His Holiness The Dalai Lama Tibetan Spiritual Leader
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as well as being an advocate for world peace, Nobel Peace Prize winner and temporal leader of the Tibetan people, he is also a prominent teacher in the Gelugpa Tradition. His Holiness is great source of inspiration for FPMT and is the spiritual guide of our director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It is the wish of FPMT to help fulfil the Dalai Lama’s wishes in accomplishing world peace and global responsibility.
Lama Thubten Yeshe Founder, FPMT
Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered Sera Monastic University in Tibet where he studied until 1959, when as Lama Yeshe himself has said, “In that year the Chinese kindly told us that it was time to leave Tibet and meet the outside world.”
Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche met in the Tibetan internment camp in Buxador, India. In 1965, they met their first Western students. In 1971 they settled at Kopan, Nepal. There they built a monastery to support Tibetan monks and nuns, and invited western students to attend retreats and teachings.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche Spiritual Director
Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born in 1946 in Thami, in the Mount Everest region of Nepal. At the age of three he was recognised as the reincarnation of Kunsang Yeshe, the Lawudo Lama whose name he gave to our Centre. Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s home was not far from the Lawudo cave, where his predecessor had meditated for the last 20 years of his life.
Rinpoche went to study in Tibet when he was ten then in 1959 went into exile in India where he met Lama Thubten Yeshe, with whom he would remain as heart disciple until Lama Yeshe passed a way in 1984.
Rinpoche is highly regarded by many other Tibetan Lamas and was a close and devoted disciple of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Sadly on April 13th 2023 Lama Zopa Rinpoche showed the aspect of passing away.