Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition

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The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) is a network of Buddhist centers focusing on the Gelugpa tradition of Tibet. Founded in 1975 by Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, who began teaching Buddhism to Western students in Nepal, the FPMT has grown to encompass 150 teaching centers, projects, and social services in 33 countries. Since the death (and subsequent reincarnation) of Lama Yeshe in 1984, the FPMT's spiritual director has been his colleague, Lama Zopa.

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[edit] Mission Statement

The FPMT is an organization devoted to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service. 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. 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 founder, Lama Thubten Yeshe and our spiritual director, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.

[edit] Location

The FPMT's international headquarters are in Portland, Oregon (USA). The central office has previously been located at:

In addition, the FPMT has numerous local centers in various countries around the world. Activity is most visible within Nepal and India (especially within their subculture of Western backpackers), Australia and New Zealand, the USA and Canada, Europe, Mongolia, and among the ethnic Chinese communities of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. See the FPMT website for a full listing. [1]

[edit] History

The name and structure of the FPMT date to 1975, in the wake of an international teaching tour by Lamas Yeshe and Zopa. However, the two had been teaching Western travelers since at least 1965, when they met Zina Rachevsky, their student and patron, in Darjeeling. In 1969, the three of them founded the Nepal Mahayana Gompa Centre (now Kopan Monastery). Rachevsky died shortly afterwards, during a Buddhist retreat.

Over the next few years (the early 1970's), hundreds of Westerners attended teachings by Lama Yeshe in Nepal. Historical descriptions and recollections routinely characterize early Western participants as hippies--backpackers on extended overland tours of Asia, often with a penchant for recreational drugs and alternative lifestyles--to whom Lama Yeshe's style of discourse especially appealed. (See "hippie trail".)

In December of 1973, Lama Yeshe ordained fourteen Western monks and nuns under the name of the International Mahayana Institute. Around this time, Lama Yeshe's students began returning to their own countries. The result was the founding of an ever-increasing number of dharma centers.

In his description of the FPMT, Jeffrey Paine (see bibliography) emphasizes the charisma, intuition, drive, and organizational ability of Lama Yeshe. Paine asks us to consider how a refugee with neither financial resources nor language skills could manage to create an international network with more than a hundred centers and study groups.

David N. Kay (see bibliography) makes the following observation:

"Lama Yeshe's project of defining and implementing an efficient organizational and administrative structure within the FPMT created the potential for friction at a local level. The organization's affiliated centers had initially been largely autonomous and self-regulating, but towards the late-1970's were increasingly subject to central management and control." [2]

As a result, says Kay, at the same time that the FPMT was consolidating its structure and practices, several local groups and teachers defected, founding independent networks. Geshe Loden of Australia's Chenrezig Institute left the FPMT in 1979. More consequentially, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and his students caused the Manjushri Institute--the FPMT's flagship center in England--to sever its FPMT ties. At issue was whether the centers and their students ought to identify primarily with Lama Yeshe, local teachers, the Gelugpa tradition, or Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. The FPMT now asks its lamas to sign a "Geshe Agreement" which make explicit the organization's expectations. (Complicating the latter dispute was controversy over Dorje Shugden; the FPMT has accepted the Dalai Lama's ban on the worship of this deity.)

Lama Yeshe's death in 1984 led to his succession as spiritual director by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In 1986, a Spanish boy named Ösel Hita Torres (later Tenzin Ösel Rinpoche) was identified as the tulku of Lama Yeshe. In 2005 the FPMT projected that Lama Ösel would "again take on the position as Director of the Organization once he has finished his formal monastic studies." [3]; Lama Ösel apparently affirmed the sentiment as recently as 2006. [4]

[edit] Structure

The FPMT is a federation of dharma centers. Each center is separately incorporated and locally financed, but follows common policies and spiritual guidance.

There is no such thing as FPMT "membership" for individuals, although many centers offer local membership. (The "Membership Area" of the FPMT's website is restricted to center directors, board members, and other officers.)

The FPMT is headed by a board of directors, with its spiritual director (presently Lama Zopa) as an ex officio member. The FPMT International Office represents the board's executive function. The president / CEO of the FPMT is currently (2008) Ven. Roger Kunsang.

FPMT centers have their own local boards, which appoint center directors with the approval of the International Board. Centers also have a spiritual program director and in many cases, a resident geshe (and perhaps other sangha as well).

The center directors and spiritual directors from various countries meet every 12 to 18 months as the Council for the Preservation for the Mahayana Tradition (CPMT), in order to deliberate points of mutual concern. Its role is advisory to the International Board, although the CPMT actually predates it (1978 vs. 1983).

Lines of authority within the FPMT are complicated by the fact that many of its officers are devoted to Lama Zopa (or others) on the basis of tantric vows, or a formal teacher-student relationship. The organization stipulates that

"...we generally only invite teachers who are in the Tibetan Gelug tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa. When considering inviting a teacher, the director needs to contact the Education Department for guidance before issuing the invitation." [5]

The Dalai Lama is credited with the honorary role of "inspiration and guide." [6]

[edit] Programs

Students often first encounter the FPMT via short courses and retreats held at the various centers. The prototype of these is Kopan Monastery's annual month-long meditation course, offered since 1971.

Many FPMT centers have adopted standardized curricula, whose modules may also be obtained on DVD for external study. The three sequences were separately developed, and thus are only loosely correlated with one another. They are as follows:

  • Discovering Buddhism, a two-year, fourteen-module lamrim course. [7]
  • Foundations of Buddhist Thought (two years, six modules). [8] Developed by Geshe Tashi Tsering for London's Jamyang Buddhist Centre, available elsewhere only by correspondence.
  • The Basic Program (five years, nine modules)[9]. As of 2008, at least thirty FPMT centers teach the Basic Program, or components thereof.

Students desiring more advanced study have a number of options including:[10]

6 years traditional study using compressed version of the Geshe curriculum. Designed to produce credentialed FPMT teachers.
4-year academic Buddhist Studies program. Aspires to become a US-accredited MDiv program.
  • Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program (since 1996)
2 years intensive Tibetan language study in Dharamsala, followed by 2 years interpretation residency. Designed to train FPMT interpreters.

In addition, numerous centers are prepared to supervise a meditation retreat.

[edit] Publications

Wisdom Publications, now a well-known publisher of Buddhist books, originated in Delhi during the late 1970's under editor Nicholas Ribush. Its first publication was Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa's Wisdom Energy. [11] The publisher began formal operations in London in 1983 (after several years operating out of the Manjushri Institute), with Jeffrey Hopkins' Meditation on Emptiness (1983) as an early perennial. It moved again to Boston in 1988, under director Timothy McNeill. The press offers both academic and popular Buddhist literature from all traditions of Buddhism, as well as translations of classic Buddhist literature. Especially noteworthy are its encyclopedia-style project, the 32-volume Library of Tibetan Classics (developed by Thupten Jinpa, English-language translator for the Dalai Lama); and the Teachings of the Buddha series of translations of the Pali Nikāyas.

Since 1995, the FPMT has published a glossy magazine called Mandala (now bimonthly).

The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive--which holds copyright to the speeches and writings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa--is one of the FPMT's member organizations. It transcribes teachings by these and other lamas, and produces edited booklets for free distribution. Its director is Nicholas Ribush.

[edit] Projects

The Maitreya Project is an undertaking by the FPMT to build a 152 meter statue of the Maitreya Bodhisattva in Kushinagara, India.[12]

FPMT maintains many charitable projects, including funds to build holy objects, translate Tibetan texts into many languages, offer support to Tibetan and non-Tibetan Sangha, offer medical care, food and so forth to underprivileged people in Tibet, India, Mongolia, etc., re-establish Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, protect animals, and more. See the FPMT website for more information on its projects.

Jeffrey Paine, commenting glowingly on the FPMT's various projects, writes:

"The FPMT, nonprofit, staffed by individual volunteers, oversees activities from publishing books to feeding three thousand monks at the new Sera monastery in India. The FPMT's 'Mongolia Project' has revived Buddhism in that country. [...] The FPMT now plans to build near Bodhgaya [Note: since relocated] the largest Buddha statue in the world, which will house whole temples inside of it. If built, it will dwarf the Statue of Liberty. It may eventually even dwarf the legend of Yeshe, the little lama who fled Tibet never having met a Westerner, knowing no European language, and then..." [13]

Peter Moran, less sanguine, reports controversy over the appropriateness of the statue, as well as other aspects of fund-raising and expenditure, which he attributes to the differing cultural expectations of Westerners, Tibetans, and ethnic Chinese (who apparently contribute the majority of funds).

[edit] Notable followers

  • Lillian Too, Malaysian-Chinese author of 80 books on feng shui. She recounts the story of her contact with Lama Zopa and the FPMT in The Buddha Book (Element, 2003) .
  • Daja Wangchuk Meston, American Tibet activist and author of a memoir, Comes the Peace: My Journey to Forgiveness (Free Press, March 6, 2007). Meston grew up as a (white) boy monk at Kopan monastery--his mother having left him to become a Buddhist nun under Lama Yeshe--and describes his experience there as inhumane.
  • Jan Willis, Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University and author of several Buddhist books including her memoir, Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey (Riverhead, 2001). Willis was one of the earliest students of Lama Yeshe, who reportedly encouraged her in her academic career.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ FPMT Dharma Centers and Study Groups
  2. ^ Kay, pp. 61-62.
  3. ^ Wayback Machine: FPMT organization
  4. ^ FPMT: Teachers
  5. ^ FPMT Dharma Centers - Frequently Asked Questions
  6. ^ Founder and Spiritual Director of the FPMT - Buddhist Teachers
  7. ^ FPMT: Discovering Buddhism
  8. ^ FPMT: Foundations of Buddhist Thought
  9. ^ FPMT: Basic Program
  10. ^ FPMT: Buddhist Study Programs
  11. ^ "Birth of a Buddhist Publishing Company"
  12. ^ FPMT Charitable Projects
  13. ^ Kay, p. 75.

[edit] See Also

[edit] External links

[edit] Bibliography

  • Cozort, Daniel. "The Making of the Western Lama." In Buddhism in the Modern World (Steven Heine & Charles S. Prebish, eds), Oxford UP: 2003, ch. 9. Focuses on the educational curricula of the FPMT and the New Kadampa Tradition.
  • Croucher, Paul. A History of Buddhism in Australia, 1848-1988. New South Wales UP, 1989. The FPMT is discussed on pp. 89-93, as well as on 112-113.
  • Kay, David N. Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain. RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. The FPMT is discussed mainly on pp. 53-66, as background to the New Kadampa Tradition.
  • William Magee. Three Models of Teaching Collected Topics Outside of Tibet. Conference paper presented to the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission of the ROC, 2004. Discusses Magee's experience studying the Collected Topics at the University of Virginia and the Dialectics Institute in Dharamsala, as well as teaching portions of these for Australia's Chenrezig Institute (an FPMT center).
  • Moran, Peter. Buddhism Observed: Travelers, Exiles, and Tibetan Dharma in Kathmandu. RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. An anthropological / sociological look at "Western" Buddhist tourists / pilgrims to Boudhanath. Kopan receives periodic mention, but see especially pp. 70-74.
  • Ong, Y.D. Buddhism in Singapore--a short narrative history. Skylark Publications, 2005. The Amitabha Buddhist Centre is mentioned briefly, on pp. 175-177.
  • Paine, Jeffrey. Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West. Norton, 2004. Chapter two discusses the role of Lama Yeshe and the FPMT.