FPMT 50th Anniversary
Why have we established the FPMT? Why are we establishing these facilities all over the world? I think we are clean clear as to our aim – we want to lead sentient beings to higher education. We are an organization that gives people the chance to receive higher education. We offer people what we have: the combined knowledge of Buddha’s teachings and the modern way of life. Our purpose is to share our experiences of this.
Lama Thubten Yeshe
December 2025 marked 50 years since Lama Yeshe famously said,
“We need an organization to keep this together.”
At that time, Lama Yeshe asked nine of his senior students to discuss how to coordinate the rapidly growing collection of centers and students of what would soon be known as the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT).
Fifty years later, the organization is now comprised of 133 centers, projects, services, and study groups around the world.
What an amazing achievement the last 50 years have been for everyone who has been involved in the FPMT organization in any way!
We invite all of our friends–old students, new students, centers, projects, services, study groups, donors, teachers, board members, volunteers, and anyone who has benefited from FPMT in any way or offered their very kind service–to please join us over the next year to truly rejoice in what has been accomplished from the most humble beginnings. Explore more below #50YearsFPMT
- A brief introduction: Fifty Years of FPMT
- Gallery of photos from 1975, the year FPMT officially began as an organization
- How the FPMT Organization Started: thoughts from Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Rinpoche’s long-time assistant Ven. Roger Kunsang
- Video history chats from students who were there in the early days: Nick Ribush and Peter Kedge
- More stories from early FPMT students can be read here and here
- Extensive FPMT history can be found in Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe
- FPMT publisher Wisdom Publications is also turning 50 this year! Learn more in Birth of a Buddhist Publishing Company
- Read, watch and learn more about Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Our Lineage
- Watch FPMT-related and other videos in our Film Library
The FPMT: A Vision of Totality
Lama Yeshe reflected in 1983:
“Why have we established the FPMT? Why are we establishing these facilities all over the world? I think we are clean clear as to our aim – we want to lead sentient beings to higher education. We are an organization that gives people the chance to receive higher education. We offer people what we have: the combined knowledge of Buddha’s teachings and the modern way of life. Our purpose is to share our experiences of this.
“We know that people are dissatisfied with worldly life, with the education system and everything else; it is in the nature of our dualistic minds to be dissatisfied. So what we are trying to do is to help people discover their own totality and thus perfect satisfaction.
“Now, the way we have evolved is not through you or me having said we want to do these things but through a natural process of development. Our organization has grown naturally, organically. It is not “Lama Yeshe wanted to do it.” I’ve never said that I want centers all over the world. Rather, I came into contact with students, who then wanted to do something, who expressed the wish to share their experience with others, and who then put together groups in various countries to share and grow with others.
“Personally, I think that’s fine. We should work for that. We are human beings; Buddhism helps us grow; therefore, it is logical that we should work together to facilitate this kind of education. And it is not only us lamas who are working for this. Actually, it is you students who are instrumental in creating the facilities for Dharma to exist in the Western world. True. Of course, teachers help. But the most important thing is for the students to be well educated. That is why we exist.
“When we started establishing centers there was no overall plan – they just popped up randomly all over the world like mushrooms, because of the evolutionary process I’ve just mentioned and the cooperative conditions. Now that all these centers do exist, we have to facilitate their development in a constructive, clean-clear way; otherwise, everything will just get confused. We have to develop properly both internally and in accordance with our twentieth-century environment.”
Read the full talk: Lama Yeshe’s Vision – The FPMT: A Vision of Totality
Photo credits for this page: Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Image Gallery