International Office News
August 2024

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Pomaia, Itay, 2014. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

Teachings and News About Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Introducing the Unmistaken Incarnation Fund

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with young monks on the way to the stupa, Kopan Monastery, March 25, 2023. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

The Unmistaken Incarnation Fund was established to offer support in various ways to create the cause for the Swift Return of our most kind Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

• By creating a life size statue of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, that will be used as a basis to create smaller statues. The artwork for the main statue is ongoing. We hope these statues will be in all FPMT centers around the world.
• By creating the statue that will encase the precious kudung (holy body relic) of Lama Zopa Rinpoche after the embalming process is completed.
• By sponsoring pujas and prayers as advised for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
• By providing all the support needed for the care and education of the future incarnation.

Please learn more, including how to offer support.

New Book: The Power of Meditation

We are so pleased to share that Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s newest volume from Wisdom Publications, The Power of Meditation: A Complete Guide to Transforming Your Mind is now available!

Read more about this new release from Wisdom Publications and order your copy today.

Emptiness, Dependent Arising, and Guru Devotion

We recently shared news that four sessions of Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching on the Eight Verses of Mind Training in 2006 are now available on our RAN page.

In the second video of these teachings, “Emptiness, Dependent Arising, and Guru Devotion,” Rinpoche starts by explaining on how buddhas guide sentient beings during degenerate times. He explains how the mind is the creator of moment-to-moment happiness and peace as well as the problems in day-to-day life, including depression and loneliness. Rinpoche teaches on the differences between samsaric pleasure—which is in the nature of suffering as it doesn’t increase and doesn’t last—and lasting Dharma happiness. Rinpoche describes how renunciation, bodhicitta, emptiness, and the tantric path can lead us to ultimate happiness—enlightenment.

Please explore this teaching, and the others from this event.

News about His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Upcoming Public Teachings

His Holiness the Dalai Lama underwent a successful knee replacement surgery on June 28, 2024. “His Holiness is recovering well,” stated Dr. Mayman, MD, Chief of the Adult Reconstruction and Joint Replacement Service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. “He is working diligently with physical therapy and making great progress. This will continue over the next 6 to 12 months to optimize his recovery. His Holiness has made significant improvements to date, and we expect this to continue for a full year after surgery.”

There are upcoming opportunities to attend public teachings with His Holiness in McLeod Ganj, India, at the Main Temple, in September.

Lama Yeshe’s Wisdom

Spirituality and Materialism

Lama Yeshe at Chenrezig Institute, Australia, 1975. Photo donated by Wendy Finster, courtesy of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

The Peaceful Stillness of the Silent Mind is one of the most beloved free books from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. The six teachings contained in this volume come from Lama Yeshe’s 1975 visit to Australia. They are all filled with love, insight, wisdom and compassion, and accessible question-and-answer sessions.

Please enjoy Chapter 2 of Peaceful Stillness of the Silent Mind, “Spirituality and Materialism” from a talk given by Lama Yeshe at Prince Phillip Theatre, Melbourne University, April 5, 1975. Edited by Nicholas Ribush.

What We’re Rejoicing About

Support Offered to Ordained Sangha in 2024

The Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund (SOSF) is offering comprehensive support to nunneries, monasteries, and individual monks and nuns across the globe. This essential support includes providing food, accommodation, healthcare, education, and practice resources. This fund is not limited to any specific institution, lineage, or ethnicity and benefits numerous nunneries, monasteries, and Sangha members requesting assistance.

Within the FPMT organization, the support of monks and nuns is of utmost importance as the preservation of the Buddhadharma is linked to the existence and wellbeing of the Sangha.

So far in 2024, the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund contributed a total of US$342,986 toward the needs of our Sangha. Each of these offerings were made on behalf of the whole FPMT organization to support our precious Sangha. The ability to make these offerings each year is made possible by each and every donor who has contributed to the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund. We would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude and hope the transparency in the grants offered in 2024 is a means for rejoicing. Please read more detail here.

A Life Lived in Generosity: “Mummy” Max Mathews

Max Mathews and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Aptos, California, March, 1984. Photo by Åge Delbanco.

The entire FPMT community shared the loss of one of FPMT’s precious pioneers, when “Mummy” Max Mathews (also known as Sister Max), passed away on February 16, 2024. Mummy Max contributed greatly and financially assisted Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in establishing Kopan Monastery and the FPMT organization.

Max lived a fascinating life, full of many adventures. Please enjoy this collection of stories, shared from various perspectives, about and from Mummy Max, and rejoice in a full and generous life in service to others, most notably, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Merit Box Grants Have Been Awarded for 2024

Recently, grant awards were disbursed through the Merit Box Fund for fifteen projects of FPMT communities in Australia, France, Italy, Mongolia, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom and USA. As with each year, the grants will support a range of projects – a translation of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s new book The Power of Meditation into Italian, support for eight holy objects, a Mahayana Children’s program in Mongolia, and a number of repairs and renovations to center facilities. The full list of grant recipients can be found here.  A huge thanks to all of the generous donors to the Merit Box Fund who have made these grants possible!

Planetary Crisis Summit at Jamyang London Buddhist Centre

In April 2024, Jamyang London Buddhist Centre hosted the first Planetary Crisis Summit, an event that brought together a range of voices from across FPMT Europe to engage in a deep conversation about what it means to be a Dharma center during this time of social and environmental collapse. Since this time the team has been busy collating the outputs from this inspirational event. Here we share a brief report from Ven. Thubten Drolma, Center Director of Jamyang London, plus links to a fuller report and video of this momentous event.

Tara Lanka Study Group is back in the FPMT Mandala

Please join us in rejoicing that the Tara Lanka Study Group is now active again in Sri Lanka after a few years on pause. Recent activities have included regular recitations of the Golden Light Sutra and the practice of the extensive Medicine Buddha puja, as advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, as well as Zoom teachings of Khadro-la translated in Singhalese.

White Mahakala Study Group Builds a Kadampa Stupa in Romania

White Mahakala study group members with Venerable Gendun.

In 2017 Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised the White Mahakala study group in Romania to build a Kadampa stupa. Rinpoche advised that if they put it on top of a mountain, then they could put more Namgyalma mantras in it (in addition to what is normally placed inside) and then the whole mountain becomes, “extremely blessed.” They decided on the stupa being 2+ meters high (7.5 feet) and placed on the highest spot of the land. The construction of this stupa concluded in June this year with more than 200 donors and volunteers taking part in this process. Please read more about this wonderful achievement.

Resources and Opportunities for Study and Practice

Upcoming Opportunity to Connect with Tenzin Osel Hita in Mexico

We are pleased to share an opportunity to connect with Tenzin Osel Hita during an upcoming Habit Alignment Key (HAK) Experience retreat in Mexico from November 27- December 1, 2024. Please read more details about this retreat.

Newly Available and Revised Materials

We are pleased to share the translation of The Kalachakra Six-Session Guru Yoga together with An Extensive Review of the Three Vows and An Extensive Aspirational Prayer. This precious practice combines the self-generation of Kalachakra with guru yoga. The guru yoga has elements from the regular Six-Session Guru Yoga as we know it, that enables one to keep one’s tantric vow and the samayas of the five buddhas. It also has the full self-generation of Kalachakra and Vishvamata, along with the eight shaktis, complete with mantra recitation. This composition originated with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who for the sake of his own practice, requested Ling Rinpoche to compose a guru yoga based on Kalachakra, and gave advice regarding the “meaning and order of arrangement.”

The extensive practice, Making Extensive Offerings to Boudha Stupa, that Lama Zopa Rinpoche used to lead when making offerings to the Boudha Stupa in Nepal, is one which Rinpoche himself extracted and translated from the third chapter of the terma teaching, Liberation Upon Hearing: The Legend of the Great Jarung Kashor Stupa. There, Guru Padmasambhava had explained the benefits of each offering and virtuous actions performed in relation to the stupa. Although it is to honor the Boudha Stupa, the practice may be performed anywhere, including at one’s own home.

We are happy to share the Spanish translation of The Four Verses card. Seeing the immense benefit of reading and making offerings to the Four Verses, Rinpoche had recommended for FPMT centres to have it nicely framed for display on the altar, and also to give away printed copies of it to their students.

The Dharani called That Which Is Perfectly Victorious over the Bondage of Body, Speech, and Mind, formerly called the Dharani Extremely Conquering from Bondage, has been updated. In the dramatic setting of this dharani, the god Indra seeks the help of the Buddha as his body, speech, and mind have been bound by the asuras. Seeing the adverse impact of such bondage, the Buddha proclaims a wisdom-mantra that not only liberates the person but endows them with ability and power. This mantra is so potent that anyone who is touched by it, moves under it, encounters its shadow or reflection, or is brushed by the wind that blows by it will experience its effects.

In 2022 we updated the PDF of How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment), the essential daily practice complied by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for his students and anyone else wishing to start their day, and all their activities, with a perfect Dharma intention and bodhichitta motivation. This month eBook versions (epub and mobi) of this precious text have been updated to match the PDF.

One of the texts that students have been reciting for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri, is now available in eBook formats.

First Module of Buddhist Mind Science Course is Open for Registration

We are pleased to announce Module 1, Cultivating Lasting Happiness: What Buddhism and Science Have to Say about It, of our introductory level Buddhism course, Buddhist Mind Science, is scheduled for October 2-23, 2024. This module is an exploration of our purpose in life, and what leads to dissatisfaction and happiness for oneself and others. It also explores the value of warm-heartedness and wisdom, and lays out the general foundation for the following modules. It is open to everyone interested in learning more about the Buddhist perspective on things, juxtaposed with a comparative modern scientific perspective.

This online course is co-hosted by Tushita Meditation Center (Spain), Land of Joy (UK) and Shantideva Center (US). More details and registration information can be found here.

The Sutra of Great Liberation: Unbelievable Benefits

Last year we shared the news that the Sutra of Great Liberation, a sutra which Lama Zopa Rinpoche stressed the inconceivable benefits of engaging with, had been translated into English by Ven. Gyalten Lekden of Sera Je Monastery. We wanted to take the opportunity to remind students of this important sutra with the wish that all who have an interest will engage with it.

Opportunities and Changes within the Organization

Changes in the FPMT Organization

Nalanda Monastery, France
Grateful thanks to outgoing SPC Christophe (Jinpa)

Aryatara Institut, Germany
Grateful thanks to outgoing director Cora Boer-Sakals

Centro Muni Gyana, Italy
Grateful thanks to outgoing director Marco Farina

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 paid staff or as a volunteer in FPMT centers, projects, and services around the world, including opportunities in France, India, European Region, Nepal, New Zealand, Spain, UK and the US. Newly added: Mahamudra Meditation centre, in New Zealand is looking for two live-in volunteer caretakers for maintenance and grounds, and for housekeeping; the European Region is looking for a regional coordinator; Vajrapani Institute, California (USA) is looking for a caretaker and a lead cook.

Foundation Service Seminar in California and New Zealand

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.

Vajrapani Institute, California, is organizing an FSS on September 9-14, 2024. Read more information and reserve your place.

Chandrakirti Centre is hosting an FSS from November 6-10. Read more information and reserve your place.

The FSS which was previously announced in Tara Institute, Australia, from October 28-November 2, has been cancelled.

A Thank You to Our Friends of FPMT

We send our gratitude to all of the new Friends of FPMT supporters who have joined since our annual campaign invitation on Chokhor Duchen in July – we welcomed over 50 new Friends members over the past month! Thanks so much for your generous support! We rejoice in the incredible contributions of all our present and past Friends of FPMT members, it’s truly been instrumental for the success of so much of what we do. Those interested in joining can find more information here.

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.

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FPMT International Office is Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s office.