“As soon as your object of concern changes from yourself to someone else, your heart is released from the bondage of the self-cherishing thought. As soon as you change the object of your cherishing, there is peace in your heart.” 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, was born in 1946 in Tham near the cave Lawudo in the Mount Everest region of Nepal, where his predecessor meditated for the last twenty years of his life. When Rinpoche was about four years old, he was put in a Monastery close to the border between Nepal and Tibet, and studied there until he went to Tibet and took getsul ordination in 1958.

In 1959 Rinpoche escaped from Tibet and continued his studies in Sera Je monastery in Buxa Duar, in northern India, were he met and became the disciple of Lama Thubten Yeshe. Lama Yeshe and Zopa Rinpoche’s contact with Westerners began in 1965 in Darjeeling, when they met Princess Zina Rachevsky from Russia. She became the Lamas’ first Western student.

At the insistence of Zina Rachevsky the Lamas started to teach courses on Buddhism for Westerners at Kopan. In 1971 Rinpoche took gelong ordination from His Holiness Ling Rinpoche in Bodh Gaya. By 1975, twelve centers had started. In 1976, the growing worldwide organization was named by Lama Yeshe ‘the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition’ (FPMT).