The international Buddhist community Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), established by the late revered Gelug masters Lama Thubten Yeshe and his heart disciple Lama Zopa Rinpoche, recently announced that one of the world’s most noteworthy Buddhist networks is celebrating 50 years of sharing and preserving the Buddhadharma. 

“December 2025 marked 50 years since Lama Yeshe famously said, ‘We need an organization to keep this together,’” the FPMT related in an announcement dated 22 January. “Lama [Yeshe] was reflecting on the success of a recent eight-and-a-half month tour of nine countries, the most extensive Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche would ever make. Lama asked nine of his senior students to discuss how to coordinate the rapidly growing collection of centers and students that would soon be known as the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT).” (FPMT)

The community lauded the FPMT’s achievements over the last half a century, and urged its global mandala to participate in a year-long celebration. Organizers are calling on the community to “truly rejoice in what has been accomplished from the most humble beginnings.” (FPMT)

Participants are encouraged to share their experiences using the hashtag #50YearsFPMT as the organization looks toward the next half-century of Dharma preservation and practice.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche founded the FPMT in Nepal in 1975 with Lama Thubten Yeshe, his closest teacher, and began teaching Buddhism to Western students. In the years since, the FPMT has grown across the globe, with Dharma centers, projects, and activities in 37 countries. After the passing of Lama Yeshe in 1984, Lama Zopa Rinpoche served as the FPMT’s spiritual director until his own death in 2023.* The FPMT’s international headquarters are now located in Portland, Oregon.

The FPMT offers a range of courses in Buddhist study and practice, and operates several charitable initiatives to support: the construction Dharma monuments; the translation of Tibetan Buddhist texts; the re-establishment Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia; Tibetan and non-Tibetan monks and nuns; and medical care and humanitarian assistance for vulnerable Himalayan communities. 

“Over 15 fruitful years of working with Westerners (beginning in the late 1960s in India and Nepal) Lama Yeshe established 30 centers and 20 projects in 13 countries,” the FPMT related. “Lama Yeshe served as the FPMT organization’s spiritual director from 1975 until he passed away in 1984, at which time Lama Zopa Rinpoche took over. From that time until 2023 when Rinpoche showed the aspect of passing away, Rinpoche offered 39 years of his peerless guidance, and FPMT continued to flourish. The organization is now comprised of 133 centers, projects, services, and study groups around the world, reaching far beyond the Western scope.” (FPMT)

Anyone with a connection to the FPMT is invited to share their experience here.

Lama Thubten Yeshe was born near Lhasa, Tibet, in 1935. After being recognized as the incarnation of the yogini Ache Jampa, he entered Sera Je Monastic University at the age of six, where he underwent nearly two decades of rigorous training under the greatest meditation masters of the era, including tutors to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This period of deep immersion in the “graduated path to enlightenment” and complex tantric systems was interrupted in 1959 by the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Lama Yeshe famously observed that the Chinese “kindly told us that it was time to leave Tibet and meet the outside world.” He subsequently escaped through Bhutan to a refugee camp in Buxa Duar, India.

It was in the challenging environment of the Indian refugee settlements that Lama Yeshe’s mission to the West began to take root. In 1962, he met a young Zopa Rinpoche, who became his heart disciple. Together, the two lamas formed a historic partnership that bridged ancient Tibetan wisdom with the modern world. Their bond was seen by many as the fulfillment of Guru Padmasambhava’s ancient prophecy that the Dharma would spread globally when “iron birds fly, and horses run on wheels,” eventually leading to the creation of the FPMT and the preservation of the Mahayana tradition for a global audience.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born in the Everest region of Thangme, Nepal, in 1945, and was recognized as the reincarnation of the Sherpa Nyingma yogi Kunsang Yeshe, the Lawudo Lama, at the age of three. When he was 10 years old, Lama Zopa Rinpoche traveled to Tibet, where he studied and meditated at the monastery of Domo Geshe Rinpoche in southern Tibet. In 1959, Rinpoche was forced to seek safety in Bhutan. He subsequently traveled as a refugee to West Bengal in India, where he first met Lama Thubten Yeshe. The two lamas relocated to Nepal in 1967, where they established Kopan and Lawudo Monasteries.

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 all 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 experience of this. — Lama Thubten Yeshe

Continuing this mission until his passing in 2023, Lama Zopa Rinpoche expanded this vision into extensive social and humanitarian services:

It is good for FPMT to benefit extensively sentient beings by offering various social services, such as those that bring loving-kindness and peace to youth using Universal Education methods, religious interfaith activities, which bring peace and happiness, and extensively benefit others by spreading Dharma. — Lama Zopa Rinpoche

* Revered Buddhist Scholar and FPMT Founder Lama Zopa Rinpoche Has Died (BDG) and UPDATE: FPMT Shares News on Lama Zopa Rinpoche (BDG)

See more

FPMT
FPMT Celebrates Fifty Years! (FPMT)
50 Years of FPMT: Ven. Elisabeth Drukier’s Story (FPMT)
FPMT (Facebook)

Related news reports from BDG

Engaged Buddhism: FPMT Celebrates Supporting More Than 1,500 Young Students in 2024
UPDATE: FPMT Shares News on Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Revered Buddhist Scholar and FPMT Founder Lama Zopa Rinpoche Has Died
Tibetan Lama Dagri Rinpoche Permanently Removed as FPMT Teacher after Misconduct Probe