, Australia
- The Passing Scene: January-February 2000
- The Reawakening of Buddhadharma in Mongolia
- Vajra Brothers and Sisters Have a Say: Giving Life to a Statue of the Buddha
- March
- A Day in the Life of an FPMT Lama: Geshe Thubten Chonyi
- Attachment: The Biggest Problem on Earth
- Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche Uses Film for Seeing Reality
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s New Millennium Message
- Journey to Realms Beyond Death
- Lama Osel “Eager for the Study of Buddhism”
- Lama Ösel’s News
- Maitreya Project Hosts Twelve Thousand People for Teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya
- My First Meeting with Lama Yeshe
- Other Lamas: His Holiness Jigdal Dagchen Sakya
- Proceeds of Sale of Videos of Australian Documentary Film to Benefit Milarepa Prison Project
- Tha Passing Scene: March-April 2000
- The Beginnings of Lama Yeshe’s Work in the West
- The Biography of a Buddha
- The Blossoming of Blue Lotuses
- The Sign of a Real Lama
- The Unimaginable Qualities of Lama Yeshe’s Body, Speech and Mind
- Thousands “Genuinely Delighted” to Celebrate the New Millennium at the Bodhgaya Stupa
- Vajra Brothers and Sisters Have a Say: Terry Griffith-Ladner
- May
- How a Doctor-Lama Manifests as the Medicine Buddha
- Mental and Physical Illness Can Be Caused by Spirits
- Practicing the Art of Tibetan Buddhist Healing
- Spirit Influence Is the Result of Karma from the Person’s Previous Lives
- Successful Treatment of AIDS, Cancer and other Diseases by Tibetan Medicine
- The Passing Scene: May-June 2000
- Vajra Brothers and Sisters Have a Say: Carleen Gonder
- Ven. Lobsang Rinchen
- July
- September
- A Lama Comes of Age
- A new generation of Tibetan lamas
- Competition or Compassion?
- Competition or Compassion?
- Countering Violence in Colombia
- Give Peace a Dance
- Keeping cultures alive in exile: Tibetan children go to Israel
- Mandalas as Tools for Peace
- MindTrip
- Peace on this planet is in the hands of young people
- PeaceJam
- Six thousand Oregon Teenagers to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- November
- January
- Older Archives
- Mandala for 1999
- January
- March
- 150 People Experience the Joy of Serving
- Advice from Shantideva: “Please Become a Kind Person”
- Australian and New Zealand Geshes Enjoy Themselves in Laid-back Subtropical Queensland
- Education Fund Supports Talent and Creative Initiative
- FPMT European Geshes Meet in London: A Conference with a Difference
- Geshe Jampel Senge
- Helping to Make Things Better
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama Teaches on Shantideva in Bodhgaya
- Home Truths: March-April 1999
- Lama Osel’s News
- Nalanda: A New Building to House Forty Monks
- New Education Services for FPMT Centers
- Stupa of Universal Compassion: Re-creating a Building Designed in the Fifteenth Century to Last for 1,000 Years
- That is My Home, My Home is Up There
- The Lawudo Lama Returns
- The Passing Scene: March-April 1999
- Useful Meeting
- Ven. Thubten Samphel
- May
- A Buddhist Approach to Mental Illness
- Gelek Rinpoche
- Home Truths: May-June 1999
- How to Deal with “Meditator’s Disease”
- Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva
- Lama Ösel’s News
- Sam-Lo Geshe Kelsang
- The Making of a Buddha
- The Passing Scene: May-June 1999
- The Power of the Human Heart: Transforming Asia’s Biggest Prison
- The Practice of Ksitigarbha to Avert Danger and Purify Obstacles
- Ven. Thubten Khadro
- July
- Accompanying Children to Their Death
- Changing Suffering into Happiness
- Changing Suffering into Happiness: Andrew Vahldieck, USA
- Changing Suffering into Happiness: Elea Redel, France
- Changing Suffering into Happiness: Isabel Amorim, Brazil
- Changing Suffering into Happiness: Skye Banning, Australia
- Home Truths: July-August 1999
- Ven. Marcel Bertels
- September
- A Day in the Life of Western Monks at Sera Je
- Advice from the Virtuous Friend, His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Chime Lama
- Fifty People Successfully Complete First Five-year Course of Basic Program in the Netherlands
- Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden
- Home Truths: September-October 1999
- How St. Francis Lost Everything and Found his Way
- Journey to Realms beyond Death
- Lama Ösel’s News
- Receiving the Blessings of Chenrezig Himself
- Reclaiming Life on Death Row
- The Passing Scene: September-October 1999
- Vajra Brothers and Sisters Have a Say: September-October 1999
- November
- Believing in Social Justice Principles
- Feng-shui: Tai-chi for the Environment
- Geshe Doga
- Geshe Yeshe Tobden
- Gomang Khensur Kelsang Thapkey Rinpoche
- Helping Others with a Good Motivation is Dharma Practice
- Home Truths: November-December 1999
- In Praise of Dorje Den, Lama Yeshe’s Dog
- Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche Honored by Mexican Indians
- Lama Ösel’s News
- Lama Yeshe Losal
- The Passing Scene: November-December 1999
- Unashamedly Beautiful Housing for Melbourne’s Elderly Homeless
- Ven. Tenzin Jangsem
- Wintringham Wins World Habitat Award
- Mandala for 1998
- January
- “Surprise and joy”
- Bad and Good Depend on the Individual Person’s Interpretation
- Choosing a Life Without Attachment
- Colors of the Dharma:
- Fulfilling a Lifelong Calling to Heal Leprosy
- Fund-Raising Event in Singapore Attended by 5,500
- Geshe Lobsang Dorje
- Home Truths
- Lama Osel’s News
- Letter to Lama Zopa from the Staff of FPMT International Office
- Maitreya Project Gaining Momentum
- New Director of FPMT International Office
- Putting Compassion into Action
- The Keeper of Lawudo
- The Passing Scene
- Tibetan Monk-Scholar Visits Taiwan to Research the Chinese Bhikshuni Tradition
- Transforming Hardships into Realizations
- When We Study Buddhism We Study Ourselves
- March
- A Blissful Festival of Dharma
- Geshe Tenzin Tenphel
- Home Truths: March-April 1998
- Lama Osel’s News
- Monks Walk through Asia for Inner Peace/World Peace
- On Pilgrimage with Ribur Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- The Benefits of the Existence of Statues and of Making Statues
- The Blessings of Chenrezig Himself: the Guarantee of Future Success
- The Hermit of the Pyrenees
- The Passing Scene: March-April 1998
- The Purpose of Religion
- Twenty Thousand People Attend Teachings in Bodhgaya by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Wutaishan’s Natural Wonder, the Sky-Gazing Great Buddha
- May
- Empowering the Homeless Youth of San Francisco
- Everything Comes from the Mind
- Home Truths: May-June 1998
- Khensur Lobsang Thubten Rinpoche
- Lama Ösel’s News
- Looking into the Future
- Loving Oneself
- The Compassion and Vastness of the Minds of the Lamas
- The Passing Scene: May-June 1998
- Using Your Mind Can Be Fun
- July
- Aaron Morrison, 23, American
- Aida Rius, 19, Spanish
- Angela Furio, 18, Spanish
- Arturo, 22, Mexican
- Christopher Kelley, 24, American
- Felicity Keeley, 11, American
- Fong Huey Yee, 18, Singaporean
- Holly, 12, and Greenfield Nguyen, 14, Vietnamese-American
- Home Truths: July-August 1998
- Jasmilhe Uchitsubo, 16, Japanese
- Jesse Tate Wistreich, 20, English
- Josephine Ross, 15, Australian
- Kalu Davis, 15, Australian
- Kim Tate Wistreich, 11, English
- Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche, 13, Spanish
- Lama Yeshe Talks to His Monks and Nuns
- Lungtog Rinpoche, 13, Chinese
- Marlon Vassallo, 20, Italian
- Melissa Carlisle, 23, Singaporean
- Moana Strom, 15, American
- Sangha Shouldn’t Pay
- Shannon Kincaid, 21, American
- The Passing Scene: July-August 1998
- Tom Andrews, 15, Australian
- Ven. Lozang Chodzin, 25, New Zealander
- Ven. Tenzin Chhime (Ven. Holly Ansett), 23, Australian
- Ven. Thubten Dagme, 20, American
- September
- January
- Mandala for 1997
- January
- A Celebration of Kindness: The Dalai Lama in New Zealand
- A Tibetan Pilgrimage
- A Vision for the Future
- Building Bridges
- Educating Monks and Nuns
- From Here to Enlightenment: Education Sentient Beings
- Geshe Ngawang Dakpa
- Home Truths: January-February 1997
- How to Attract People to the Dharma Centers
- Implementing the Basic Program of Buddhist Studies
- Lama Osel’s News
- Not All Who Wander Are Lost
- Teaching
- The Passing Scene: January-February 1997
- What Tibetans Do with their Dead
- March
- May
- Geshe Tsulga
- Home Truths: May-June 1997
- Kopan Monastery: A New Era for Kathmandu Center
- Kopan Monastery: Coming Home
- Kopan Monastery: Kopan the Mother
- Kopan Monastery: The Wellspring of FPMT
- Kopan Monastery’s New Gompa: Loved, Lived in and Full of Dharma
- Lama Osel’s News
- Mogchok Rinpoche Arrives at Nalanda
- Relating to Your Path
- Remembering Death
- The Passing Scene: May-June 1997
- Training Tibetan Translators
- July
- Anger
- Attachment: The Biggest Problem on Earth
- Climbing a Mountain with Both Hands
- Facing the Disharmony within Ourselves: Making Dharma Centers Work
- Going Beyond Hope and Fear
- Home Truths: July-August 1997
- Khensur Kangurwa Lobsang Thubten Rinpoche
- Lama Ösel’s News
- Many Ways to Work with the Mind
- Mongolian Renaissance
- The Passing Scene: July-August 1997
- Letter from a Meditator
- September
- A Day in the Life of an FPMT Lama
- Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth
- Give Your Ego the Wisdom Eye
- Home Truths: September-October 1997
- How to Benefit the Dying and the Dead
- Journeying Skillfully from Life to Life
- Looking Forward to Death
- Nine Ways to Help the Dying
- The Passing Scene: September-October 1997
- We Die as We Live
- November
- A Day in the Life of an FPMT Lama
- Beauty is in the “I” of the Beholder
- Buddhism Breaks into Prison
- Finding Freedom: Practicing Dharma in Prison
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the “eternal optimist”
- Home Truths: November-December 1997
- Lama Osel’s News
- Lama Zopa on the Road in America
- Letters from Prison: J.W. Johnson
- Letters from Prison: Jimmy Tribble
- Letters from Prison: Milo Rusimovic
- Letters from Prison: Paul Dewey
- Letters from Prison: Timothy Haremza
- Maitreya Project tackles the engineering challenges involved in building a statue to last for 1000 years
- Ode to John Schwartz
- Prisoners
- Searching for a Way to Leave No One Behind: The Transformation of a Mexican Gangster
- Searching for a Way to Leave No One Behind: The Transformation of a Mexican Gangster
- The Passing Scene: November-December 1997
- Thirty people to start seven-yearFPMT Master’s Program
- Writings from Death Row
- January
- Mandala for 1996
- January
- Reversing the Energy of Addiction
- The Passing Scene: January-February 1996
- A New Generation of Young Lamas
- Geshe Losang Tengye
- Home Truths: January-February 1996
- The Great Stupa of Australia
- The Benefits of Building Stupas
- The Magnificent Legacy of Rabten Kunsang
- He Is My Guru and I Am Going With Him
- Reflections on a Guru/Disciple Relationship
- Lama Osel’s News
- March
- May
- July
- September
- “Seeking joy and freedom from sufferingis the birthright of all beings”
- A Longing to Change
- A Monastery to Last until Maitreya Comes
- Buddhist Monks and Nuns: A Community of White Crows
- Chenrezig Nuns: Harmoniously Growing
- Geshe Tashi Tsering
- Home Truths: September-October 1996
- IMI Communities: Nalanda is Reborn
- Italian Monks and Nuns in ‘Precarious Equilibrium’
- Lama Osel’s News
- Ordination, Who? Me?
- Taiwanese Sangha
- The Benefits of Being Monks and Nuns
- The Passing Scene: September-October 1996
- Tibetan Geshe Offers Money to Help Western Sangha
- Western Monks and Nuns: Taking Care of Our Own Reality
- With Vows, You Don’t Do The Ordinary
- November
- A Day in the Life of an FMPT Lama: Geshe Thubten Dawa
- Beyond Extraordinary: His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Australia
- Dalai Lama Gives to Charity the $750,000 Offered to Him
- Geshe Lhundup Sopa
- Home Truths: November-December 1996
- Lama Osel’s News
- The Compassion Buddha is no other than Your Holiness
- The Making of the Universe
- The Passing Scene: November-December 1996
- January
- Mandala for 1995
- Mandala for 1992
- Mandala for 1990
- April
- Bringing it Home … to the land of Abraham Lincoln and Mickey Mouse
- Creating the Causes: Special Advice on the Guru Shakyamuni Puja from Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- FPMT, Not Just for the West
- Is Stability the Goal?
- It Takes Time
- Leprosy in Bodhgaya: A Long Way to Go
- Membership Provides Stability
- On Becoming Vegetarian
- To Wear Pain Like an Ornament
- October
- April
- Mandala for 1989
- April
- As a Monk in the World
- Excerpts from an Interview of Piero Cerri
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama Speaks on the 30th Anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising – March 10, 1989
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Message to the WCRP
- Life in a Residential City Center
- My First Retreat
- Putting into Practice
- Remember the Guru’s Kindness
- The Meaning of Vezak Day
- The Tantric Way in Daily Life
- Transforming Motherhood into the Path
- October
- April
- Mandala for 1988
- April
- A Talk about Nalanda
- An Interview with Tenzin Palmo
- Chronicle of a Special Child
- Focus on Full Ordination for Buddhist Women
- It Isn’t “Out There” Anymore
- Lam-Rim: A Teaching by Geshe Jampa Tegchok
- Now Is the Time When Action is Practice
- Our First and Final Meeting with the Panchen Lama Who Passed Away on January 28, 1989
- Reflections from a New Bhikshuni
- The Twelve Links of Dependent Arising
- Universal Education: On Becoming One
- World Conference on Religion and Peace
- October
- April
- Mandala for 1987
- Mandala for 1984
- Wisdom #2 – 1984
- A Prayer for the Quick Return of Kyabje Ling Rinpoche
- A Prayer for the Quick Return of Tsenshab Serkong Rinpoche
- Extracts from a Mönlam Diary
- How to Let Go, How to Integrate Emptiness in Everyday Life
- Lama Thubten Yeshe, 1935-1984
- Making a Home for Future Nuns
- Nalanda Monastery
- Bodhichitta: The Perfection of Dharma
- They Can Change Their Minds and They Can Become More Harmonious
- We Should Be Very Harmonious and Try to Help Each Other
- Willing to Do Anything to Help
- Lama Was a Great Yogi
- A Prayer for the Kind Father Guru to Return Quickly
- Lama Zopa Rinpoche: One of the Young Lamas Who Is Special
- Our Heart Jewel, Our Wish-granting Gem
- The Activities That Lama Yeshe Performed Are the Activities of All Holy Beings
- Now Here Is a Real Yogi
- The Difference a Single Person Can Make
- Who Simply Breathed Goodness
- The Wind Moaning Down the Valley Is Your Breath
- Getting away from It All
- Teachers
- Journey to Spiti
- Short in Body but Tall in Knowledge
- Kyabje Yongdzin Ling Dorjechang
- Meetings: Opening Our Hearts to Each Other
- Kyabje Song Rinpoche
- Tsenshab Serkong Rinpoche
- Wisdom #2 – 1984
- Mandala for 1983
- Mandala for 1999
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*powered by Google TranslateTranslation of pages on fpmt.org is performed by Google Translate, a third party service which FPMT has no control over. The service provides automated computer translations that are only an approximation of the websites' original content. The translations should not be considered exact and only used as a rough guide.By eliminating the self-pitying imagination of ego, you go beyond fear. All fear and other self-pitying emotions come from holding a self-pitying image of yourself.