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International Office News
February 2016
During the last month, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has been in Tso Pema (Rewalsar), India, receiving rare oral transmissions on vinaya (monastic discipline) from a Kagyü abbot at a monastery there. Rinpoche also did some personal retreat, circumambulated the lake regularly, and visited all the amazing holy sites there, including the 110-foot (34-meter) tall Padmasambhava statue that overlooks the lake.
Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang, February 2016.
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Rinpoche’s Flower Offering Card Available
New Materials from Education Services
Puja and Practices for Rinpoche’s Health and Long Life
Rinpoche’s Advice for Practices on Special Days
FPMT Teacher Registration Policy Updates
Nouvelles du Editions Mahayana
Have this translated into your native language by using our convenient translation facility located on the right-hand side of the page. French and Spanish speakers will find the FPMT International Office News translated each month in the “Bienvenue” and “Bienvenidos” tabs on the FPMT homepage!
Lama Zopa Rinpoche News:
Losar Video Message
Lama Zopa Rinpoche recorded a Losar message for us all! Watch it here.
Long Life Puja and Practices
A reminder that the annual official long life puja will be offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, on March 13, starting at 9 a.m. Singapore time (SGT; UTC +8:00). The puja and any teachings from Rinpoche will be livestreamed so all can participate. Donations are welcome. Please donate by March 10 if you would like your name included in the list of donors.
Contact your local center or study group to help participate in offering prayers and practices for the health and long life of Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Activities and Advice
Highlights from our blogs:
Advice on Practices to Do for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s
Health and Long Life
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recently said that in order to purify our karma, students can do practices dedicated for the health and long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Read in full …
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, New Zealand, May 2015.
Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
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‘Your Partner Is the
Most Kind Person
in Your Entire Life’
“You should make sure that being together with someone becomes a cause of enlightenment by keeping in mind the motivation of bodhichitta,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in Joyful Parents, Successful Children, a new publication. Read more …
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Brazil, September 2015.
Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
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‘We Can Cut Attachment
and Be Totally Free’
“The whole life, busy with attachment and anger, is like an elephant caught in a quagmire. It cannot get out, it is completely caught in a quagmire of mud,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught in 2013 at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in The Path to Total Freedom, now available through the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. “Life is like that, we are completely caught in the quagmire of attachment and anger, like a hallucination.” Read more …
Keep up to date with Lama Zopa Rinpoche News and other blogs. Find a wide range of advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche on Rinpoche’s Advice page.
Schedule
See the 2016 schedule in full.
Please contact the hosts directly with any questions.
February 27 – May 2: Teachings, initiations and retreat, South East Asia
NEW: May 8 – 22: FPMT Taiwan
May 8: Oral transmission of the Middle Length Lam-rim, Jinsui Farlin, Taipei
May 14: Kshitigarbha initiation, Shakyamuni Center, Taichung
May 15: Teaching on How to Enjoy Death: Meeting Life’s Final Challenge without Fear, Shakyamuni Center, Taichung
May 21: Lama Tsongkhapa initiation, Heruka Center, Kaohsiung
May 22: Teaching on Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga, Heruka Center, Kaohsiung
August 13: Teaching on the Seven Point Mind Training, Kadampa Center, USA
August 14 – 28: Light of the Path Retreat, Kadampa Center, USA
Subscribe to our FPMT news blog to get updates as soon as they are announced.
Rinpoche Available Now – Enjoy livestreams of many of the teachings above and recordings of Rinpoche’s most recent teachings!
International Office News:
FPMT Annual Review 2015
FPMT International Office has recently published our FPMT Annual Review 2015: Serving the World with a Bodhichitta Attitude as a PDF and as an ezine. Inside find important letters from spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and CEO Ven. Roger Kunsang, in addition to reports on the activities of International Office. We also share inspiring photographs illustrating what we’ve all accomplished together in the last year. Rejoice with us as we continue to serve the world with a bodhichitta attitude!
Rinpoche’s Flower Offering Card Available
Last year, when Rinpoche was at his home in California, USA, he created a new flower offering card. Rinpoche then had the card made into a 3-foot (1-meter) tall sign, so that when you first enter the extensive gardens around Rinpoche’s house, you read it. The FPMT Foundation Store is excited to announce that a smaller version of this card is available to order! Rinpoche has said that anyone can use this card where there are many flower and water bowl offerings.
New Materials from Education Services
New ebooks available from the Foundation Store and Amazon Kindle Store:
The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Preliminary Practice of Prostrations
Practicing the Five Powers Near the Time of Death
Materials added to our Prayers and Practices for free download:
How to Offer 1,000 Tsog Offerings
Sixteen Arhats Puja
Puja Fund Activity on Losar
The Puja Fund sponsors prayers and practices offered by up to 15,650 ordained Sangha members on every Buddha Day, when merit is multiplied 100 million times. This year on Losar (Tibetan new year), in addition to the wide array of pujas and offerings, the Puja Fund also sponsored 100,000 tsog offerings by the Kopan monks and nuns dedicated to the long life of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and to purify our karma for Rinpoche to show any aspect of illness. In this way, the Puja Fund has joined in with all FPMT centers, projects and services to help create the karma for Rinpoche’s long, healthy life. All of the completed tsog offerings will be offered to Rinpoche during the upcoming long life puja in Singapore. We invite you to rejoice!
Mandala News
“Bodhisattvas strive to achieve shamatha [calm-abiding] because it has a special benefit,” Geshe Sopa Rinpoche teaches in “Training the Mind in Calm-Abiding,” an excerpt from the fourth volume of his commentary on Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, called Steps on the Path to Enlightenment. “Once you have that mental power, the senses follow the mind. Usually it is the other way around: the mind chases after whatever information is supplied to it by the senses.” Read more as part of Mandala’s January-June 2016 online content …
108 New Friends for Losar
The Losar campaign to gain new Friends of FPMT is coming up on its final days, finishing on the Day of Miracles on February 22. Our goal of 108 new Friends will help support our work throughout the year. As our thanks, we provide supporters with access to a trove of complimentary FPMT Education Services materials for study and practice, plus a subscription to all Mandala publications. Join the campaign here.
For Center, Project and Service Directors, SPCs, Board Members, Registered Teachers and Coordinators:
This advice is specifically for those offering service in the roles listed above.
Puja and Practices for Rinpoche’s Health and Long Life
Thanks to all of you who have already let us know how your center, project, service or study group is participating in the practices and long life puja for Rinpoche! We rejoice in all the tsog offerings going on during this auspicious Monlam period. Please let your regional or national coordinator know about your totals. Please refer to our webpage here for more about how to participate!
Rinpoche’s Advice for Practices on Special Days
As you know, we are nearing the end of Monlam (15 Days of Miracles), which this year occurred February 9-22. Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recommended practices for these special days (and others) are collected on Rinpoche’s Collected Advice in the FPMT Affiliates Area. Liberation Prison Project’s calendar of Dharma dates is here.
FPMT Teacher Registration Policy Updates
The Teacher Registration Committee has updated the FPMT Teacher Registration Policies, and added a new document, Applying to Become an FPMT Registered Teacher. These documents can be found within Teacher Policy and Information under the Geshes and Teachers section in the FPMT Affiliates Area.
FPMT World:
Nouvelles du Editions Mahayana
Découvrez le nouveau site internet du Service de traduction: plus de 250 traductions offertes en libre téléchargement et une boutique en ligne permettant de se procurer toutes les publications (formats papier et ebook). Vous souhaitez soutenir la diffusion du Dharma en français? Devenez «Ami du Service de traduction» et, contre 108 €, recevez pendant 10 ans toutes les publications du Service au format ebook (déjà 30 titres disponibles).
Opportunities to Offer Service in FPMT
Please check out the regularly updated meritorious opportunities to offer service as a volunteer or as paid staff in FPMT centers, projects and services around the world.
- Managing Editor for Education Services at FPMT International Office, US – the deadline for applications has been extended to February 26.
- Maitripa College, US is looking for a classical Tibetan language instructor.
- Gendun Drubpa Centre, Canada needs a resident teacher.
- Land of Joy, UK is welcoming interest from potential candidates for director and spiritual program coordinator.
- Jamyang Buddhist Centre Leeds, UK is looking for a spiritual program coordinator.
- Kalachakra Centre, France is looking for a manager for their rural retreat center.
- Root Institute, India and its projects Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project has openings for a center services manager, a residential house manager and a project manager.
Impermanence at Work
FPMT Mexico National Office
We welcome new national coordinator – Gilda Urbina
With grateful thanks to outgoing coordinator, now president – Karla Ambrosio
coordinacion@fpmtmexico.org
Centro Nagarjuna Barcelona, Spain
C/ Pere IV, nº201 Bajos, 08018 Barcelona
Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, Australia
We welcome new resident teacher – Geshe Thubten Rapten
Shantideva Meditation Center, USA
PO Box 828, New York, NY 10108, USA
Tong-Nyi Nying-Je Ling, Denmark
We welcome new resident teacher – Ven. Sangye Khadro
Vajrapani Institute, USA
We welcome new spiritual program coordinator (SPC) – Steve Utzig
With grateful thanks to outgoing SPC – Heidi Oehler
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