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Teachers
- Founders |
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Lama
Thubten Yeshe
Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in
1935. At the age of six, he entered the
great Sera Monastic University, Lhasa, where
he studied until 1959, when the Chinese
invasion of Tibet forced him into exile
in India. Lama Yeshe continued to study
and meditate in India until 1967, when,
with his chief disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa
Rinpoche, he went to Nepal. Two years later
he established Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu,
in order to teach Buddhism to Westerners.
In 1974, the Lamas began making annual teaching
tours to the West, and as a result of these
travels a worldwide network of Buddhist
teaching and meditation centers—the
Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana
Tradition—began to develop. In 1984,
after an intense decade of imparting a wide
variety of incredible teachings and establishing
one FPMT activity after another, at the
age of forty-nine, Lama Yeshe passed away.
He was reborn as Ösel Hita Torres in
Spain in 1985, recognized as the incarnation
of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai
Lama in 1986, and, as the monk Lama Tenzin
Osel Rinpoche, began studying for his geshe
degree in 1992 at the reconstituted Sera
Monastery in South India. Lama’s remarkable
story is told in Vicki Mackenzie’s
book, Reincarnation: The Boy Lama (Wisdom
Publications, 1996).
Books of teachings by Lama Yeshe include Wisdom
Energy; Introduction to Tantra; The Tantric
Path of Purification; The Bliss of Inner Fire;
and Becoming the Compassion Buddha: Tantric
Mahamudra for Everyday Life, all published
by Wisdom Publications. Transcripts of teachings
in print include Light of Dharma; Life, Death
and After Death; and Transference of Consciousness
at the Time of Death. More details of Lama
Yeshe’s life and work may be found on
the FPMT web site at www.fpmt.org
.
Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born in Thami, Nepal,
in 1946. At the age of three, he was recognized
as the reincarnation of the Lawudo Lama,
who had lived nearby at Lawudo, within sight
of Rinpoche’s Thami home. Rinpoche’s
own description of his early years may be
found in his book, The Door to Satisfaction
(Wisdom Publications). At the age of ten,
Rinpoche went to Tibet and studied and meditated
at Domo Geshe Rinpoche’s monastery
near Pagri, until the Chinese occupation
of Tibet in 1959 forced him to forsake Tibet
for the safety of Bhutan. Rinpoche then
went to the Tibetan refugee camp at Buxa
Duar, West Bengal, India, where he met Lama
Yeshe, who became his closest teacher. The
Lamas went to Nepal in 1967 and, over the
next few years, built Kopan and Lawudo Monasteries.
In 1971, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the first
of his famous annual lam-rim retreat courses,
which continue at Kopan to this day. In
1974, with Lama Yeshe, Rinpoche began traveling
the world to teach and establish centers
of Dharma. When Lama Yeshe passed away in
1984, Rinpoche took over as spiritual head
of the FPMT, which has continued to flourish
under his peerless leadership.
More details of Rinpoche’s life and
work may be found on the FPMT web site. Books
of Rinpoche’s teachings include Wisdom
Energy (with Lama Yeshe), The Door to Satisfaction,
Transforming Problems into Happiness, Teachings
from the Vajrasattva Retreat, and Ultimate
Healing, available from Wisdom Publications
at www.wisdompubs.org).
Many more teachings are available directly
from the FPMT. |
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