The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) was founded in 1975 by Gelugpa Lamas Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, who began teaching Tibetan Buddhism to Western students in Nepal. The FPMT has grown to encompass over 138 dharma centers, projects, and services in 34 countries. Lama Yeshe led the organization until his death in 1984, followed by Lama Zopa until his death in 2023. The FPMT is now without a spiritual director; meetings on the organization's structure and future are being held.
Location The FPMT's international headquarters are in Portland, Oregon, United States. The central office has previously been located at:
2000-2005 Taos, New Mexico 1989-2000 Soquel, California (Land of Medicine BuddhaLand of Medicine Buddha) 1984-1989 Pomaia, Italy (Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa) 1975-1984 Kathmandu, Nepal (Kopan Monastery)
As of 2023, the FPMT has 138 centers, projects, and services in 34 countries worldwide, of which about 85 are dharma centers (monasteries and retreat centers often have a public-teaching function, which would raise the count), some 18 are unincorporated "study groups," and the rest a mix of other projects, such as hospices or dharma presses.
History
The name and structure of the FPMT date to 1975, in the wake of an international teaching tour by Lamas Yeshe and Zopa. However, the two had been teaching Western travelers since at least 1965, when they met Zina Rachevsky, their student and patron, in Darjeeling. In 1969, the three of them founded the Nepal Mahayana Gompa Centre (now Kopan Monastery). Rachevsky died shortly afterwards during a Buddhist retreat.
Lama Yeshe resisted Rachevsky's appeals to teach a "meditation course", on the grounds that in the Sera Monastery tradition in which he was educated, "meditation" would be attempted only after intensive, multi-year study of the Five Topics. However, he gave Lama Zopa permission to lead what became the first of Kopan's meditation courses (then semiannual, now annual) in 1971.Jamyang Wangmo, The Lawudo Lama: Stories of Reincarnation from the Mount Everest Region (Wisdom Publications, 2005). p. 241 Lama Zopa led these courses at least through 1975, and sporadically thereafter.
During the early 1970s, hundreds of Westerners attended teachings at Kopan. Historical descriptions and recollections routinely characterize early Western participants as backpackers on the hippie trail (extended overland tours of Asia), to whom Lama Yeshe's style of discourse especially appealed.
Geoffrey Samuel finds it significant that Lamas Yeshe and Zopa had not yet attracted followings among the Tibetan or Himalayan peoples (Zopa's status as a minor tulku notwithstanding), and that their activities took place independently of any support or direction from the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala. On his reading, their willingness to reach out to Westerners was in large measure the result of a lack of other sources of support. Nevertheless, Samuel sees their cultivation of an international network as having ample precedent in Tibet.Geoffrey Samuel, "Tibetan Buddhism as a World Religion: Global Networking and its Consequences," ch. 13 of Tantric Revisionings: New Understandings of Tibetan Buddhism and Indian Religion (Motilal Banarsidass, 2005), p. 301 ff.
In December 1973, Lama Yeshe ordained fourteen Western monks and nuns under the name of the International Mahayana Institute. Around this time, Lama Yeshe's students began returning to their own countries. The result was the founding of an ever-increasing number of dharma centers in those countries. In his description of the FPMT, Jeffrey Paine emphasizes the charisma, intuition, drive, and organizational ability of Lama Yeshe. Paine asks us to consider how a refugee with neither financial resources nor language skills could manage to create an international network with more than a hundred centers and study groups.Jeffrey Paine, Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West (Norton, 2004), ch. 2. David N. Kay makes the following observation:
As a result, says Kay (and Samuel's analysis concurs), at the same time that the FPMT was consolidating its structure and practices, several local groups and teachers defected, founding independent networks. Geshe Loden of Australia's Chenrezig Institute left the FPMT in 1979, in order to focus on his own network of centers. More consequentially, Kelsang Gyatso and his students caused the Manjushri Institute, the FPMT's flagship center in England, to sever its FPMT ties. At issue was whether the centers and their students ought to identify primarily with Lama Yeshe, local teachers, the Gelugpa tradition, or Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. The FPMT now asks its lamas to sign a "Geshe Agreement" which makes explicit the organization's expectations.Kay, p. 65 The latter rift widened in the wake of unrelated, post-1996 controversy over Dorje Shugden. Following the policy of the 14th Dalai Lama, the FPMT bans the worship of this deity from its centers."Collection of Advice Regarding Shugden (Dolgyal)" (n.d., includes statement of FPMT policy), https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/advice/shugden/The Shugden Issue - policy statement by the FPMT, accessed 26 July 2012.
Lama Yeshe's death in 1984 led to his succession as spiritual director by Lama Zopa. In 1986, a Spanish boy named Tenzin Ösel Hita (a.k.a. Tenzin Ösel Rinpoche, or "Lama Ösel") was identified as the tulku of Lama Yeshe. As he came of age, Hita gave up his robes for a secular life, attending university in Spain, and became relatively inactive in the FPMT. In 2009, Hita was quoted in several media sources as renouncing his role as a tulku—remarks which he later disavowed. In 2025, Hita published an open letter in which he observed that the FPMT board always saw him as someone "they needed to manage and control," and complained of a whispering campaign in which the board sought to marginalize his role in the organization, without giving him a chance to answer any accusations against him. He states that the FPMT has pressured him to enter a drug rehab (Hita insists that he does not use drugs), and cut off a monthly allowance that had been established by Lama Zopa.Tenzin Osel Hita Torres, "Dear FPMT Family" (13 March 2025), https://oselhita.com/letter-march-13-2025/
On the 2023 death of Lama Zopa, the FPMT board indicated that he would have no direct successor, and that the board would collectively assume his responsibilities, subject to the advice of the Dalai Lama. An "advisory council of teachers" is planned.
In 2026, longtime FPMT CEO Roger Kunsang stepped down in favor of Peeyush Agarwal (under the new title of "executive director"), who however quickly resigned, having "developed a strong sense that he would be less effective in his new position than he and we [the FPMT board] had hoped.""From the FPMT Inc. Board of Directors: Current Changes at FPMT International Office" (4 June 2026), https://fpmt.org/statements/from-the-fpmt-inc-board-of-directors-current-changes-at-fpmt-international-office Roger Kunsang has returned as acting executive director.
Sexual Abuse Allegations
On 3 May 2019, Sera lama and FPMT teacher Dagri Rinpoche was arrested for groping a woman aboard a domestic Indian flight.Lobsang Wangyal, "Dagri Rinpoche speaks out, claims innocence," Tibet Sun (13 May 2019), https://www.tibetsun.com/news/2019/05/13/dagri-rinpoche-speaks-out-claims-innocence A few days later, a group of nuns drew attention to additional complaints of groping, sexual harassment, and sexual assault by Dagri Rinpoche over a ten-year period, and called for the FPMT to arrange an independent, third-party investigation. A petition to this effect attracted more than 4000 signatures. The FPMT International Office responded by suspending Dagri Rinpoche from its list of teachers, and commissioning the FaithTrust Institute to conduct the requested investigation. Its 19 September 2020 report found the allegations credible. Five (out of eight) FPMT board members resigned amidst controversy over whether to release the report. A “draft” summary report was eventually published—so labeled by the FPMT in anticipation of revisions, but the FaithTrust Institute considered its work complete. Besides abuse, the summary also noted a pattern of "coercive or retaliatory behaviors" aimed at silencing complainants; criticized the FPMT for its lack of any clear mechanism to handle such complaints (pp. 38–39); and criticized statements by Lama Zopa which tended to "undermine" the investigation (pp. 11–13). (Zopa had characterized Dagri Rinpoche as “a very positive, holy being—definitely not an ordinary person," and advised Dagri's students to see only his pure qualities.)"Lama Zopa's Advice to Students of Dagri Rinpoche" (14 May 2019), https://fpmt.org/lama-zopa-rinpoche-news-and-advice/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche/lama-zopa-rinpoches-advice-to-students-of-dagri-rinpoche/ The FPMT objected that the FPMT centers where the abuse took place were legally independent; and that the report's criticism of Lama Zopa failed to take into account the core principle of guru devotion.FPMT Inc. Concerns Regarding Aspects of FTI’s Draft Summary Report, https://fpmt.app.box.com/s/8re7tem886wvz5pwecm12wvf4ps9e7pq FPMT center leaders and registered teachers (but not Tibetan teachers) are now required to take a "Protection from Abuse" online training course."Update from FPMT Inc. (13 Nov. 2020), https://fpmt.org/fpmt-community-news/statement/nov-13-2020-update/Tenpel (Tenzin Peljor, aka Michael Jäckel), "Fact-Finding Results in Response to Allegations of Sexual Misconduct by Dagri Rinpoche" (17 Nov. 2020), https://buddhism-controversy-blog.com/2020/11/17/fact-finding-results-in-response-to-multiple-allegations-of-sexual-misconduct-by-dagri-rinpoche/Emily DeMaioNewton and Karen Jensen, “Buddha Buzz Weekly: Dagri Rinpoche Permanently Removed as FPMT Teacher” (Tricycle, 21 Nov. 2020), https://tricycle.org/article/dagri-rinpoche