International Office News
April 2025

2025 CPMT Summit participants in front of the main gompa, Kopan Monastery, Nepal. Photo by Capucine T. Dekyong.

News Regarding Lama Zopa Rinpoche

His Holiness Confirms Rinpoche’s Reincarnation Has Been Born

Students around the world collectively rejoiced when we received the news that His Holiness the Dalai Lama shared a letter confirming that the reincarnation of our most precious spiritual director, Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, has been reborn. According to His Holiness’s observation, the reincarnation has taken rebirth in Nepal. Please read His Holiness’s letter. We will share updates and news on this process as it unfolds.

Prayers for Rinpoche’s Swift Return

Following the news that Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s reincarnation has been born, students wondered, “Do we still offer the swift return prayers?” The answer is … yes! We still have a collective responsibility to pray for the tulku to have the perfect conditions most beneficial for them. Please read the latest advice offered by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as well as Trisur Rinpoche Jetsun Lobsang Tenzin. This is a dynamic situation and we will update you on the latest advice as we receive it.

Second Year Commemoration of Rinpoche’s Passing into Parinirvana

Heruka Lama Chopa at Kopan Monastery on the second anniversary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche passing into parinirvana, April 13, 2025. Photo by Capucine T.Dekyong

April 13, 2025, marked the two-year anniversary of Lama Zopa Rinpoche passing into parinirvana. Around the world students gathered for collective prayers and practice, and to sincerely remember with immense gratitude the great kindness of our most precious spiritual guide. We recently shared a roundup of some of this incredible group activity at Kopan Monastery and Nunnery, Sera Je Monastery, FPMT centers around the world, and among other groups of dedicated students. We invite you to read about this heartfelt collection of powerful prayers.

Richard Gere’s Heartfelt Reflection

Richard Gere with Ven. Roger Kunsang. April 18, 2023. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

We recently shared a truly moving and heartfelt interview with Richard Gere on the qualities of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Richard Gere, a long-time friend and student of Rinpoche, was in Nepal and when he received the news of Rinpoche showing the aspect of passing away on April 13, 2023, he came to Kopan Monastery to pay his respects and during the first few days meditated in Rinpoche’s rooms. During this time, Ven. Roger Kunsang requested an interview with him regarding his impressions of Rinpoche’s many qualities, after spending time with Rinpoche many times over the years. 

Live Your Life to Generate Bodhichitta

At the start of the 2025 CPMT Summit at Kopan Monastery, a short clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche offering an essential teaching on bodhichitta from 2017 was shared with participants to establish a motivation for the entire event. Please watch this extremely poignant teaching extract.

Rinpoche’s Animal Friends: New Book Release

Cover of Rinpoche’s Animal Friends from LYWA.

The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive recently announced the release of Rinpoche’s Animal Friends, a new book showcasing more than one hundred images of the soft toys, also known as plushies, which appeared regularly in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s video teachings from Kopan during the COVID-19 pandemic and were later gifted to students around the world. Please order the book or find links to sample pages and links related to this most precious content.

Lama Yeshe’s Wisdom

Meditation is Action: An Excerpt from Clean-Clear

Clean-Clear: Refuge, Bodhicitta and the Nature of the Mind is the second volume in a series of Lama Yeshe’s collected teachings, forthcoming in May 2025 from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. This book contains introductory teachings given in England in 1976 and Holland in 1980. Compiled and edited by Nick Ribush.

We recently shared an excerpt from Chapter 1 of this book, Mind and Meditation:

“If you cultivate your mind in meditation, it becomes sharp and clean clear and you can easily see your false conceptions. This is extremely difficult to do when you are deeply submerged in hallucination, just as it’s extremely difficult to surface when you’re trapped deep in the ocean. At the beginning, when you’re full of wrong conceptions and garbage thoughts, it’s hard to distinguish between right and wrong. Extremely difficult. Therefore, meditation is so worthwhile. Its result is that it integrates your mind and allows you to understand your own actions, which mostly arise from misconceptions and lead you into a restless state of mind.” Read more of this excerpt.

Make sure you are subscribed to the LYWA monthly e-letter and keep up with the latest news and ordering information.

What We’re Rejoicing About

2025 CPMT Summit: A Momentous Family Reunion at Kopan

Chenrezig gompa packed with CPMT participants, Kopan Monastery. April 7, 2025. Photo by Capucine T. Dekyong.

The 2025 CPMT Summit entitled: Actualizing Our Guru’s Vision of a World Guided by Compassion and Wisdom occurred from April 6, 2025 through the second annual commemoration of Lama Zopa Rinpoche showing the aspect of passing away on April 13.

An overview of this momentous meeting, as well as a photo gallery, will be shared in the coming days. 

From Carina Rumrill, FPMT International Office managing editor and participant in the 2025 CPMT Summit:

“‘It’s been so long!’ was heard frequently as 195 individuals from 70 FPMT centers, projects, and services greeted each other with hugs and huge smiles upon arrival from 25 different countries at Kopan Monastery for the 2025 CPMT Summit: Advancing Our Gurus’ Vision of a World Guided by Compassion and Wisdom. Indeed, it had been ‘so long,’ eleven years in fact, since the last CPMT meeting was held at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia.

“In addition to old friends and colleagues reuniting after so many years, many people were meeting close connections for the first time in person. Heart-warming expressions of recognition were shared abundantly— ‘Oh! So that’s you! It’s so good to finally meet you!’ Friends were not only so delighted to see each other, but also so happy to be at Kopan. For many this was the first pilgrimage in this life to the heart location of the FPMT organization—established at Kopan fifty years ago this year—and for others this was their first time back in many years. In either case, the gathering of this particular body of participants (FPMT directors, regional and national coordinators, spiritual program coordinators, study group coordinators, affiliate board members, key staff, and registered teachers), in this particular, most blessed and significant place (Kopan Monastery, the start of it all) was extremely meaningful.

“For six agenda-packed days, participants energetically discussed, debated, dreamed, shared struggles and successes, commiserated and rejoiced, collaborated, planned, and strengthened connections old and new.”

Kopan Monastery SPC, Francisca Riaño, shared the following insightful comments about the CPMT Summit:

“For those of us serving at centers like Kopan, it can sometimes feel isolating, especially for newcomers. This gathering was a powerful reminder that we are not alone, our network is strong, and we have kindred spirits to walk this path with us. With 70 centers represented out of 133, all gathered where it all began, it was a deeply moving experience, a warm embrace for the heart and a reminder that, in a world marked by separation, coming together is the only way forward.

“Discussions around caring for the planet and preserving our lamas’ lineage highlighted the inseparable link between inner work and outer responsibility. Connecting with fellow practitioners and honoring those who have guided many of us on this path was truly inspiring. Today, there is a clear sense of direction, and our commitment to co-creating a ‘world guided by compassion and wisdom’—the theme of the gathering—is stronger than ever.”

Request: We want to share your selfies from the event! If you snapped photos of you and other participants during the 2025 CPMT Summit, please consider sharing them for our collective photo album. 

Wheel of Sharp Weapons Retreat 

Fifty-three participants have completed a powerful Wheel of Sharp Weapons retreat at Kopan Monastery, led by Geshe Legtsok (USA), from April 17-23, following the CPMT Summit and second anniversary commemoration of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s passing into parinirvana. 

A full report on this retreat will be shared soon! 

Second Lawudo Anniversary Pilgrimage

Staring on April 26 and continuing until May 10, twenty-five of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s students from around the world have come together to visit, practice, retreat and take inspiration from the holy places of the Lawudo Lamas in Khumbu and pray for the new incarnation of our precious teacher on the Second Lawudo Anniversary Pilgrimage, led by Ven. Sarah Thresher and Ven. Angie Muir.

Call for Submissions and Mantras!

Lama Yeshe’s 90th Birthday Interviews

Lama Yeshe with children and families at Istituto Lama Tsongkhapa, Italy, 1983. Photos by Ueli Minder, courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

In 2025, Lama Yeshe would have reached the age of 90 years. To honor his profound legacy, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK) invites his students from across the globe to share their treasured memories and life-changing teachings with present and future generations. They will also offer a puja on May 15 at ILTK celebrating what would have been Lama’s ninetieth birthday.

ILTK is inviting all of Lama Yeshe’s students to share two elements that will perpetuate his legacy:

• Your most cherished memory with Lama Yeshe — experiences that keep his spirit alive and demonstrate his profound impact

• The primary teaching you wish to transmit to future generations

Students who join the celebration in person on May 15 at ILTK will be invited to share their stories during the event. Those who cannot attend are gratefully requested to participate in an interview in-person or online throughout 2025. If you were fortunate to know Lama Yeshe, and would like to participate in this collection, please contact ILTK directly.

Road to Kopan Stories

For many long-time students of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, is where they first met the Dharma and where they saw their lives profoundly change. In the past, Mandala magazine collected these stories, starting with the early students of the 1970s. We would like to continue collecting these stories and need your help! If you were an early student of FPMT and have not yet shared your Road to Kopan story with us, or you know of someone we should solicit for their story, please be in touch!

FPMT Community Stories

We welcome the submission of news stories from those within the FPMT community. This can be a story about something you have personally completed or accomplished, about someone else who has done so, or about the FPMT center, project, or service of which you are a part. Ideal submissions will give readers reasons to rejoice, share ideas, and create connections between those in the international community. Have something to share? Please let us know!

Mani Mantra Recitations for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Long Life

Yeshin Norbu, Sweden, is inviting  the entire FPMT community to join in a very special initiative dedicated to the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Students are requested to recite the OM MANI PADME HUM mantra as many times as one is able or wishes to do. The total of all the recitations will be offered to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama on July 6, 2025 for his 90th birthday. 

The motivation of this initiative is to offer these mantras for His Holiness’s long, healthy and stable life, for the fulfillment of all his projects, for world peace/universal compassion, and to fulfill Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s wishes by offering our practices to His Holiness. Please learn about how to join this collective accumulation of MANI mantras to be offered to His Holiness.

Opportunities and Changes within the Organization

Changes in the FPMT Organization

Chenrezig Institute, Queensland, Australia
We welcome Emanuelle Jones as new director

Vajrapani Institute, California, USA
We welcome Ryan MacLennan as new director

Naropa Centre, Tahiti, French Polynesia
We welcome Robyn Mu Wong as new director

Gyalwa Gyatso (Ocean of Compassion) Buddhist Centre, California, USA
We welcome Casey Chainee as new director
With grateful thanks to Stefanie Harvey, outgoing director

Opportunities to Offer Service

Read about the amazing benefits and importance of offering service in the FPMT organization, and have a look at these meritorious opportunities to offer service as a paid staff or volunteer in FPMT centers, projects, and services around the world, including opportunities in Australia, France, India, North American Region, Nepal, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, UK and the USA. Newly added: Institut Vajra Yogini (France) is looking for a new director.

Foundation Service Seminar in France and Australia

The Foundation Service Seminar (FSS) is the “FPMT immersion retreat,” providing essential information and nourishment for all serving, or wishing to serve, in the FPMT organization. This is a wonderful opportunity for centers, projects, and services to invest in the future by training the next generation of directors, SPCs, volunteers, board members, etc.

Institut Vajra Yogini, France, is organizing an FSS on September 24-28, 2025. Reservations are not open yet but please save the dates already.

Atisha Centre, Australia, is organizing an FSS on November 18-22, 2025. Reservations are not open yet but please save the dates already.

Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program 2025 Open Enrollment

There are still a few more spaces available for LRZTP’s 10th translator program, beginning October 2025 through October 2027. The two-year program, taught by both Western teachers and native Tibetan speakers, is an intensive course for learning modern colloquial Tibetan as well as Classical literary Tibetan in order to be able to read and translate ancient scriptures, interpret them for modern recipients and translate contemporary Dharma teachers’ commentaries to them. Learn more and register through the LRZTP website.

Become a Friend of FPMT

Contact information for the centers mentioned, and all FPMT centers, projects, and services can be found in the FPMT Directory.

If you received this from someone else, or unformatted, visit our subscribe page to receive this newsletter directly.

FPMT International Office is Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s office.