Our FPMT Lineage

Gyalwa Ensapa Broome Buddhist Study Group is a study group of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a worldwide network of Buddhist centres and activities, founded by Lama Thubten Yeshe, and under the spiritual direction of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. We aspire to bring Tibetan Buddhist teachings of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche to the Broome region of Western Australia.

FPMT study groups are groups which are using this status as a probationary period before a group becomes a legal entity and a full FPMT centre. FPMT Study Groups are not yet affiliated with the FPMT, and therefore do not have the same responsibilities as a centre, financially or administratively. FPMT Study Groups are required to work towards becoming an FPMT centre within a period of two years.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama – Inspiration and Guide of FPMT

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, is the head of state and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He was born Lhamo Dhondrub on 6 July 1935, in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, His Holiness was recognized at the age of two, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama, and thus an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, he is universally respected as a spokesman for the compassionate and peaceful resolution of human conflict. He has traveled extensively, speaking on subjects including universal responsibility, love, compassion and kindness.”

“My religion is kindness to all.” – His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Official Site of HHDL

Lama Thubten Yeshe (1935-1984) – Founder of 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, in which year, as Lama Yeshe himself said, “the Chinese kindly told us that it was time to leave Tibet and meet the outside world.”

Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, together as teacher and disciple since their exile in India, met their first Western students in 1965. By 1971 they settled at Kopan, a small hamlet near Kathmandu in Nepal. In 1974, the Lamas began touring and teaching in the West, eventually founding The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. Lama Yeshe died in 1984.

Official Site of Lama Yeshe

A Biography of Lama Yeshe 1935 to 1974

Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935 not far from Lhasa in the town of Tölung Dechen. Two hours away by horse was the Chi-me Lung Gompa, home for about 100 nuns of the Gelug tradition. It had been a few years since their learned abbess and guru had passed away when Nenung Pawo Rinpoche, a Kagyü lama widely famed for his psychic powers, came by their convent. They approached him and asked, "Where is our guru now?" He answered that in a nearby village there was a boy born at such and such a time, and if they investigated they would discover that he was their incarnated abbess. Following his advice they found the young Lama Yeshe to whom they brought many offerings and gave the name Thondrub Dorje.

Afterwards the nuns would often take the young boy back to their convent to attend the various ceremonies and other religious functions held there. During these visits—which would sometimes last for days at a time—he often stayed in their shrine room and attended services with them. The nuns would also frequently visit him at his parents' home where he was taught the alphabet, grammar and reading by his uncle, Ngawang Norbu, a student geshe from Sera Monastery.

Even though the young boy loved his parents very much, he felt that their existence was full of suffering and did not want to live as they did. From a very early age he expressed the desire to lead a religious life. Whenever a monk would visit their home, he would beg to leave with him and join a monastery. Finally, when he was six years old, he received his parents' permission to join Sera Je, a college at one of the three great Gelug monastic centers located in the vicinity of Lhasa. He was taken there by his uncle, who promised the young boy's mother that he would take good care of him. The nuns offered him robes and the other necessities of life he required at Sera, while the uncle supervised him strictly and made him study very hard.

He stayed at Sera until he was twenty-five years old. There he received spiritual instruction based on the educational traditions brought from India to Tibet over a thousand years ago. From Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, the Junior Tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he received teachings on the Lam-rim graded course to enlightenment which outlines the entire sutra path to buddhahood. In addition he received many tantric initiations and discourses from both the Junior Tutor and the Senior Tutor, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, as well as from Drag-ri Dorje-chang Rinpoche, Song Rinpoche, Lhatzün Dorje-chang Rinpoche and many other great gurus and meditation masters.

Such tantric teachings as Lama Yeshe received provide a powerful and speedy path to the attainment of a fully awakened and purified mind, aspects of which are represented by a wide variety of tantric deities. Some of the meditational deities into whose practice Lama Yeshe was initiated were Heruka, Vajrabhairava and Guhyasamaja, representing respectively the compassion, wisdom and skilful means of a fully enlightened being. In addition, he studied the famous six yoga’s of Naropa, following a commentary based on the personal experiences of Je Tsongkhapa.

Lama Yeshe’s Legacy: Taking a Broad View

Read more in “Lama Yeshe’s Legacy: Taking a Broad View.” From Lama Yeshe’s address to the Council for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (CPMT) meeting at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, January 1983. Edited by Nicholas Ribush and excerpted in Mandala January-March 2015. You can read the entire talk “Lama Yeshe’s Address to the FPMT Family” on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website (lamayeshe.com).

Through timely advice, news stories, and updates, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.

Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche – Spiritual Director of FPMT

Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, the FPMT’s Spiritual Director, is the reincarnation of the Sherpa Nyingma yogi Kunsang Yeshe, the Lawudo Lama. Rinpoche was born in 1946 in Thami, not far from the Lawudo cave, in the Mount Everest region of Nepal, where his predecessor meditated for the last twenty years of his life. Together with Lama Yeshe, he began teaching courses on Buddhism to Westerners in 1965, and founded several centers that eventually became the building blocks of the FPMT.

Of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the FPMT, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said:

“Rinpoche is someone who follows my guidance sincerely, very expansively and with one hundred percent trust. He possesses unwavering faith and pure samaya; not only has he pure samaya and faith, but whatever I instruct, Zopa Rinpoche has the capability to accomplish it. So whatever dedications Lama Zopa Rinpoche makes, I also pray to accomplish this and you should do the same thing.”

Official Site of Lama Zopa Rinpoche