About Event:
FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training (IDMT) is a four-year online course:
• developed in response to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s wish for students to gain lamrim realisations
• based on the lamrim with a focus on bodhicitta
• weekly guided meditations are combined with in-depth lectures and meditation training
• aimed at students with a thorough understanding of the Dharma, intent on deepening their practice
• most rewarding for practitioners wishing to make Buddhist values and goals an integral part of their lives
IDMT is part of FPMT In-Depth Education; it is a collaboration between 14 FPMT centers. The course and its materials are hosted at online learning platform of The Buddha Project (TBP).
Each year can be joined independently. Previous years' materials are available on the TBP online learning platform.
Year 4 – The Vajra Ground: Mahāmudrā and Kriyā Tantra
In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognised as the very ground of awakening.
As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding.
Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognising its clarity and openness as inseparable.
Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure.
These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realisation is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method.
This final year is an invitation to let realisation ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.
Please note that these classes are offered online only. Zoom links will be sent upon registration, and students will have access to recordings of Ven. Gendun’s teachings if live participation is not possible due to the time difference.
About our Teacher:
Venerable Losang Gendun has spent nearly four decades in Buddhist practice, and has been living as a fully ordained gelong in the Tibetan tradition for the past twenty years. His training spans ten years of monastic study across France, India, Nepal, and Myanmar, and more than four years in solitary retreat in the Tibetan Mahayana and the Burmese Theravāda traditions.
For the past eighteen years he has taught Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and meditation worldwide within FPMT, serving the vision of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In 2023, as a gesture of gratitude to his teachers, he founded The Buddha Project (TBP), offering long-term guidance for serious meditators. TBP webpages serve as the online learning platform for its core programs, the FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training and the FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Training.
Practical details:
Study Terms: Year 4 will have 3 terms. Term 1: September 5 - November 28 (13 classes).
Day & time: IDMT runs weekly on Saturdays from 15.30 to 18.00 hrs. CET, consisting of about 1 hour of guided meditation and 1.5 hours of teachings.
Language: English, with simultaneous French translation.
Online: Classes will be online.
Registration: You can register either for a couple of classes (to try it out) or for a whole term (preferred option, total 13 classes).
Access to the TBP Learning Platform: provides video & audio recordings of the teachings & meditations; AI-generated transcripts of the teachings; and condensed meditation scripts.
Registration and Donations
You can register either for one or two classes (to try it out) or for a whole term (preferred option, total 13 classes for Term 1 with previous sessions made available via online recordings).
The suggested donation is $25 per class. For students and people with low income, the suggested donation is $15 per class. Please send an email to spc@chenrezig.com.au if you’d like to make use of this option. We transfer a percentage of all donations to The Buddha Project.
Sangha are always able to attend our courses free of charge. Please contact spc@chenrezig.com.au for a discount code to register.
NOTE: the FPMT IDMT events are all online from home only. Once you register for the event you will be sent a Zoom link for the session. Access to recordings is via The Buddha Project website – access instructions will be sent to you separately.