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Geshe Jampa Gyatso
and Lama Thubten Yeshe
Pomaia - early 1980's
Geshe Jampa Gyatso
(1931-2007)
Teacher of the first Geshe Studies Program 1983.1997 and the first
Masters Program 1998-2004
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THE HISTORY OF THE MASTERS PROGRAM
The FPMT Masters Program in Buddhist Studies of
Sutra and Tantra is the unique vision of Lama Thubten Yeshe, the founder
of the FPMT, a worldwide
association of teaching centers, publishing houses, and various service
projects. Lama met his dear friend Geshe Jampa Gyatso at Sera Monastery
in Tibet in 1948, and they studied together for more than twenty years.
After asking Geshe Jampa Gyatso to become resident teacher at Lama Tzong
Khapa Institute in 1980, Lama requested him to create a seven-year teacher
training program, incorporating the major texts that form the basis of
the sutra and tantra studies in Tibetan monasteries and tantric colleges.
Geshe Jampa Gyatso agreed and taught three of the seven main subjects
and several of the supplementary subjects throughout the years between
1983 and 1997, despite being beleaguered by numerous and lengthy interruptions
due to a lack of translators.
In 1995, Thubten Pende, the then newly appointed FPMT Education
Programs Coordinator, suggested that the FPMT revise this program
while continuing to base it at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute. For the
next two years Pende worked together with Geshe Jampa Gyatso and
Joan Nicell, who would eventually become the Masters Program Coordinator,
to design a residential program that would permit non-Tibetans,
both lay and ordained, to engage in an in-depth study of both sutra
and tantra. The inaugural course of the FPMT Masters Program commenced
in January 1998 at Lama
Tzong Khapa Institute, with Geshe Jampa Gyatso as the resident
teacher. It came to a successful conclusion in December 2004 with
22 students having completed the entire program and another 29 having
completed one or more of the five subjects. The second cycle of
the Masters Program, with Geshe Tenzin Tenphel as resident teacher,
began in January 2008 with more than 60 full-time residential students
and more than 150 on-line students.
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