The FPMT held its first education conference October 28-November 2 in London, England, at Jamyang Buddhist Centre. One hundred people involved with education at the various centers around the world took stock of what the foundation has done so far and what it needs to do in the future.

“With so many issues to cover we elected to aim for a coherent strategy to realize a vision of where we want to be into the next century,” said Tubten Pende, the foundation’s education coordinator. “Thus our conference’s name, FPMT Education: One Mandala Vision.”

One could say that education is the heart activity of the FPMT. “This organization,” said its founder Lama Thubten Yeshe in 1975, “is for all mother sentient beings. Its main aim is to help Dharma knowledge-wisdom to develop in the human consciousness. This is its only reason to exist.” (See “The Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition,” Jul-Aug Mandala.)

For the past 20 years the centers of the foundation have provided Dharma education at various levels to the thousands of people who have passed through their doors or who have attended FPMT-organized events worldwide. A glance at the news pages of any issue of this magazine will show an astonishing array of classes and programs in the majority of the eighty-plus centers, some twenty of which have as their resident teachers highly qualified Tibetan geshes, who have studied the full range of Lord Buddha’s teachings.

But as Lama Zopa Rinpoche pointed out at the conference (see “Teaching”) “…the field of education we need to develop is the philosophical teachings…. In order to preserve the entire teachings of the Buddha I think we definitely need institutions with established study programs, like the monastic universities they had in India and Tibet. But we are not just trying to preserve the words; we must have the experience also. There are two kinds of teachings, of Dharma: scriptural and realization. We need to develop intellectual understanding followed by practice in order to get the experience.

“And we need to produce qualified teachers who have a deep understanding of Buddha’s extensive teachings so that we can continuously benefit other sentient beings. We have not put so much energy into this, but we need to.”

This key issue and others were discussed at the conference.

Olga Planken writes about the plans to implement more fully the Basic Program of Buddhist Studies devised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche – aspects of which are already being taught in the Netherlands at Maitreya Instituut and other centers.

And Lama Yeshe’s seven-year Master’s program, taught steadily for many years at Istituto Lama Tsong Khapa in Italy, will become a full-time program of studies starting January 1998. Both programs are a good first step in qualifying Western teachers of Buddhadharma.

Geshe Tashi Tsering, resident teacher in London, shares his optimism and doubts, and his wish that the FPMT education office, the center workers and the Tibetan teachers develop better communication.

Peter Kedge writes on behalf of the group at the conference that looked at ways for the centers to better introduce Dharma to people.

Also discussed were ways to better serve the needs of the communities and students at the centers.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reiterates – among other things – the need to produce qualified teachers.

Ven. Thubten Gyatso gives the conclusions about the education of monks and nuns.

And Tubten Pende, who helped organize the conference, summarizes the events.